The term has been documented as early as February 1939, when Bishop Daniel Mageean, in his Lenten pastoral, stated that prime minister, James Craig had adopted the words as his slogan.
[1] Many of them supported the Nationalist Party that chose a policy of abstentionism between 1921 and 1965, resulting in a large majority of Protestant members.
Actually, on an Orange platform, I, myself, laid down the principle, to which I still adhere, that I was Prime Minister not of one section of the community but of all, and that as far as I possibly could I was going to see that fair play was meted out to all classes and creeds without any favour whatever on my part.George Leeke of the Nationalist Party retorted: "What about your Protestant Parliament?"
[3] The correct phrase was quoted by Jonathan Bardon,[4] and Professor Ronan Fanning,[5] but the common misquotation has been relayed by eminent historians such as Diarmaid Ferriter, Seán Cronin, Patrick Buckland and Mark Tierney, to the extent that "A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People" has now become very widely accepted as the actual quotation.
[6] In 1967, prime minister, Terence O'Neill also misattributed the phrase itself to his predecessor, but strongly argued that it was no longer representative of the then present spirit of Ulster Unionism.