Protestantism is a Christian community on the island of Ireland. In the 2011 census of Northern Ireland, 48% (883,768) described themselves as Protestant, which was a decline of approximately 5% from the 2001 census. In the 2011 census of the Republic of Ireland, 4.27% of the population described themselves as Protestant. In the Republic, Protestantism was the second largest religious grouping until the 2002 census in which they were exceeded by those who chose "No Religion". Some forms of Protestantism existed in Ireland in the early 16th century before the English Reformation, but demographically speaking, these were very insignificant and the real influx of Protestantism began only with the spread of the English Reformation to Ireland. The Church of Ireland was established by King Henry VIII of England, who had himself proclaimed as King of Ireland.
History
Reformation in Ireland
During the English Reformation in the 1530s, the Irish Parliament gained the support of some bishops for royal supremacy. This led to the passing of the Act of Supremacy in 1536, which declared King Henry VIII of England to be the head of the Church of Ireland. In 1539, Henry dissolved the monasteries in Ireland. Only Christ Church in Dublin survived this dissolution by changing its constitution from one of monasticism to a secular one that was based on that of Saint Patrick. The introduction of the Reformation to Ireland is regarded as the end of the medieval period in Ireland. During the reign of Henry VIII's son, Edward VI, attempts were made to introduce Protestant liturgy and bishops to Ireland. However, this met with hostility within the Church and was opposed even by those who had previously conformed.
A return to Catholic supremacy ensued during the reign of Queen Mary I, in the 1550s. However, in 1560, her half-sister and successor Queen Elizabeth I enacted a religious settlement consisting of an Act of Supremacy and Act of Uniformity in an attempt to impose Protestantism. Elizabeth made herself the supreme governor of the Church of Ireland. With few exceptions the Irish Catholic hierarchy conformed. 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. Elizabeth's reign saw the introduction of a Gaelic printing typeface (1571) for the purpose of evangelisation; the establishment of Trinity College, Dublin, to train ministers (1592); and the first translation of the New Testament into Irish (1603).
Despite all this, the Reformation ground to a halt and ultimately failed. Some reasons for this failure include: a dedicated and vigorous campaign by Continentally-trained Catholic priests; failure to make use of the Irish language, the native tongue of around 90% of the population; and the alienation of the Old English in political developments and the view amongst the Gaelic Irish that this was another attempt by the English at conquest and forced Anglicisation. The dissolution of the monasteries saw the property of many parishes granted to lay people whose main concern was economic rather than spiritual; this, along with the wars that raged in Ireland throughout the 16th and 17th centuries left many parish churches—now the property of the Established Church (especially rural ones), in a ruinous state.
17th century
Puritans During the reigns of both Elizabeth I and James VI & I, some English Puritans and many Scottish Presbyterians settled in Ireland. Despite both groups then being persecuted for their beliefs at home, in Ireland they were openly welcomed by the state-sponsored Church of Ireland as fellow Protestants and for their dedication to preaching, which it highly sought.
Early 17th century Throughout the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, several plantations occurred seeing the arrival of British settlers, the majority of which were Protestant.
In 1604, the Scottish Catholic Randal MacDonnell, set about settling his lands in the Route and Glynnes in County Antrim with Protestants from the Scottish Lowlands. 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. In 1606, the notorious Border reiver clan of the Grahams of Eskdale, Leven and Sark, were invited to settle in County Roscommon.
By 1607 a steady supply of Scottish Protestants were migrating to eastern Ulster, settling on the estates of Hamilton, MacDonnell, and Montgomery. Whilst many Presbyterian Lowlanders fled Kintyre in Scotland for MacDonnell's lands, Hebridean Catholics migrated as well, ensuring that the Glens of Antrim would remain Catholic as the rest of the county became predominantly Protestant.
