{{Short description|Ethnoreligious group of the historic Irish province of Ulster}} {{Use Hiberno-English|date = March 2019}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2019}} {{Infobox ethnic group | group = Ulster Protestants | native_name = | flag = | flag_caption = | image = | image_caption = | population = Total ambiguous <br /> (900,000–1,000,000) | regions = | tablehdr = | region1 = Northern Ireland | pop1 = 827,500<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-09-07 |title=Census 2021 main statistics for Northern Ireland (phase 1) |url=https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/census-2021-main-statistics-for-northern-ireland-phase-1 |access-date=2022-10-02 |website=Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency |language=en}}</ref> {{nowrap|(Self-identified)}}<br />{{nowrap|(Northern Irish Protestants)}} | ref1 = | region2 = Republic of Ireland | pop2 = 201,400<ref>{{cite web|title=8. Religion|url=https://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/population/2017/Chapter_8_Religion.pdf|publisher=Central Statistics Office|access-date=October 30, 2018}}</ref> {{nowrap|(Self-identified)}}<br />{{nowrap|(Irish Anglicans)}}<br />{{nowrap|(Irish Presbyterians)}}<br />{{nowrap|(Irish Methodists)}}<br />{{nowrap|(Other Irish Protestants)}} | ref2 = | region3 = | pop3 = | ref3 = | religions = Protestantism <br /> (mostly Presbyterianism, Anglicanism, Pentecostalism, and Methodism) | languages = Ulster English, Ulster Scots, Ulster Irish | related-c = Ulster Scots, Anglo-Irish people, Irish people, Scottish people, English people, Scotch-Irish Americans, Scotch-Irish Canadians }}
'''Ulster Protestants''' are an ethnoreligious group<ref name=":0">{{cite book|last1=Hunt|first1=Stephen|title=Contemporary Christianity and LGBT Sexualities|chapter=Chapter 7: Christians and Gays in Northern Ireland|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nCopDAAAQBAJ&q=ulster+protestants+%22ethnoreligious%22&pg=PT147|access-date=15 May 2017|isbn=9781317160922|date=13 May 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Byrne|first1=Sean|title=Social Conflicts and Collective Identities|page=94|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L_ALolUT2WsC&q=ulster+protestants+%22ethnoreligious%22&pg=PA94|access-date=15 May 2017|isbn=9780742500518|year=2000}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=It's never too late for 'us' to meet 'them': prior intergroup friendships moderate the impact of later intergroup friendships in educational settings|publisher=Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford|url=https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/publications/375854|access-date=15 May 2017|archive-date=6 May 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170506164329/https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/publications/375854/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="OLuing">{{cite book|last1=Ó Lúing|first1=Seán|title=Art Ó Griofa|date=1953|publisher=Sairséal agus Dill|location=Dublin|page=217}}</ref><ref>NI Curriculum, ''{{lang|ga|[http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/curriculum_microsite/local_global_citizenship_irish_medium/docs/Notai_Muinteori_Aonaid_1_2_3.pdf Teachers' Notes]}}'', p. 54</ref> in the Irish province of Ulster, where they make up about 43.5% of the population. Most Ulster Protestants are descendants of settlers who arrived from Great Britain in the early 17th century Ulster Plantation. This was the settlement of the Gaelic, Catholic province of Ulster by Scots and English speaking Protestants, mostly from the historically conflict‑ridden counties of the Scottish Lowlands and Northern England along the Anglo-Scottish border.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.historyireland.com/early-modern-history-1500-1700/sheep-stealers-from-the-north-of-england-the-riding-clans-in-ulster-by-robert-bell/|title= 'Sheep stealers from the north of England': the Riding Clans in Ulster by Robert Bell|work=History Ireland|date= 24 January 2013}}</ref> Many more Scottish Protestant migrants arrived in Ulster in the late 17th century. Those who came from Scotland were mostly Presbyterians, while those from England were either Anglicans (see Church of Ireland) or dissenting branches.<ref name=":0" /> There was also a small Methodist community and the Methodist Church in Ireland dates to John Wesley's visit to Ulster in 1752.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.irishmethodist.org/history|title=The Methodist Church in Ireland: History|access-date=31 March 2019|archive-date=31 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190331075454/https://www.irishmethodist.org/history|url-status=dead}}</ref> Although most Ulster Protestants descend from Lowland Scottish people (some of whose descendants consider themselves Ulster Scots), many descend from English, and to a lesser extent, from Irish, Welsh and Huguenots.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/irish_news/arts2004/may20_I_am_what_I_am__NEmerson.php|title=Ulster blood, English heart – I am what I am|work=nuzhound.com|access-date=29 November 2014|archive-date=27 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170727015508/http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/irish_news/arts2004/may20_I_am_what_I_am__NEmerson.php|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article/975/the-huguenots-in-lisburn|title=The Huguenots in Lisburn|work=Culture Northern Ireland|date=2 May 2006|access-date=27 November 2014|archive-date=5 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141205072130/http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article/975/the-huguenots-in-lisburn|url-status=dead}}</ref>
Since the 17th century, sectarian and political divisions between Ulster Protestants and Irish Catholics have played a major role in the history of Ulster, and of Ireland as a whole. It has led to bouts of violence and political upheaval, notably in the Irish Confederate Wars, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, the Williamite War, the Armagh disturbances, Irish Rebellion of 1798, the Irish revolutionary period, and the Troubles. Today, the vast majority of Ulster Protestants live in Northern Ireland, which was created in 1921 to have an Ulster Protestant majority, and in the east of County Donegal. Politically, most are unionists, who have an Ulster British identity and want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom.
