Changing Protestant Identity in Southern Ireland, 1922–1970s

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines how the Protestant minority, beached in an overwhelmingly Catholic state after independence, had to adapt its identity and values to the new order. The principal features of Protestant demography, social economy, and denominational makeup form the background against which ‘dual loyalty’ became a method of coping. Britishness was mediated principally through cultural royalism and connectivity with Empire and the wider Protestant world. Irishness was emphasized by claiming the Church of Ireland’s descent from St Patrick. Protestants withdrew into ghettos to protect their privileges and avoid mixed marriages. Politically powerless, they reinvented their place in Irish life as preceptors of moral and civic values. Despite an inherent anti-Catholicism, conservative Protestantism was more in tune with many of the values of Catholic Ireland than often thought. All this, together with the ecumenical movement from the 1960s, allowed a common citizenship to emerge, largely resolving the identity issue.