That same year, the Flight of the Earls occurred, which saw vast tracts of land in Ulster spanning the counties of Armagh, Cavan, Coleraine, Donegal, Fermanagh, and Tyrone, escheated to James VI & I. This was followed by the Plantation of Ulster, which saw Protestant British settlers colonise these counties. In 1610, The Honourable The Irish Society was established to undertake and finance the plantation of the new county of Londonderry (made up of County Coleraine and parts of Antrim, Donegal, and Tyrone) with British Protestant subjects. Whilst a substantial number of English and Scottish people did come over and settle during the Plantation of Ulster, they tended to disperse to other parts of the province resulting in those tasked with settling the land having to retain native Irish who remained predominantly Catholic.
James VI & I's campaign to pacify the borders resulted in great numbers of Border reiver families arriving in Ulster. The Border reiver families were not known for their religiousness and the Reformation had made little impact on them. Once they had settled in Ulster they realised the advantages of becoming Protestants and conformed to the established church.
Between 1615 and 1620, a policy of "discovery and regrant" was used in various parts of Ireland; however, few settlers were attracted to these plantations, resulting basically in new landowners. This policy was used in the counties of Leitrim, Longford, northern Wexford, as well as parts of King's County and Queen's County.
By the 1630s, Protestant settlers from Great Britain were migrating to Ireland by their own initiative, and helped initiate a colonial spread from the ports where they arrived and into the hinterlands of Ulster.
It is estimated that in regards to Presbyterianism, that there were less than 10,000 adherents during the early seventeenth century.
Lord Wentworth The Church of Ireland by the 1630s was a broad church that accepted various different Protestant practices and beliefs. As the Presbyterian church was not yet established in Ireland, Presbyterians were more than happy to join the Church of Ireland, which then exercised a good deal of tolerance and understanding. 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. 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, and the anti-episcopal views of the Scottish ministers operating in Ulster. 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. To help achieve this, Lord Wentworth and Archbishop Laud introduced and enforced the English Thirty-Nine Articles along with stricter disciplinary canons in 1634. This was followed by puritan ministers who held Presbyterian sympathies being dismissed from the church, causing some of the leading ministers to make an abortive attempt to reach America hoping to find more liberty for their beliefs.
In 1635, Lord Wentworth proposed a plantation of Connacht, which would have seen all Catholic land confiscated and settled with only English Protestants, with the hope of converting the Gaelic and Old English Catholics to the state religion. This plantation would not see the light of day as Wentworth alienated Protestant and Catholic alike in Ireland, and Charles I got into ever more trouble with Parliament.
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. This union of cause survived until the common denominator, Wentworth (by now Earl of Strafford), was executed by the English parliamentarians in May 1641.
Rebellion and birth of Irish Presbyterianism By the 1630s, more than a quarter of land in Ireland was owned by Protestants, by the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, they held roughly three-fifths. Whilst the uprising initially targeted the English settlers in Ulster, the native Irish soon turned upon the Scots.
The 1641 rebellion in Ulster was largely a response to the dispossession of Irish Catholics during the plantation, and resulted in the deaths of thousands of Protestant settlers. Modern historians have revised the figures to state that around 4,000 settlers were killed with another 8,000 dying from disease and exposure. It is claimed that between a third to half of these deaths were Presbyterians.
A direct consequence of the rebellion was the arrival in 1642 of a Scottish army to Ulster, this army was routed by a smaller force of native Irish at the battle of Benburb, fled back to Carrickfergus where it played no further role in the Cromwellian reconquest. The Presbyterian chaplains and office-elders in this army set up the first Presbytery in Ulster, on 10 June 1642 in Carrickfergus, County Antrim. This was the beginning the history of the Presbyterian church in Ireland.
Wars of the Three Kingdoms The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, of which the Irish rebellion was part, came to engulf England, Ireland and Scotland in related conflicts. One of the best estimates given for the scale of death during this period gives an estimated 112,000 Protestants, along with around 504,000 Catholics, dying from plague, war or famine, from a pre-war population of around one-and-a-half million.
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. Whilst Protestants also guilty of disloyalty were to lose some of their estates, they ended up being given fines, the majority of which were never paid. The result of this land settlement saw a mass changing of land ownership as Catholic ownership almost disappeared completely east of the River Shannon. It also greatly increased the number of Protestants in Ireland, and saw them come to dominate both the countryside and urban centres and have near absolute control over politics and trade.
Restoration Ireland