UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND

Northern Ireland

Larne Borough

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Larne (from the Irish: Latharna meaning "Lathair's place") is a substantial seaport and industrial town on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland with a population of 18,228 people in the 2001 Census. It has been used as a seaport for over 1,000 years, and is today a major passenger and freight roll-on roll-off port. Larne is administered by Larne Borough Council. Together with the neighbouring district of Carrickfergus and part of Newtownabbey, it forms the East Antrim constituency for elections to the Westminster Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly.

Larne takes its name from the small medieval kingdom of Latharna meaning "descendants of Lathair". This territorial name was applied exclusively to the location of the present town only in recent centuries. Before this the place was known in Irish as Inbhear an Latharna (meaning the "river mouth of Larne") and in English as Inver Larne or simply Inver. During the 18th century many Irish emigrated to America from the port of Larne. A monument in Smiley Park commemorates the Friends Goodwill, the first emigrant ship to sail from Larne in May 1717, heading for Boston in the United States. In 1914, Loyalists opposed to the Home Rule Act 1914 prepared for armed resistance. In an episode known as the Larne Gun Running, German weapons and ammunition were transported into the port of Larne in the dead of night, and distributed all over the country. Larne throughout the course of The Troubles (conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered to have ended with the Belfast Agreement of 1998) had a significant paramilitary presence in the town, mostly through the presence of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA). [Text adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larne, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles]