Protestantism in Ireland

During Elizabeth's reign, the bulk of Protestants in Ireland were confined to the ranks of new settlers and government officials, who formed a small minority of the population.

[6] Elizabeth's reign saw the introduction of a Gaelic printing typeface (1571) for the purpose of evangelisation;[7][8] the establishment of Trinity College, Dublin, to train ministers (1592);[6] and the first translation of the New Testament into Irish (1603).

[13] This was followed by the considerably determined private plantation of counties Antrim and Down by James Hamilton and Sir Hugh Montgomery, which saw English and Scottish Protestants settling in their estates.

[13] That same year, the Flight of the Earls occurred,[16][17] which saw vast tracts of land in Ulster spanning the counties of Armagh, Cavan, Coleraine, Donegal, Fermanagh, and Tyrone, escheated to James VI & I.

[24] Across the island, the predominant doctrine within the Church of Ireland was puritanism, which like Presbyterianism, favoured simple and plain forms of worship and clothing.

[22] During the reign of Charles I, however, The 1st Viscount Wentworth (created 1st Earl of Strafford in 1640), Lord Deputy of Ireland, and Dr William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, sought to bring the Irish church into line with that in England by stamping out puritanism,[12] and the anti-episcopal views of the Scottish ministers operating in Ulster.

[20] They also sought to replace the preferred form of worship amongst Protestants in Ireland with the more elaborate and orthodox Anglican style favoured by Charles I.

[20][22] To help achieve this, Lord Wentworth and Archbishop Laud introduced and enforced the English Thirty-Nine Articles along with stricter disciplinary canons in 1634.

[22] Between 1640 and 1641, Protestants and Catholics alike in the Irish Parliament united in opposition to Wentworth, and pushed for the Graces—first arranged in 1628—to be confirmed as well as filing lists of complaints about his behaviour and practices.

[27] With the victory of the Parliamentarians, the Cromwellian Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 saw Catholics found guilty of disloyalty having their estates confiscated and granted to loyal Protestants.

[29] French Protestants, known as Huguenots, escaping persecution in France formed their own small community in Dublin where they became famous for developing poplin and handsome stone buildings called "Dutch Billy's".

[29] The Plantation of Ulster also finally swung into full motion as a constant stream of English and Scottish families made their way to the north of Ireland.

[29] The death of Charles I in 1649 saw puritanism reach its peak as the Church of Ireland became restricted allowing other Protestant denominations to freely expand.

[33] By the 1820s they became victims of sectarian grief at the hands of Catholic agrarian societies, which further encouraged Palatine emigration from Ireland, resulting in them ceasing to be a separate grouping.

[31] Indeed, penal laws similar to those passed by the Irish Parliament, were imposed against Protestants in France and Silesia, but in these cases it was by a majority against a minority, which was not the situation in Ireland.

[31] William Conolly was a Gaelic Catholic from Ballyshannon, County Donegal; however, in the years following his conversion to Protestantism, he would become the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons as well as Ireland's richest man despite being the son of an innkeeper.

[31] Ironically, despite attempts by some,[36] the Ascendancy had no real desire to convert the mass of the Catholic population to Protestantism, fearing that it would dilute their own exclusive and highly privileged position,[31] and many of the penal laws were poorly enforced.

[32] The Irish Parliament and Established Church were opposed to giving them full civil rights, and during Queen Anne's reign, penal laws targeting Dissenters came into force.

However, after the reign of King William III, they formed a substantial portion of the Protestant population in Ireland (especially in Ulster), and increasingly became more politically active.

The main issues Dissenters were concerned with were those that affected them most due to the Penal Laws: religious discrimination; economic development; and the matter of land.

[32] In contrast, the Catholics, who suffered worst of all from the Penal Laws, chose to remain in Ireland, staying as close as possible to the parish of their ancestors.

[39] British troops based in Ireland were transported to America to participate in the conflict, which raised fears of a possible French invasion, leading to the foundation of the Volunteers consisting of Dissenters and Anglicans, with some Catholic support.

In 1833, the British Government proposed the Irish Church Measure to reduce the 22 archbishops and bishops who oversaw the Anglican minority in Ireland to a total of 12 by amalgamating sees and using the revenues saved for the use of parishes.

Establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 may have further accelerated this phenomenon as many Protestants were wary of living in a majority Catholic country and therefore chose to emigrate to the United Kingdom.

In Northern Ireland, only counties Londonderry, Tyrone and Armagh have experienced a significant loss of the relative Protestant population; in these cases, the change was not as dramatic as in the Republic.

[41] Whilst these MPs had few ideological objections to making Henry VIII head of the Irish church as well as to the establishment of Anglicanism in Ireland under Elizabeth I, resistance to government policies started to grow.

[41] To help tip the balance of power in Parliament in favour of Protestants, Sir Arthur Chichester, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, established sixteen new corporate towns in Ulster in the 1610s.

[42] It called upon King Charles II to summon a Parliament consisting of Protestant peers and commons, as well for the re-establishment of the Church of Ireland.

[43] Despite backing the restoration, as well as the system of episcopacy, it also asserted the Irish Parliament's legislative superiority over itself and its intent to set and collect its own taxes.

The work was continued by John Kearny, his assistant, and Dr Nehemiah Donellan, Archbishop of Tuam; it was finally completed by William O'Domhnuill.