Ulster Protestants

This was the settlement of the Gaelic, Catholic province of Ulster by Scots and English speaking Protestants, mostly from the Scottish Lowlands and Northern England.

Politically, most are unionists, who have an Ulster British identity and want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom.

This was the colonisation of Ulster with loyal English-speaking Protestants from Great Britain under the reign of King James.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[34] 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.

[38] Sir Jim Kilfedder, Ulster Unionist MP, and Gordon Wilson were both Leitrim Protestants.