The Eastern dialect was spoken in most of the rest of Ulster and northern parts of counties Louth and Meath.

In 1808, County Down natives William Neilson and Patrick Lynch (Pádraig Ó Loingsigh) published a detailed study on Ulster Irish.

When the recommendations of the first Comisiún na Gaeltachta were drawn up in 1926, there were regions qualifying for Gaeltacht recognition in the Sperrins and the northern Glens of Antrim and Rathlin Island.

However, these small pockets vanished early in the 20th century while Ulster Irish in the Sperrins survived until the 1950s and in the Glens of Antrim until the 1970s.

In other cases, a semantic shift has resulted in quite different meanings attaching to the same word in Ulster Irish and in other dialects.

Some of these words include: The phonemic consonant inventory of Ulster Irish (based on the dialect of Gweedore[3]) is as shown in the following chart (see International Phonetic Alphabet for an explanation of the symbols).

There is, however, one exception: in Ulster, a dative singular noun after the definite article is lenited (e.g. ar an chrann "on the tree") (as is the case in Scottish and Manx), whereas in Connacht and Munster, it is eclipsed (ar an gcrann), except in the case of den, don and insan, where lenition occurs in literary language.

In some dialects however (Gweedore), cha eclipses all consonants, except b- in the forms of the verb "to be", and sometimes f-: In the Past Tense, some irregular verbs are lenited/eclipsed in the Interrogative/Negative that differ from the standard, due to the various particles that may be preferred: The Ulster dialect uses the present tense of the subjunctive mood in certain cases where other dialects prefer to use the future indicative: The verbal noun can be used in subordinate clauses with a subject different from that of the main clause: Some notable Irish singers who sing songs in the Ulster Irish dialect include Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Róise Mhic Ghrianna, and Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin.