I

For centuries, Ulster stood apart from the rest of Ireland. Prior to the seventeenth-century Plantation, it remained under the rule of Gaelic lords, experiencing less English influence than Ireland's southern provinces. In the wake of the Plantation, and its nineteenth-century industrialisation, Ulster became Ireland's most Protestant and urbanised region. Visitors to Ireland noted major differences between north and south. In 1842 a German traveller described Drogheda as ‘the last genuine Irish [town]’ on his northward journey into Ulster, which he characterised as ‘a different world’ of pretty houses and cottages rather than cabins. Political differences became increasingly evident, with a notable hostility among many northern Protestants towards republicanism.

There was a ‘vast difference’ between north and south, as judged by one early twentieth-century American observer. Natives were also struck by the contrast. Revisiting Belfast after many years in Buenos Aires, William Bulfin observed:

Belfast, he concluded, was ‘not an Irish city’. Many commentators were quick to note how little the north-east conformed to their understanding of what Ireland should look like. In religion, politics, industry, urbanisation and even accent – ‘a lingering on the r's was noticeable that had more of Glasgow in it than of Dublin’ – Ulster appeared distinct from the rest of Ireland. Consequently, the partitioning of Ireland in 1921 was not a bolt from the blue but rather a political expedient reflecting long-standing political, cultural, economic and religious differences between north and south.

This was most obviously demonstrated through social relations in Ulster, which were defined by a deep communal divide between Catholics and Protestants. Many of its inhabitants nonetheless portrayed their region as one where two groups of people lived – for the most part – in peace alongside each other, with discord only arising when political tensions came to the fore.