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Subject: [S-I] Irish Protestants
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:47:07 +0100
References: <F20A4C1AB75C4C3BAA5C82E39EE75241@ginia2><66443.93283.qm@web39602.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <66443.93283.qm@web39602.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


Hi Linda (and Listers),

Not really sure what you mean by your comment that "apparently it was
possible to be both Protestant and Irish in the days of the United
Irishmen". Of course it was possible to be Protestant and Irish in the 18th
century. The United Irishmen rebellion in 1798 was largely a Protestant
rebellion. Both leaders, Wolfe Tone and Henry Joy McCracken were
Protestants. The majority of the local leaders in Ulster were Protestant
and many were Presbyterian ministers. The Reverend James Porter, from
Ballindrait, about 2 miles from where I am writing this, was executed within
sight of his wife in the manse at Greyabbey for his role in the rebellion.
I know that this concept of Presbyterian Irishmen is anathema to many modern
Unionists (Ulster Protestants for those who don't understand modern Irish
terminology) who have never read any history but it is a fact and there are
very good reasons for it. Reasons which if they bothered to read would
actually cheer today's Unionists.

Money. As always money was at the root of it. By the mid 18th century the
nascent Irish testile industry, much of it centred in the linen mills of
Belfast rather than Dublin, was unable to compete within the rules devised
by the Parliament at Westminster which favoured the more advanced English
textile mills. They needed protectionism to survive. They needed their own
parliament in Ireland to change the laws to enable them to survive or they
would go bust. Hence the rebellion. And who were these mill owners and
businessmen in Belfast? They certainly weren't catholics who weren't even
allowed to own businesses. They were 90% Presbyterian. They made up the
vast bulk of the driving force behind the United Irishmen in Ulster though
many of the footsoldiers would have been catholic. As always, the middle
classses, in this case Presbyterian, made the bullets and the poor old
working class fired them!

And remember, it was the same Prebyterians who had been persecuted so much
in the previous two centuries by Anglican regimes in London that they
emigrated in their thousands starting in 1718 with those famous Five Ships
from Derry to Philly. And who organised that first expedition?
Yayyyyyhooooo - my putative ancestor, the Reverend William Boyd of
Macvosquin. Sorry, Linda, I always have to get that one in!!! So, there
was a long history of Irish Protestant resistance to the establishment in
England. Quite whether they ever called themselves Irish is of course a
moot point long pored over by many academics in America. BUT the
Presbyterians of the United IRISHMEN, to whom you refer, certainly called
themselves Irish and were leg by Presbyterian Protestants, a fact often
forgotten, dare I say deliberately, by BOTH traditions in Ireland because it
does not suit their prejudices. Or they would do if people like me did not
keep reminding them of it.

And it is all in Kerby Miller's great book yet again. Read those letters,
many of them written by my fellow Donegal men, Presbyterians of the Laggan
Valley, who were fleeing persecution post 1798.

Boyd (an Irish Protestant and proud of it, but with a Scotch-Irish name and
writing very tongue in cheek)

SNIP
Apparently in the days of the United Irish, it was possible to be Protestant
and Irish in Northern Ireland. I have met people there who still are. Most
are branded with Irish surnames, like Kelly. They can't 'escape' any more
than my Kelly ancestors could, from being Irish. However they get called
'soupers' a lot, they told me. But there were many more 200 years ago, I
suspect.

Linda Merle

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