Quote Originally Posted by O'Callaghan View Post

This leads me on to the question of who owns the copyright to the coats of arms of the six counties of the North. I should think that no-one does, as they no longer exist. The Republic, OTOH, has created three additional counties since partition, which AFAIK were all formerly part of Dublin.
All of the county arms in the whole of Ireland were granted by the Office of Arms at Dublin Castle. In 1943 Both governments agreed that the transfer of the Office of Arms would formally take place on 1 April of that year. Furthermore, the office (now under the administration of the Irish Government) would "continue to discharge, under the Irish administration, the functions to which it hitherto carried out in relation to the grant of arms, tracing of genealogies, etc."

And indeed this is precisely what happened. All of the work then in progress was transferred to the Chief Herald of Ireland who continued the process begun by his predecesor at Dublin Castle, the Ulster King of Arms.

The first grant to a private individual made by the State was to a Colonel McCaffery in the United States of America. The first grant made to a public body (other than to the Irish Government) was to Ulster Bus in Belfast.

Thus, as is clear from the terms sited above, the Chief Herald of Ireland has control and authority over the arms of the six counties in the Ulster Province of the United Kingdom. While the administrative jargon of local government has changed in the Ulster Province, the counties have, indeed continued in their existence.

As far as the new administrative districts recently created in the Republic of Ireland are concerned, all of them have arms granted by the office of the Chief Herald of Ireland. I have no idea why they are termed counties, unless it had something to do with utilizing existing legislation regarding government funding of counties, as opposed to having to create new legislation to fund "cantons", or some other such term.