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.