==History== {{further|Protestantism in Ireland}} thumb|200px|Changes in distribution of Irish Protestants, 1861–2011 The Ulster Protestant community emerged during the Plantation of Ulster. This was the colonisation of Ulster with loyal English-speaking Protestants from Great Britain under the reign of King James. Those involved in planning the plantation saw it as a means of controlling, anglicising,<ref>According to the Lord Deputy Chichester, the plantation would 'separate the Irish by themselves...[so they would], in heart in tongue and every way else become English', Padraig Lenihan, Consolidating Conquest, Ireland, 1603–1727, p43</ref> and "civilising" Ulster.<ref name="BardonA">{{Cite book |title=The Plantation of Ulster |author=Jonathan Bardon |page=214 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |isbn=978-0-7171-4738-0 |quote=To King James the Plantation of Ulster would be a civilising enterprise which would 'establish the true religion of Christ among men...almost lost in superstition'. In short, he intended his grandiose scheme would bring the enlightenment of the Reformation to one of the most remote and benighted provinces in his kingdom. Yet some of the most determined planters were, in fact, Catholics.|year=2011 }}</ref> The province was almost wholly Gaelic, Catholic and rural, and had been the region most resistant to English control. The plantation was also meant to sever the ties of the Gaelic clans of Ulster with those from the Highlands of Scotland,<ref name="Ellis, p.2962">{{cite book |last=Ellis |first=Steven |title=The Making of the British Isles: The State of Britain and Ireland, 1450-1660 |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge |page=296}}</ref> as it meant a strategic threat to England.<ref>{{Cite web |title=2. The Plantations: Sowing the seeds of Ireland's religious geographies |url=https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/troubledgeogs/chap2.htm#ulster |access-date=31 December 2024 |website=Troubled Geographies: A Spatial History of Religion and Society in Ireland}}</ref>
Most of the land colonised was confiscated from the native Irish. Begun privately in 1606, the plantation became government-sponsored in 1609, with much land for settlement being allocated to the livery companies of the City of London. By 1622 there was a total settler population of about 19,000,<ref>Canny, ''Making Ireland British'', p. 211</ref> and by the 1630s it is estimated there were up to 50,000.<ref name="theirishstory.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.theirishstory.com/2014/01/22/from-catastrophe-to-baby-boom-population-change-in-early-modern-ireland-1641-1741/|title=From Catastrophe to Baby Boom – Population Change in Early Modern Ireland 1641-1741|work=The Irish Story}}</ref>
The native Irish reaction to the plantation was generally hostile,<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/plantation/planters/es05.shtml The Plantation of Ulster: Reaction of the natives]. BBC History.</ref> as Irish Catholics lost their land and became marginalized.<ref>Bartlett, Thomas. ''Ireland: A History''. Cambridge University Press, 2010. p.104</ref> In 1641 there was an uprising by Irish Catholics in Ulster who wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and to undo the plantations. Some rebels attacked, expelled or massacred Protestant settlers during the rebellion, most notably the Portadown massacre. Some settlers massacred Catholics in kind. It is estimated that up to 12,000 Ulster Protestants were killed or died of illness after being driven from their homes.<ref name=BBC-1641-rebellion>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/plantation/planters/es10.shtml "The Plantation of Ulster: 1641 rebellion"]. BBC History.</ref> The rebellion had a lasting psychological impact on the Ulster Protestant community and they commemorated its anniversary for two centuries.<ref>Lenihan, Pádraig. ''Battle of the Boyne''. Tempus, 2003. {{ISBN|0-7524-2597-8}} pp. 257–258</ref> In the war that followed, a Scottish Covenanter army invaded and re-captured eastern Ulster from the rebels, while a Protestant settler army held northwestern Ulster. These Protestant armies retreated from central Ulster after the Irish Confederate victory at Benburb. Following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–52), Catholicism was repressed and most Catholic-owned land was confiscated.
