Originally Posted by
OJ 72
I’m sorry _Agrajag_ to which six of the 32 counties do you refer? Tipperary, Clare. Meath, Limerick, Waterford and Wexford perhaps?
The name of the place which appears to be such anathema to you is ‘Northern Ireland’. And for you to refer to it, twice, using such a pejorative term, betrays a degree of (unconscious?) bias – perhaps understandable given the unimaginable trauma suffered by your family – however, that makes me question the objectivity in the rest of your argument.
Originally Posted by
OJ 72
PS…_Agrajag_ - TE Utley’s description of an Ulsterman as the ‘first to give, and the first to take, offence’ may, or indeed may not, be apposite here!!!
PPS…and yes, I’ve seen Harry Enfield’s portrayal of ‘William Ulsterman’ on the ‘Tube of You’, and I find it bloody hilarious!!!
As you well know, there are nine counties in Ulster, only six of them are a part of the UK, the other three are in the RoI (Co. Donegal, Co. Monaghan & Co. Cavan). The British media used Ulster as a pejorative term to describe the Six Counties from before The Troubles until a couple of decades ago, when they finally started to phase it out and use the term Northern Ireland. Even now the British media often refer to the RoI as "Southern Ireland", a state that ceased to exist in 1937, as another attempt to pretend that the RoI was still a part of the UK.
The use of the term Ulster to describe UK ruled Northern Ireland was deliberately provocative terminology that was aimed at keeping what they saw as the uppity Irish in their place. It wasn't until around the time of the GFA that the media (and the British government) stopped misusing the term Ulster to describe their bit of the island of Ireland. FWIW, even Wikipedia has this as the first paragraph on its entry about Ulster (my highlight in the quote below):
Ulster . . . is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); the remaining three are in the Republic of Ireland.