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Protestant Ascendancy AI simulator
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Hub AI
Protestant Ascendancy AI simulator
(@Protestant Ascendancy_simulator)
Protestant Ascendancy
The Protestant Ascendancy (Irish: An Chinsealacht Phrotastúnach; also known as the Ascendancy) was the sociopolitical and economical domination of Ireland between the 17th and early 20th centuries by a small Anglican ruling class, whose members consisted of landowners, barristers, politicians, clergymen, military officers and other prominent professions. They were either members of the Church of Ireland or the Church of England and wielded a disproportionate amount of social, cultural and political influence in Ireland. The Ascendancy existed as a result of British rule in Ireland, as land confiscated from the Irish Catholic aristocracy was awarded by the Crown to Protestant settlers from Great Britain.
During the Tudor conquest of Ireland, land owned by Irish nobles was gradually confiscated by the Crown over several decades. These lands were sold to colonists from Great Britain as part of the plantations of Ireland, with the province of Ulster being a focus in particular for colonisation by Protestant settlers after the Battle of Kinsale. These settlers went on to form the new aristocracy and gentry of Ireland, as the Gaelic nobility had either died, fled with the Flight of the Earls or allied with the Crown. They eventually came to be known as the Anglo-Irish people. From the 1790s the phrase became used by the main two identities in Ireland: nationalists, who were mostly Catholics, used the phrase as a "focus of resentment", while for unionists, who were mostly Protestants, it gave a "compensating image of lost greatness".
The phrase was first used in passing by Sir Boyle Roche in a speech to the Irish House of Commons on 20 February 1782. George Ogle MP used it on 6 February 1786 in a debate on falling land values, saying that "When the landed property of the Kingdom, when the Protestant Ascendancy is at stake, I cannot remain silent."
Then on 20 January 1792 Dublin Corporation approved by majority vote a resolution to George III that included this line: "We feel ourselves peculiarly called upon to stand forward in the crisis to pray your majesty to preserve the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland inviolate ...." The corporation's resolution was a part of the debate over Catholic emancipation. In the event, Catholics were allowed to vote again in 1793, but could not sit in parliament until 1829.
The phrase therefore was seen to apply across classes to rural landowners as well as city merchants. The Dublin resolution was disapproved of by a wide range of commentators, such as the Marquess of Abercorn, who called it "silly", and William Drennan who said it was "actuated by the most monopolising spirit".
The phrase became popularised outside Ireland by Edmund Burke, another liberal Protestant, and his ironic comment in 1792: "A word has been lately struck in the mint of the castle of Dublin; thence it was conveyed to the Tholsel, or city-hall, where, having passed the touch of the corporation, so respectably stamped and vouched, it soon became current in parliament, and was carried back by the Speaker of the House of Commons in great pomp as an offering of homage from whence it came. The word is Ascendancy." This was then used by Catholics seeking further political reforms.
In the Irish language, the term used was An Chinsealacht, from cinseal, meaning 'dominance'.
The process of Protestant Ascendancy was facilitated and formalized in the legal system after 1691 by the passing of various Penal Laws, which discriminated against the majority Irish Catholic population of the island. While the native Irish Gaels comprised the majority of the Irish Catholic population, long-standing fully Gaelicised and intermarried Norman families (e.g. de Burgo/Burke, FitzGerald/FitzMaurice Dynasty, etc.), having previously held immense power in Ireland, became major targets of the crown and of more stridently anti-Irish members of the Ascendancy. With the defeat of Catholic attempts to regain power and lands in Ireland, a ruling class which became known later as the "Protestant Ascendancy" sought to ensure dominance with the passing of a number of laws to restrict the religious, political and economic activities of Catholics and to some extent, Protestant Dissenters. These aspects provided the political basis for the new laws passed for several decades after 1695. Interdicts faced by Catholics and Dissenters under the Penal Laws were:
Protestant Ascendancy
The Protestant Ascendancy (Irish: An Chinsealacht Phrotastúnach; also known as the Ascendancy) was the sociopolitical and economical domination of Ireland between the 17th and early 20th centuries by a small Anglican ruling class, whose members consisted of landowners, barristers, politicians, clergymen, military officers and other prominent professions. They were either members of the Church of Ireland or the Church of England and wielded a disproportionate amount of social, cultural and political influence in Ireland. The Ascendancy existed as a result of British rule in Ireland, as land confiscated from the Irish Catholic aristocracy was awarded by the Crown to Protestant settlers from Great Britain.
During the Tudor conquest of Ireland, land owned by Irish nobles was gradually confiscated by the Crown over several decades. These lands were sold to colonists from Great Britain as part of the plantations of Ireland, with the province of Ulster being a focus in particular for colonisation by Protestant settlers after the Battle of Kinsale. These settlers went on to form the new aristocracy and gentry of Ireland, as the Gaelic nobility had either died, fled with the Flight of the Earls or allied with the Crown. They eventually came to be known as the Anglo-Irish people. From the 1790s the phrase became used by the main two identities in Ireland: nationalists, who were mostly Catholics, used the phrase as a "focus of resentment", while for unionists, who were mostly Protestants, it gave a "compensating image of lost greatness".
The phrase was first used in passing by Sir Boyle Roche in a speech to the Irish House of Commons on 20 February 1782. George Ogle MP used it on 6 February 1786 in a debate on falling land values, saying that "When the landed property of the Kingdom, when the Protestant Ascendancy is at stake, I cannot remain silent."
Then on 20 January 1792 Dublin Corporation approved by majority vote a resolution to George III that included this line: "We feel ourselves peculiarly called upon to stand forward in the crisis to pray your majesty to preserve the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland inviolate ...." The corporation's resolution was a part of the debate over Catholic emancipation. In the event, Catholics were allowed to vote again in 1793, but could not sit in parliament until 1829.
The phrase therefore was seen to apply across classes to rural landowners as well as city merchants. The Dublin resolution was disapproved of by a wide range of commentators, such as the Marquess of Abercorn, who called it "silly", and William Drennan who said it was "actuated by the most monopolising spirit".
The phrase became popularised outside Ireland by Edmund Burke, another liberal Protestant, and his ironic comment in 1792: "A word has been lately struck in the mint of the castle of Dublin; thence it was conveyed to the Tholsel, or city-hall, where, having passed the touch of the corporation, so respectably stamped and vouched, it soon became current in parliament, and was carried back by the Speaker of the House of Commons in great pomp as an offering of homage from whence it came. The word is Ascendancy." This was then used by Catholics seeking further political reforms.
In the Irish language, the term used was An Chinsealacht, from cinseal, meaning 'dominance'.
The process of Protestant Ascendancy was facilitated and formalized in the legal system after 1691 by the passing of various Penal Laws, which discriminated against the majority Irish Catholic population of the island. While the native Irish Gaels comprised the majority of the Irish Catholic population, long-standing fully Gaelicised and intermarried Norman families (e.g. de Burgo/Burke, FitzGerald/FitzMaurice Dynasty, etc.), having previously held immense power in Ireland, became major targets of the crown and of more stridently anti-Irish members of the Ascendancy. With the defeat of Catholic attempts to regain power and lands in Ireland, a ruling class which became known later as the "Protestant Ascendancy" sought to ensure dominance with the passing of a number of laws to restrict the religious, political and economic activities of Catholics and to some extent, Protestant Dissenters. These aspects provided the political basis for the new laws passed for several decades after 1695. Interdicts faced by Catholics and Dissenters under the Penal Laws were:
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