Protestants of Ulster
| Protastúnaigh Uladh | |
|---|---|
| Total population | |
| Total ambiguous (900,000-1,000,000) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Northern Ireland | 873,464 |
| Republic of Ireland | 27,234 |
| Languages | |
| Ulster English, Ulster Scots, Irish | |
| Religion | |
|
Protestantism (mostly Presbyterianism, Anglicanism, Pentecostalism, and Methodism) |
|
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Ulster Scots, Irish people, Scottish people, English people, Scotch-Irish Americans, Scotch-Irish Canadians | |
Ulster Protestants (Irish: Protastúnaigh Uladh) are an ethnoreligious group in the Irish province of Ulster, where they make up about 43% of the population. Many Ulster Protestants are descendants of settlers who arrived in the early 17th century Ulster Plantation. This was the colonisation of the Gaelic, Catholic province of Ulster with English-speaking Protestants from Great Britain, mostly from the Scottish Lowlands and Northern England. 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 mostly Anglicans. Since then, sectarian and political divisions between Ulster Protestants and Catholics have played a major role in the history of Ulster, and of Ireland as a whole. Ulster Protestants descend from a variety of lineages, including Lowland Scots (some of whose descendants consider themselves Ulster Scots), English, Irish, and Huguenots.
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 and "civilising" Ulster. 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 Gaelic Ulster's links with the Gaelic Highlands of Scotland. 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, and by the 1630s somewhere between 50,000 and as many as 80,000. 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. This migration decisively changed the population of Ulster, giving it a Protestant majority. 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.
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