Another influx of an estimated 20,000 Scottish Protestants, mainly to the coastal counties of Antrim, Down and Londonderry, was a result of the seven ill years of famines in Scotland in the 1690s.<ref>K. J. Cullen, ''Famine in Scotland: The “Ill Years” of the 1690s'' (Edinburgh University Press, 2010), {{ISBN|0748638873}}, pp. 178-9.</ref> This migration decisively changed the population of Ulster, giving it a Protestant majority.<ref name="theirishstory.com"/> While Presbyterians of Scottish descent and origin had already become the majority of Ulster Protestants by the 1660s, when Protestants still made up only a third of the population, they had become an absolute majority in the province by the 1720s.<ref>Karen Cullen, ''Famine in Scotland: The 'Ill Years' of the 1690s'', pp. 176-179</ref>
There were tensions between the two main groups of Ulster Protestants; Scottish Protestant migrants to Ulster were mostly Presbyterian<ref>Edmund Curtis, p. 198.</ref> and English Protestants mostly Anglican. The Penal Laws discriminated against both Catholics and Presbyterians, in an attempt to force them to accept the state religion, the Anglican Church of Ireland. Repression of Presbyterians by Anglicans intensified after the Glorious Revolution, especially after the Popery Act 1703 (2 Anne c. 6 (I), and was one reason for heavy onward emigration to British America by Ulster Presbyterians during the 18th century; emigration was particularly heavy to the Thirteen Colonies, where they became known as the Scotch-Irish or Scots-Irish.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/magazine/articles/iha_scotsus1.htm|title=The Irish at Home and Abroad: Scots-Irish in Colonial America / Magazine / Irish Ancestors / The Irish Times|work=irishtimes.com|access-date=20 February 2020|archive-date=8 April 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140408200359/http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/magazine/articles/iha_scotsus1.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> Between 1717 and 1775, an estimated 200,000 migrated to what became the United States.<ref>Fischer, David Hackett, ''Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America'' Oxford University Press, USA (14 March 1989), p. 606; Parke S. Rouse, Jr., ''The Great Wagon Road'', Dietz Press, 2004, p. 32, and Leyburn, James G., ''The Scotch-Irish: A Social History'', Univ of NC Press, 1962, p. 180.</ref> Some Presbyterians also returned to Scotland during this period, where the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was the state religion. These Penal Laws are partly what led Ulster Presbyterians to become founders and members of the United Irishmen, a republican movement which launched the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Repression of Presbyterians largely ended after the rebellion, with the relaxation of the Penal Laws.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1913/07/july12.htm|title=James Connolly: July the 12th (1913)|author=James Connolly|work=marxists.org}}</ref>
The Kingdom of Ireland became part of the United Kingdom in 1801. As Belfast became industrialised in the 19th century, it attracted yet more Protestant immigrants from Scotland.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.euppublishing.com/book/9780748679928|title=The Scots in Victorian and Edwardian Belfast|work=euppublishing.com}}</ref> After the partition of Ireland in 1920, the new government of Northern Ireland launched a campaign to entice Irish unionists/Protestants from the Irish Free State to relocate to Northern Ireland, with inducements of state jobs and housing, and large numbers accepted.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/protestant-population-decline-1.1935463|title=Protestant population decline|date=22 September 2014|newspaper=The Irish Times}}</ref>
==Present day== [[File:Scaoileadh Creidimhin in UlaidhReligious Division of Ulster.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Percentage of Protestants in each electoral division in Ulster, based on census figures from 2001 (UK) and 2006 (ROI).<br />0-10% dark green, 10-30% mid-green,<br />30-50% light green, 50-70% light orange,<br />70-90% mid-orange, 90-100% dark orange.]] The vast majority of Ulster Protestants live in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. Most tend to support the Union with Great Britain,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Byrne |first1=Kevin |last2=O'Malley |first2=Eoin |title=The Two Types of Ulster Unionism: Testing an Ethnic Explanation for the Unionist/Loyalist Divide |journal=Irish Political Studies |date=2013 |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=130–139 |doi=10.1080/07907184.2012.732573 |s2cid=49524032 |url=http://www.kevinbyrne.ie/pubs/ByrneOMalley2013a.pdf |access-date=28 September 2022}}</ref> and are referred to as unionists. Unionism is an ideology that (in Ulster) has been divided by some into two camps; Ulster British, who are attached to the United Kingdom and identify primarily as British; and Ulster loyalists, whose politics are primarily ethnic, prioritising their Ulster Protestantism above their British identity.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IudoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA56|title=Unionists, Loyalists, and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland|isbn=9780199875382|last1=Smithey|first1=Lee A.|date=22 August 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/staff/michael_gallagher/HowManyNations95.pdf|title=People - Political Science - Trinity College Dublin|website=www.tcd.ie}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.academia.edu/1896376 |author=White, Andrew |title=Is contemporary Ulster unionism in crisis? Changes in unionist identity during the Northern Ireland Peace Process |date=2007| journal=Irish Journal of Sociology |volume=16 |number=1|pages=118–135 |doi=10.1177/079160350701600107 |s2cid=157581193 }}</ref> The Loyal Orders, which include the Orange Order, Royal Black Institution and Apprentice Boys of Derry, are exclusively Protestant fraternal organisations which originated in Ulster and still have most of their membership there.
