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Ulster presbyterians and Irish nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

R. F. G. Holmes
R. F. G. Holmes*
Affiliation:
Union Theological College Belfast
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Extract

The stubborn resistance of the protestants of Ulster to the Irish national movement is a notorious fact of modern Anglo-Irish history. Though such resistance to national movements by a minority is by no means a unique phenomenon in the history of nationalism, it may be, as Peter Gibbon claims, in his Origins of Ulster Unionism, that ‘nowhere else has such a movement encountered a rival of comparable effectiveness, popular support and staying power’. Much of that popular support and staying power came from the presbyterians of Ulster, for, as T. W. Moody has written:

The stronghold of Ulster protestantism has always been the presbyterian church, rooted in the Scottish reformation and maintaining close and continuous contact with Scotland. Probably the most important social institution of protestant Ulster, it is the only church in Ulster whose members are concentrated in the province and whose structure and government are provincial.

Significantly, until the formation of the general assembly of the presbyterian church in Ireland in 1840, the mainstream presbyterian body in Ireland was the synod of Ulster.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 18: Religion and National Identity , 1982 , pp. 535 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1982

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