Protestant Nationalist

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A Protestant Nationalist, in the context of the situation in Ireland and especially Northern Ireland, is a Protestant supporter of a fully independent Irish nation. This goal had been continually fought for either politically or by force of arms over the centuries. Prior to the creation of the Republic of Ireland, Irish Nationalists sought both constitutionally and by physical force means to sever the Act of Union binding the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Nationalists now strive to end the remaining ties between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in order to create an independent All Ireland Republic.

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[edit] History

In Irish history, Protestants, as seems ironic to some, actually led the way for Irish nationalism. Protestants such as Wolfe Tone, Thomas Russell, Henry Joy McCracken and others led the United Irishmen movement. In fact, at its first meeting on October 14, 1791, all attendees, minus Tone and Russell (two Anglicans) were Presbyterians. Presbyterians, led by McCracken, James Napper Tandy and Neilson would later go on to lead Protestant and Catholic Irish rebels in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Tone did manage to unite if only for a short time, at least, Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter into the common name of Irishmen, and would later go on to try to get French support for the rising, recalling the failed French Bantry Bay landing.

At that time, the French republicans were opposed to all churches. Such men were inspired by Tom Paine, who disapproved of organized religions in The Age of Reason (1794-95) and preferred a deist belief.

The disarming of Ulster saw several hundred Protestants, tortured, murdered and imprisoned for their United Irish sympathies. In 1803 there was another Irish rebellion. This time it was also led by a Protestant, Robert Emmet, brother to another United Irish Protestant. He was joined by other Protestants such as James Hope. He was later executed for his part in the rising. On the other hand Thomas Davis, the revolutionary writer and poet, strove for unity between Protestants and Catholics.

[edit] Home Rule

One of the most famous Protestant nationalists was Charles Stewart Parnell founder of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), whom Herbert Henry Asquith called one of the most important men of the nineteenth century and Lord Haldane called him the most powerful man that the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had seen in 150 years. Parnell led the Gladstonian constitutionalist Home Rule movement and for a time dominated Irish and British affairs. However, at the height of his power he was to be dethroned by the O'Shea divorce affair and died soon afterwards.

Other IPP Protestant Nationalist MPs were: Sir John Gray, Stephen Gwynn, Jeremiah Jordan, J. G. Swift MacNeill, James Maguire, Pierce Charles de Lacy O'Mahony, John Pinkerton and Samuel Young.

At the turn of the century Horace Plunkett, a Unionist, founded the Irish agricultural co-operative movement [1] . He was a cousin of George Noble Plunkett, father of Joseph Mary Plunkett. Horace Plunkett's home in County Dublin was burned down by Irish republicans during the Anglo-Irish War.

Several Protestant figures in the early Northern Ireland Labour Party were nationalists. These included MPs Jack Beattie, Sam Kyle and William McMullen and labour leaders James Baird and John Hanna.[2] Meanwhile, trade unionist Victor Halley was a member of the Socialist Republican Party.

[edit] Easter Rising

The Irish Volunteers were a paramilitary organisation established in 1913 by Irish Nationalists including Roger Casement, Bulmer Hobson and Robert Erskine Childers, all Protestant Irish nationalists (although Casement, who had been secretly baptized a Catholic by his mother, officially converted to Catholicism not long before he was hanged in 1916). The Irish Volunteers were formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers by Edward Carson and James Craig. The Ulster Volunteers were a Unionist paramilitary movement who feared a Catholic dominated Home Rule parliament in Dublin under the Home Rule Act 1914.

The Irish Citizen Army existed from 1913-1947. One of its creators was Jack White, an Irish Protestant nationalist. On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, 220 of the group (including 28 women) took part in the Easter Rising.

A prominent signatory to the Anglo Irish Treaty that followed was Robert Barton, a cousin of Robert Erskine Childers. In the subsequent Irish Free State governments Ernest Blythe, a former member of the Irish Volunteers, held various ministerial posts, as did Bulmer Hobson and Robert Monteith. The first President of Ireland was Douglas Hyde. All these men were Protestants.

[edit] Protestant nationalist converts to Roman Catholicism

[edit] Today

A group of Protestants in Belfast joined the Irish Republican Army in the 1940s. These included John Graham, George Gilmore and George Plant.[2] Plant was hanged in the Irish Free State for his activities.

Later figures included Ronnie Bunting and John Turnley, both leading members of the Irish National Liberation Army, who were murdered by the Ulster Defence Association. Bunting was the son of a close associate of Ian Paisley [1]. John Turnley, also killed in 1980, was the Protestant Chairman of the Irish Independence Party.

Today in Northern Ireland most Ulster Protestants oppose the reunification of Ireland, traditionally supporting continued union with Great Britain. However there are some who do support reunification, though it is a small percentage. In the past, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) has had some Protestant councillors, the most famous recent leader of Protestant Nationalism being Ivan Cooper. One SDLP Protestant councillor, Billy Leonard, recently defected to Sinn Féin. (Leonard's wife and children are Catholic).

In contrast, Protestants in the Republic of Ireland (largely Church of Ireland) mainly support Irish re-unification in accordance with the majority of the southern Irish population.[citation needed] The Republic's chief acclaimed spokesman for Protestant interests north and south of the border is Martin Mansergh, previously senator, in 2007 elected TD to the 30th Dáil.

[edit] References

  1. ^ *Plunkett Foundation history
  2. ^ a b Michael Farrell, Northern Ireland: The Orange State
  3. ^ Gone But Not Forgotten - Fiona Connolly

[edit] See also

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