At the time of the partition of Ireland, about 70,000 Ulster Protestants lived in the three counties of Ulster that are now in the Republic of Ireland, Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, although their numbers have significantly declined in the intervening century. They now make up around a fifth of the Republic's Protestant population.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://darachmac.blogspot.dk/2012/05/trapped-by-border-ulster-protestants-in.html|title=Frontier Post|author=Darach MacDonald|work=darachmac.blogspot.dk|date=18 May 2012}}</ref> Unlike Protestants in the rest of the Republic, some retain a strong sense of Britishness, and a small number have difficulty identifying with the independent Irish state.<ref name="seupb.eu">{{Cite web |url=http://www.seupb.eu/Libraries/Peace_Network_Meetings_and_Events/PN__The_Border_Protestant_Community_and_the_EU_PEACE_Programmes__100205_A_report_to_the_Peace_II_Monitoring_Committee.sflb.ashx |title=Archived copy |access-date=23 March 2015 |archive-date=2 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402200804/http://www.seupb.eu/Libraries/Peace_Network_Meetings_and_Events/PN__The_Border_Protestant_Community_and_the_EU_PEACE_Programmes__100205_A_report_to_the_Peace_II_Monitoring_Committee.sflb.ashx |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/living-behind-the-emerald-25984960.html|title=Living behind the Emerald|work=Independent.ie}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/orange-county-irishstyle-26422004.html|title=Orange County, Irish-style...|work=Independent.ie}}</ref> Ulster Protestants also share common religious, political and social ties with some Protestants in counties that border Ulster, particularly County Leitrim that hosts a number of Orange Halls.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.leitrimobserver.ie/story-telling/home/857657/picture-special-leitrim-lodge-takes-part-in-orange-order-march-in-rossnowlagh.html|title=Leitrim Lodge takes part in Orange Order March|newspaper=Leitrim Observer|via=www.leitrimobserver.ie}}</ref> Sir Jim Kilfedder, Ulster Unionist MP, and Gordon Wilson were both Leitrim Protestants.
Ulster Protestants are also found in diaspora communities, particularly in Scotland, England, and in some other areas of Ireland such as Dublin.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2009-03-07 |title=The Catholic Church in Ireland is losing market share. Some would call this a healthy development |url=https://www.independent.ie/style/celebrity/the-catholic-church-in-ireland-is-losing-market-share-some-would-call-this-a-healthy-development/26518946.html |access-date=2026-05-14 |website=Irish Independent |language=en}}</ref>
Most Ulster Protestants speak Ulster English, and some on the north-east coast and in East Donegal speak with the Ulster Scots dialects.<ref name="Gregg R.J. 1972">Gregg R.J. (1972) "The Scotch-Irish Dialect Boundaries in Ulster" in Wakelin M. F., ''Patterns in the Folk Speech of The British Isles'', London</ref><ref name="C. Macafee 2001 p121">C. Macafee (2001) "Lowland Sources of Ulster Scots" in J.M. Kirk & D.P. Ó Baoill, ''Languages Links: The Languages of Scotland and Ireland'', Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, Belfast, p121</ref><ref>J. Harris (1985) ''Phonological Variation and Change: Studies in Hiberno English'', Cambridge, p15</ref> A very small number have also learned the Irish language as a second language.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2015/11/09/news/linda-ervine-i-gained-so-much-from-learning-the-irish-language-318630/|title=Linda Ervine: I realised Irish belonged to me - a Protestant - and I fell in love with it|first=Linda|last=Ervine|website=The Irish News|date=9 November 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/04/protestants-go-gaelic-northern-ireland-2014423132641709630.html|title=Protestants go for Gaelic in Northern Ireland|first=Peter|last=Geoghegan|website=www.aljazeera.com}}</ref> {{clear}}
==See also== * Irish Catholics * Protestantism in Ireland * Two nations theory (Ireland)
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [http://www.ucd.ie/ibis/filestore/wp2010/100_buckley.pdf Amity and enmity: variety in Ulster Protestant culture]
Category:Ulster Protestants Category:Protestantism in Northern Ireland Category:Ethnoreligious groups in Ireland Category:Ethnoreligious groups in the United Kingdom Category:Protestant ethnoreligious groups Category:Ulster Protestants Category:Anglo-Irish people Category:Ethnic groups divided by international borders