To start off with a broad generalization, people tend to associate Protestantism in Ireland with British settlers, but there must have been some native Irishmen who converted to Protestantism. I'd like to know about a bit more about the Irish Protestant population. My main questions are these:
In terms of time period, I'm most interested in information from the early 19th century (from the Act of Union to the start of Victoria's reign, perhaps), and the early 20th century.
I would really appreciate any information you could provide, especially book suggestions. I'm dying for a good book to read.
Hey,
Thanks for the question, and it is a good one. My specialty is Irish Catholicism, specifically in the early twentieth century, but I've certainly studied the protestant experience as well (which is woefully underserved, in my opinion) so I'll try and answer your questions as best as I can.
1) Is there any way to know how many native Irish Protestants there were? Demographic information would be nice.
The famous census of Ireland taken 1901 and 1911 is an invaluable tool for hard data like this. You can search for respondents based on religion, occupation, location, and a host of other factors. Just searching for CoI adherents returns 499,080 of 4,429,866 results in the 1901 census and 503,482 of 4,384,519 in the 1911 census. Obviously, there were fewer Church of Ireland adherents - around 10-11% of the respondents were members. This percentage had been steady from around 1861 to the 1911.
The census records include all 32 counties though. If you want to look just at the counties that make up modern Republic, I found this handy-dandy table while researching your question, which gives an idea of the religious breakdown of Irish society. Also, the war of independence and the civil war caused protestants to emigrate from Ireland, though the reasons and extent of this is still hotly debated.
I do want to point out, however, that the fairly static numbers up until the revolutionary period do not indicate that many people were converting. Conversions usually only happened in the event of intermarriage, and as far as I recall it was normally to the husband's faith, though anecdotal evidence to the contrary always creeps up.
2) Which demographics were most attracted to the Church of Ireland? Was it mostly artisans and burghers? Did more men join the CoI than women?
That's a little harder to say, especially since your questions seems geared more towards converts than adherents. I'll look at adherents first, then see if I can find some data on converts. Census records show that a higher percentage of CoI adherents could read and write when compared to Roman Catholics:
In 1901, 2,194,417 of 3,251,445 Catholics could read and write, while 377,105 of 499,080 CoI adherents could read and write.
This indicates the level of traditional education amongst CoI adherents was higher than that of Catholics, opening up different sorts of jobs for them.
As far as the split between the genders, it was pretty even, though women were usually a little above 50%. In 1901, 262,000 of the 499,080 CoI adherents were women. In 1911, 262,347 of the 503,482 CoI respondents were women.
As for converts, popular historiography is that the only reasons Catholics converted to Protestantism is to secure a better job or some sort of political advantage. The truth of the matter is more nuanced, and converts from both denominations embraced their new faiths with varying degrees of ferocity. I recommend you check out Converts and Conversion in Ireland, 1650-1850 - I feel like this book would be right up your alley as it looks at different cases of conversion in order to paint a more nuanced picture.
3) How were the Irish Protestants perceived by the Catholic Irish population, by the British settler population in Ireland, and by the British outside Ireland?
While you can find plenty of people screaming about how the British always favored protestants for any top-job, that isn't entirely true. In fact, native-Irish protestants had to deal with a bit of discrimination as the top political, military, and clerical posts were often reserved for English protestants, rather than native Irish protestants. However, given the choice, most British politicians and people of power would prefer a native Protestant to a native Catholic. But, especially by the early twentieth century, many had begun to understand that the native Catholic population needed representation, and Catholics were slowly added onto administrative positions in both Westminster and Dublin Castle.
The native Irish protestant population had nationalist leanings as well, and were fairly instrumental in helping the Home Rule bill pass. The Irish Protestant Home Rule Association was established to counter claims that all protestants in Ireland opposed home-rule, and most of that association consisted of native Irish protestants. They were also very useful in convincing the British Liberal Party, most of whom were Protestants, as to the usefulness of an Irish parliament for the bettering of how Ireland was governed. Now, this organization's claim that the majority of protestants favored home rule was a bit self-delusional, but a vocal minority of the population did support the establishment of an Irish parliament and saw themselves as Irish, albeit while still accepting the authority of the Crown over Ireland.
Making any conclusion as to the perception of Irish protestants by the native Catholic population, however, is opening a can of worms, but I'll give it a shot. Just keep in mind that sectarianism is heavily debated.
Though the nominal reason for the dismantling of the Irish parliament was the 1798 rebellion, and the role of religion in that uprising has been grossly overstated, the parliament had become seen, in the words of Thomas Bartlett, as a "trojan horse in the ascendancy." Propertied Catholics had re-gained vote in Ireland by 1793, and Catholics were believed to only vote for other Catholics. Catholics were also the majority and, after a few elections, the Parliament was going to be Catholic, which didn't bode well for the Protestant ascendancy's desire to keep power. I point all of this out, even though it is slightly out of your desired time-frame, because it shows that some sectarianism did exist. Catholics largely preferred, and trusted, Catholics. Add onto that the sixty or so years of religious fighting that followed the 1801 Act of Union, and the sectarianism that existed during the Victorian era is better understood. There is a long, storied history informing sectarian feeling, and the aligning of popular Catholicism with Nationalism in the early twentieth century didn't help Irish protestants feel anymore welcome. Interestingly, though, there is little evidence that the CoI felt persecuted during the revolutionary period until the Civil War. There was some land agitation and old grudges being played out, but for the most part protestants weren't being targeted for beatings or anything like that by Catholics. An anecdotal story or two would make the papers, but both hierarchies firmly denounced sectarianism, which did help reign in the more rebellious and angry members of both churches.
4) What books might shed light on this subject? A work on Irish Protestants would be ideal, but a good general history of the Church of Ireland would also be appreciated.
If only I could find a solid, well-researched, all-encompassing book on Irish protestantism... Alas, one doesn't exist yet. However, there are some great essays and articles out there. I linked to a few throughout my response, but to re-cap:
I'd also like to plug /r/IrishHistory, which I mod - questions on Irish protestantism occasionally creep up, and we definitely need more users like you who are interested and educated on the subject.
As to how protestants were perceived by Catholics it is important to realise that the clear demarcation we see nowadays between catholicism and protestantism and its association with the Empire only became pronounced to the extent we know towards the end of the 18th century. British citizens regarded Protestants as usual citizens of the Empire where nationality was intricately identified with religion. There were a few events that solidified the "Protestants are loyalists and Catholics are nationalist" mentality namely the various shenanigans that occurred in the North as a response to Home Rule eg the Home Rule crisis and all that farting around with weapons perhaps moreso than any other event. Many of the earlier Irish nationalist champions were protestant eg Edward Fitzgerald, Wolfe Tone, Parnell and Isaac Butt. It is impossible to consider this difference without taking account of the geographical difference ie North is protestant and Loyalist and South is Catholic and nationalist. The North was planted with the idea of a cultural and religious home for protestants and was viewed as their Palestine of sorts. As time and tensions advanced this became more pronounced with more demographic changes resulting due to the constantly ratcheting tension between the nationalist and unionists. In 1891 the Protestant population was approximately 10% of the island and by definition these would tend to be wealthier families who were attracted to Ireland by the promise of large tracts of land and the promise of estates in the hope of "civilizing' the country. This deliberate and constructed religio-population was completely artificial and this is perhaps best evinced by the very clear decline in Protestant population as time went on. Protestant population stands at less than 3% now in the Republic. Comerford has a good study on Protestantism and it's relationship in Ireland called "Religion,Conflict and coexistence in Ireland". Hope this helped somewhat.
