Protestant Irish nationalists

A Protestant Nationalist, in the context of the situation in Northern Ireland, is a Protestant supporter of a pro-Irish Nationalist political party, or simply one who would vote to reunify Ireland as a single, political nation state.

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 would later go on to try to get French support for the rising.

Also it should be noted that at this time it was not nearly the movement of the liberal Protestant intellectual. 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 Emmett, 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.

One of the most famous Protestant nationalists was Charles Stewart Parnell, whom Herbert Henry Asquith called one of the most important men of the nineteenth century and Lord Haldane called him the most powerful in the Parliament that he had seen in 150 years. Parnell led the constitutionalist Home Rule movement and for a time dominated Irish and British affairs. However he was to be disgraced by the O'Shea affair and he died soon afterwards.

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. Meanwhile, trade unionist Victor Halley was a member of the Socialist Republican Party.

The Irish Volunteers were a paramilitary organisation established by Irish Nationalists in 1913 by Sir Roger Casement who was a Protestant Irish nationalist. The Irish Volunteers were formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers who were Unionist paramilitary. The Irish Volunteers went on to fight in the Easter Rising.

A group of Protestants in Belfast joined the Irish Republican Army in the 1940s. These included John Graham, George Gilmore and George Plant.

Later figures included Ronnie Bunting and Noel Lyttle, both leading members of the Irish National Liberation Army, who were murdered by the Ulster Defence Association. Both men came from Protestant backgrounds, with Bunting 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

Today most Protestants in Northern Ireland oppose the reunification of Ireland and support continued union with Great Britain. However there are some who do support reunification, though it is a small percentage. In contrast, Protestants in the Republic of Ireland (mainly Church of Ireland) mainly support Irish re-unification in accordance with the majority of the southern Irish population.

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) has some Protestant councillors, the most famous recent leader of Protestant Nationalism being Ivan Cooper. And one SDLP Protestant councillor recently defected to Sinn Féin.

See also

• Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
• Catholic Unionist
• Irish Nationalism