County Cork tartans and Arsenal tartan

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

There is no such thing as an "Ulster Province of the United Kingdom". The province of Ulster refers to 9 counties, only 6 of which are in Northern Ireland and the administrative changes only apply to these 6. To extend the history for those who are not aware, there are 4 provinces of Ireland (Cuigiu in Irish, which means fifths, refering to the fact that Meath and Westmeath used to be a 5th province, imaginatively called Meath), Ulster, Munster, Connacht and Leinster. This is the 4 province flag, one of my favourite flags. Part of Ulster (approx two thirds) became Northern Ireland.

You seem to be confusing the post 1600-historical Ulster, which was ultimately divided into nine counties, with the geo-political area created after the treaty of 1921 and which was referred to as "the Ulster Province" and was comprised of six of those nine counties, and remained part of the United Kingdom. The remaining 26 counties formed the new country of Ireland, which although independent of British rule, became part of the Commonwealth.

The area roughly comprising the modern counties of Meath and Westmeath was, from time to time, considered as a separate kingdom. Generally, however, most folks would consider Ireland to have been comprised of four "kingdoms" or provinces. Interestingly, prior to about 1910 or so the four "provinces" were usually referred to as "kingdoms", the term "province" gaining in popularity after the establishment of the Irish Free State.

Because the government said so, and after all, they decide on these things. "County Dublin" continues in a sporting context, and I think it will be a long time before it enters public consciousness that there is no County Dublin any more...

You are technically correct, as the Local Government Act 1991 created the Dublin Regional Authority (a sort of Uber county body) with oversight of three (actually four) administrative districts: Fingal, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin City Corporation, and South County Dublin.

It was our general opinion at the time that the government chose to call these administrative districts "counties" because there was no other, suitable, administrative term that the Civil Servants in charge of carrying out the provisions of LGA 1991 could use. The LGA 1991 was a fairly complicated bit of legislation, and took until 1993 to enact.