Scottish Presbyterian networks in Ulster and the Irish House of Commons, 1692–1714

Abstract

SUMMARYThroughout the seventeenth century Ireland gradually came under British control, culminating in the reimplementation and consolidation of the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy rule in the aftermath of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688–91. The Irish Parliament became the vehicle for securing the Ascendancy position within eighteenth-century Irish society. Although the Catholic threat never disappeared, some within the Ascendancy focussed their attentions towards the Scottish Presbyterian community in Ulster, a resilient and growing group that had been reinforced by 40,000–70,000 Scottish migrants arriving in Ireland during the 1690s. Viewed as a stubborn sect who controlled the majority of trade in Ulster, some within the Ascendancy feared that their supposed economic control of the province would ultimately lead to political control of the region, and possibly Ireland as a whole. Indeed, during the parliamentary sessions of 1692, 1695–99, 1703–13 and 1713, when the foundations for securing the Ascendancy were put in place, so too was legislation designed to curtail the strength of the Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster. This article examines whether the Scottish Presbyterian community deserved to be considered such a threat to Irish political elites by analysing the role and networks of Ulster MPs of Scottish Presbyterian origin in the Irish House of Commons during the reigns of King William and Queen Anne. The article also analyses the impact of legislation passed against nonconformists in Ireland during this period in order to assess what effect it had on the Scottish Presbyterian community.