‘Becoming Strangers?’ - The Experience of Southern Protestants between 1900 and 1923.

Overview This seminar sets out to explore the experience of Southern Protestants between 1900 and 1923, and how they ‘became strangers’ in the newly established and very Catholic Free State. Accounting for 10% of the population of what would become the Free State in the 1911 census, their numbers declined by a third falling to 7% of the population by 1926. The question is not why so many left, but why so many stayed.

In 'We shall have to get on as best we can’ – southern Irish Protestantism comes to terms with change, 1900-1923 Dr Ian d’Alton argues that the Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869, a succession of Land Acts between 1870 and 1909, and the Local Government Act 1898 foreshadowed the changes that lay ahead for Southern Protestants, leaving them better equipped to cope with their place in the Free State than might have been expected. In 'The Beginning of the End? - The Changing World of a Kildare Unionist, 1919-1921' Dr Ciaran Reilly describes the experiences of William JH Tyrrell whose home was attacked by the IRA, an attempt made to shoot him, and whose family were ostracized by the local community. Dr Connor Morrissey in ‘Protestants in the Irish Volunteers and the IRA, 1916-23’ - reminds us that a distinct group of Irish Protestants fought and died in pursuit of Irish independence, at a time when Irish nationalism was changing from a movement in which Protestants were prominent to a largely-Catholic dominated one.

“'We shall have to get on as best we can’ – southern Irish Protestantism comes to terms with change, 1900-1923" - Dr Ian d’Alton.The identity of Southern Protestants, their sense of who and what they were, was reforged and redrawn in the period from 1900, and especially in what we now call the revolutionary period from 1916 to 1923. Many came out of this tunnel of trauma battered and bruised. But unlike many other dominant minorities in Europe after the Great War, this community survived. It’s still here, albeit in reduced and diluted numbers. This illustrated talk will aim to examine the key changes and events of the 1900-1923 period for southern Protestants, and how they emerged on the other side, blinking, but relatively unscathed, into what they feared would be a new, unsympathetic and dangerous world. Dr d’Alton’s contention is that by 1921, the 'real' Irish revolution had already taken place (starting with Irish Church disestablishment, local government reform, land transfer and so on), and that consequently southern Irish Protestants had already had to adjust to a minority and subsidiary status. In examining their strategies of coping with these pre-revolutionary changes, he will show that they were better equipped to come to terms with the change of regime than might have been expected, setting themselves up for the accommodation that took place over the next 50 years or so.Dr Ian d'Alton, from southern Protestant stock, was educated at UCC and Cambridge. He is an historian of southern Irish Protestantism, unionism and loyalism from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and is a Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Irish History, Trinity College, Dublin. He is co-editor, with Dr Ida Milne, of Protestant and Irish: the minority's search for place in independent Ireland (Cork UP, 2019)

'The Beginning of the End? - The Changing World of a Kildare Unionist, 1919-1921'. - Dr Ciaran Reilly.

In the summer of 1920 Ballindoolin House, located on the Kildare/Offaly border was attacked by the IRA and an attempt was made to shoot its owner William JH Tyrrell. In the months that followed the Tyrrell family were increasingly ostracized by the local community. Having served as a justice of the peace, magistrate and poor law guardian for over 40 years Tyrrell found himself a stranger in his own community.

Dr Ciaran Reilly is an historian of 19th & 20th century Irish history based at Maynooth University. His illustrated lecture will draw heavily on Tyrrells personal diaries and correspondence.

‘Protestants in the Irish Volunteers and the IRA, 1916-23’. - Dr Conor Morrissey

From the late 19th century, until the end of the Civil War, Protestant nationalists were a distinct group within what was a mainly Catholic nationalist movement. The lives of Protestant nationalists were not always comfortable, given the politics of their coreligionists and the potential suspicions of the Catholic majority. Yet, a significant minority of Protestants rallied to the nationalist cause, with some fighting – and dying – in pursuit of Irish independence. This lecture will discuss Protestants in the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, and the Civil War, and will seek to explain how Irish nationalism changed from a movement in which Protestants were prominent, to the largely-Catholic movement that we saw for much of the 20th Century.

Dr Conor Morrissey is Lecturer in Irish/British History at King’s College London, and previously held appointments at the National Museum of Ireland, Trinity College Dublin and Hertford College, University of Oxford.