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Ireland Under the Union 1800–1900

The Protestant ascendancy and the supporters of the Union

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Unit 1

Overview

Who supported the Union before 1885, the position of the Church of Ireland and the reasons the ascendancy declined after 1870.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Numbers

What is meant by the Protestant ascendancy?

Numbers

How far had the position of the Ascendancy changed by 1900?

Numbers

Give three reasons why unionism succeeded in resisting Home Rule before 1900

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is meant by the Protestant ascendancy?

    Model answer

    The Protestant ascendancy was the Anglican landed and professional class that had monopolised political power, land and office before 1800 and that continued after the Union to hold the estates, the magistracy, county government, Trinity College and the established church.

  2. 2

    How did Protestant attitudes to the Union change between 1800 and the 1830s?

    Model answer

    Protestant opinion was deeply divided in 1800, with much of the Ascendancy opposing a measure that abolished their own parliament, but once Emancipation and O'Connell's mass movement appeared the same class came to regard the Union as the only guarantee of their position.

  3. 3

    Which groups supported the Union in the middle decades of the century?

    Model answer

    Support came from the landed proprietors, the Church of Ireland, the Orange Order and popular Protestantism, the northern manufacturers, and increasingly from Presbyterians who had once been the most radical part of the population.

  4. 4

    Why did Ulster Presbyterians move from radicalism towards unionism over the century?

    Model answer

    Presbyterians gained legal equality and the increased regium donum, prospered in Belfast's industrial economy, were drawn together by the evangelical revival, and came to see O'Connell's movement as Catholic in character rather than as the reform they had wanted in 1798.

  5. 5

    Who was Henry Cooke, and why does he matter to the development of unionism?

    Model answer

    Henry Cooke was the dominant figure in conservative Presbyterianism, who allied his church with the Church of Ireland and with Toryism at the Hillsborough demonstration of 1834 and publicly challenged O'Connell when he came to Belfast in 1841.

  6. 6

    How was county government in Ireland controlled before 1898?

    Model answer

    Counties were run by grand juries of unelected landowners, who levied the county cess and controlled roads, bridges and much local expenditure, so landed Protestants governed localities in which they were often a small minority.

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