This project is a study of the relationships among people, place, and narrative in Ulster. Using Ordnance Survey memoirs (1824-1844), provincial newspapers, and testimony before the Irish Boundary Commission (1924-1925), it challenges the notion of "Ulster exceptionalism.";The Ordnance Survey describes increasing institutional control within Ulster as the British state used the mapping and memoir-writing processes to extend its official presence and the Catholic Church began standardizing devotional habits among its congregation. Provincial newspapers, including the Anglo-Celt, the Banner of Ulster, the Belfast Newsletter, the Belfast Protestant Journal, the Enniskillen Chronicle, the Londonderry Journal , and the Northern Whig, chronicle a crisis within Ulster during the famine. The failure of the potato crop in 1845 stressed Ulster's relationship to the rest of Ireland as it equalized Ulster's economic position relative to the other three provinces. It stressed relationships within Ulster as politicians and reformers debated remedies to economic distress; tenant right and assisted emigration were two significant issues which divided Ulster during the famine. Tenant right challenged the relationship between landlords and tenants, and the claim each group was entitled to make on the value of land. Famine also stressed Ulster's relationship to Britain, as the Rate in Aid shifted the bulk of famine relief to Ireland. These fractured relationships persisted throughout the nineteenth century, becoming especially pronounced during the Home Rule debate. Unionists refused to relinquish control of Ulster, which was partitioned between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State in 1920. Northern Ireland remained plagued by the same tensions evident during the famine. Competing economic and political concerns plagued Northern Ireland during, and after, the Irish Boundary Commission and underscored the fragility of the new state.;Examining nineteenth-century Ulster through the lens of landscape indicates that long-standing tensions within the province undercut Ulster's claims to economic superiority and cultural hegemony within Ireland. These tensions, which are usually described as political and religious conflict, are, fundamentally, competing claims for access to, and control of, land.
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