Irish Protestant identities is a major multi-disciplinary portrayal and analysis of the often overlooked Protestant tradition in Ireland. A distinguished team of contributors explore what is distinctive about the religious minority on the island of Ireland. Protestant contributions to literature, culture, religion and politics are all examined. Accessible and engaging throughout, the book examines the contributions to Irish society from Protestant authors, Protestant churches, the Orange Order, Unionist parties and Ulster loyalists. Most books on Ireland have concentrated upon the Catholicism and Nationalism which shaped the country in terms of literature, poetry, politics and outlook. This book instead explores how a minority tradition has developed and coped with existence in a polity and society in which some historically felt under-represented or neglected.

List of tablesList of figures
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
ASPECTS OF ASCENDANCY
1. The memory of 1641 and Protestant identity in Restoration and Jacobite Ireland - John Gibney
2. Ascendancy insecurities: cross pressures on an improving landlord - Mervyn Busteed
3. Last of their line: the disappearing Anglo-Irish in twentieth-century fiction and autobiographies - Deidre O'Byrne
COPING STRATEGIES IN A CHANGING IRELAND
4. 'Survival of the Fittest': Protestant dissenting congregations of Munster, 1660-1810 - David Butler
5. Protestants and politics in the Republic of Ireland: is integration complete? - Bernadette C Hayes and Tony Fahey
6. 'If a house be divided against itself that house cannot stand': the Church of Ireland and the political border - Daithi O'Corrain
THE GENDER DIMENSION
7. Negotiating identities: faith and gender in the mission field - Myrtle Hill
8. The Church of Ireland Diocese of Ferns 1945-65: a female perspective - Catherine O'Connor
9. Assessing an absence: Ulster Protestant women authors 1900-60 - Naomi Doak
RELIGION AND IDENTITY
10. Visible differences: the 1859 Revival and communal identity in Belfast - Mark Doyle
11. Evangelical Christians and Irish identity in Independent Ireland - Patrick Mitchel
12. 'No we are not Catholics': illogical intersections of faith and identity - Sarah Morgan and Bronwen Walter
THE OVERSEAS CONTEXT
13. Ulster Scot immigration to America - James Doan
14. Ulster transplanted: Irish Protestants, everyday life and constructions of identity in Victorian Toronto - William Jenkins
15. What satire can be more eloquent than reality? Reporting the Northern Unionists in the French press - Ian McKeane
IDENTITY AND CULTURE
16. Identity and victimhood among Northern Ireland border Protestants - Hastings Donnan
17. Scenting the paper rose: the Ulster Scots quest for music and identity - Fintan Vallely
18. The evolution of national identity amongst Ulster Protestants during the twentieth century - Thomas Hennessey
THE ORANGE TRADITION
19. Pride before a fall? Orangeism in Liverpool since 1945 - Peter Day
20. The contemporary Orange Order in Northern Ireland - Jonathan Tonge and James W. McAuley
THE PROTESTANT WORKIGN CLASS: POLITICAL AND PARAMILITARY REPRESENTATION
21. Duck or rabbit? The value systems of Loyalist paramilitaries - Lyndsey Harris
22. A weapon in the struggle? Loyalist paramilitarism and the politics of auto/biography in contemporary Northern Ireland - Stephen Hopkins
23. Containment and the politics of Loyalist-based conflict transformation - Brian Graham
24. The Northern Ireland Labour Party and Protestant working class identity - Aaron Edwards
25. The Protestant working class and the fragmentation of Ulster Unionism - Graham Walker
26. Unionist identity and party fortunes since the Good Friday Agreement - Neil Southern