2009 Ulster Senior Football Championship

The 2009 Ulster Senior Football Championship was the 121st installment of the annual Ulster Senior Football Championship held under the auspices of the Ulster GAA. It was won by Tyrone who defeated Antrim in the final. Antrim were appearing in their first final since 1970. The winning Tyrone team received the Anglo-Celt Cup, and automatically advanced to the quarter-final stage of the 2009 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.

Teams who lost at the preliminary round, quarter-final or semi-final stages entered Round 1 of the All-Ireland Qualifiers. The beaten Ulster finalists entered at Round 3. Successfully advancing through the Qualifiers allowed a team to reach the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

The draw for the 2009 Ulster Senior Football Championship was made along with the other three provincial draws on 8 October 2008 at Croke Park in Dublin.

Bracket

Preliminary round

Fermanagh v Down

Quarter-finals

Derry v Monaghan

Tyrone v Armagh

Ulster Senior Football Championship

The Ulster Senior Football Championship is a GAA competition for Gaelic football teams at inter-county level within the Irish province of Ulster. Organised by the Ulster Council, the competition takes place during the summer months. All nine counties within the Provincial Council participate. It is regarded as the most competitive of the four provincial football championships, and the hardest to win.Cavan are the most successful team in Ulster Championship history, having won the competition on 37 occasions. Fermanagh remain the only team not to have won an Ulster title. The Ulster Senior Football Championship celebrated its 125th year in 2013.

For many decades, winning the Ulster Senior Football Championship was considered as much as a team from Ulster could hope for, as the other provinces were usually much stronger and more competitive. In particular, before 1990, only Cavan in 1933, 1935, 1947, 1948 and 1952, and Down in 1960, 1961 and 1968, had won the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship title. In the 1990s however, a significant sea change took place, as the Ulster Champions won the All-Ireland in four consecutive years from 1991–1994. Since then Ulster has produced more All-Ireland winning teams than any other province.

Ulster

Ulster (/ˈʌlstər/; Irish: Ulaidh pronounced [ˈul̪ˠəi] or Cúige Uladh pronounced [ˈkuːɟə ˈul̪ˠə], Ulster Scots: Ulstèr or Ulster) is a province in the north of the island of Ireland. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths (Irish: cúige) ruled by a rí ruirech, or "king of over-kings".

The definition of the province was fluid from early to medieval times. It took a definitive shape in the reign of King James I of England when all the counties of Ireland were eventually shired. This process of evolving conquest had been under way since the Norman invasion of Ireland, particularly as advanced by the Cambro-Norman magnates Hugh de Lacy and John de Courcy. Ulster was a central topic role in the parliamentary debates that eventually resulted in the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Under the terms of the Act, Ireland was divided into two territories, Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, with the border passing through the province. "Southern Ireland" was to be all of Ireland except for "the parliamentary counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, and the parliamentary boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry [the city of Derry]" which were to constitute "Northern Ireland". The area of Northern Ireland was seen as the maximum area within which Ulster Protestants/unionists could be expected to have a safe majority, despite counties Fermanagh and Tyrone having slight Roman Catholic/Irish nationalist majorities. While these six counties and two parliamentary boroughs were all in the province of Ulster, three other counties of the province – Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan – were assigned to the Irish Free State.

Ulster (Werra)

Ulster (Werra) is a river of Hesse, Germany.

See also

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland (Irish: Tuaisceart Éireann [ˈt̪ˠuəʃcəɾˠt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ]; Ulster Scots: Norlin Airlann) is a constituent unit of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the northeast of the island of Ireland. It is variously described as a country, province, region, or "part" of the United Kingdom, amongst other terms. Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the island's total population and about 3% of the UK's population. Established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998 as part of the Good Friday Agreement, the Northern Ireland Assembly holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the British government. Northern Ireland co-operates with the Republic of Ireland in some areas, and the Agreement granted the Republic the ability to "put forward views and proposals" with "determined efforts to resolve disagreements between the two governments".