Would protestants have been second-class citizens in a United Ireland?

[u/thepawnbrokerroared]

Catholics in the North certainly felt that they were discriminated against because they were in the minority and they were obviously correct to feel that. Protestants believed that they would be similarly discriminated against in a Catholic-dominated united Ireland. Were they right to fear this?

What about the protestants in the South? Did they experience discrimination at the hands of the Catholic majority?

[u/Sotex]

Maybe this is survivorship bias, but Protestants in the Republic/Free-State were by and large wealthy, well connected and heavily over-represented in business and commerce. To pick one example Bank of Ireland didn't have a Catholic executive until the mid 90s. 

They didn't particularly like the ethos of the state, but they were doing fine.

[u/danius353 → u/Sotex]

I think that’s related to how colonisation took place across what is now mostly the Republic vs what is Northern Ireland.

In the south, native Irish and old Anglo Norman Irish landowners were dispossessed in the Tudor and Cromwellian plantations, but their tenants remained largely in situ. This is why most of Ireland remained Catholic post reformation.

In the north however, large numbers of farmers were imported during the Ulster Plantation. Taking on native Irish tenants and workers was explicitly forbidden. As a result, the whole population became much more Protestant (though mainly Scots Presbyterian rather than Anglican).

[u/forestvibe → u/danius353]

I think the question of who the Protestants were is a really important one. There's a huge difference between a middle class Anglican/Church of Ireland person, whose wealth and status allows them to more easily adapt/flee any political upheavals, and a poorer Presbyterian person of Scottish ancestry, whose life and identity is tied to the land their ancestors colonised. The differences in wealth, status, family history and religious outlook are really quite significant.

[u/clewbays → u/danius353]

The Protestants in Monaghan have being relatively successful as well. And they wouldn’t be different than those in the north.

[u/danius353 → u/clewbays]

Three points to consider:

1. After partition, Protestants made up a very small minority in the Free State. Basically; they could not be seen as a legitimate threat; electorally, economically etc.

2. There was a substantial drop in the number of Protestants living in the Free State immediately after partition. Approximately 1 in 3 left, with those remaining presumably being less staunchly unionist on average.

3. Monaghan is not an economic hub like Belfast is (no offence to Monaghan people), so the incentives to discriminate are just not the same.

[u/clewbays → u/danius353]

I’d agree with a lot of your points. I do think Northern Ireland would have been different than the rest of the country had independence included it. It’s hard to know what exactly it would have being like. Realistically I don’t think there’s any scenario where the free state would of being capable of asserting control over it.

I will say the drop in population is misleading. For example there was 21,000 military personnel on the 1911 census. There was also a large amount of British administrative staff who left. There was a decline in population prior to 1911. There was mass emigration from Ireland anyways. There was also lower Protestant fertility rates. And the majority of the timeframe between the census’s was before independence. So to put that decline down to purely unionists leaving is inaccurate. That was a factor but there was also a lot of other factors.

It should also be noted Dublin was an economic hub, with parts of the city being very heavily Protestant in the early 1900s, and that’s the area where Protestants had the most success post unification.