Presbyterianism

Irish Presbyterianism is largely the result of a movement of population from Scotland to Ireland in the seventeenth century. The defeat of the Ulster Gaelic chieftains after a long struggle against English rule and the inexorable process of anglicization in Ireland had left the northern Irish province devastated and depopulated, ripe for colonization. James VI of Scotland had succeeded Elizabeth I on the English throne. This enabled Scots to settle in Ulster, and some Presbyterian ministers followed them, taking parishes in the state Church of Ireland, which was extending its structures into Ulster. James VI had restored episcopacy in Scotland, some of the Church of Ireland bishops in Ulster were Scots, and in a fluid ecclesiastical situation it was not too difficult for Scottish Presbyterian ministers to become parish ministers in the Irish church. Inevitably, this was a temporary situation, and when the Church of Ireland, under government pressure, began to enforce Anglican discipline, the Presbyterian ministers were expelled from their parishes. This followed a remarkable revival of religion among the settlers, anticipating similar revivals in colonial America a century later.

LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS OF AN IRISH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

There might never have been a Presbyterian Church in Ireland had not the Catholic Irish risen in rebellion in 1641. It was the chaplains of the Scots army that arrived in Ulster in 1642 to save the colony who formed the first presbytery on Irish soil and began the formal history of Irish Presbyterianism. During the Cromwellian interregnum Presbyterian congregations multiplied, and five presbyteries, or meetings of what had become the Ulster presbytery, emerged. Also during this period a number of congregations were formed in Dublin and in the south and west of Ireland, some of them originally Independent or Baptist, which later became Presbyterian. Their background was often English, rather than Scottish, Presbyterian. The restoration of monarchy and the established Episcopal Church of Ireland in 1660 brought eviction from their parishes and outlawry for some seventy Presbyterian ministers, but the colonial government in Ireland could not afford to alienate what was the majority Protestant denomination in Ulster, and Presbyterianism was allowed a precarious and restricted existence as Dissent with a small state subvention, the regium donum (royal bounty), for their ministers. They in turn supported William III against James II in the crisis for the British colony in 1689 to 1690 and were rewarded with an increased royal bounty and some small improvement in their position as Dissenters. Their five presbyteries formed a Synod of Ulster and its records are available from 1691.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

In the eighteenth century Presbyterians experienced continuing disabilities as Dissenters, and many of them suffered economic hardship as tenant farmers, with rising rents and tithes to pay to the established Church of Ireland. Large numbers emigrated to colonial America, where they were known as the Scotch-Irish, and some of them played significant parts in the colonists' fight for independence from Britain. Inspired by events in America, some Ulster Presbyterians became leaders in the United Irish movement for reform in Ireland and independence from Britain, culminating in the disastrous rebellion of 1798. Also in the eighteenth century Irish Presbyterians were divided by tensions between conservative Calvinists, known as Old Lights, and theological liberals, or New Lights, often centering on the issue of subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith by ordinands (ministers on ordination), the Synod having followed the Church of Scotland in adopting the Confession as its official statement of faith. The advance of the New Lights was resisted by conservative church members, who welcomed more conservative Scottish Presbyterian dissenters, Seceders, and Covenanters, who formed congregations and presbyteries in Ulster.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The Old Light versus New Light controversy entered a new phase in the nineteenth century when evangelicalism breathed new life into the Old Light party, and some of the New Light, nonsubscribing ministers declared themselves Arians, querying the divinity of Christ. After a bitter conflict in the Synod in the 1820s the small minority of Arians and nonsubscribers withdrew to form a separate synod, which later united with other nonsubscribing Presbyterians as the Non-Subscribing Irish Presbyterian Church. The Old Light victory in the Synod of Ulster led in 1840 to a union with the Secession Synod in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The new united church displayed great creative energy in outreach at home and abroad, forming new congregations, evangelizing in the south and west of Ireland, initiating a foreign mission, and founding two theological colleges and new institutions of social service such as the Kinghan Mission to the Deaf and Dumb. Evangelicalism, which had contributed so much to these developments, reached a climax of influence in the Ulster revival of 1859, recalling the revival of the early seventeenth century. In politics Irish Presbyterians maintained their essential liberalism, supporting education and land reforms and advancing democracy and social justice. Yet they were also unwavering in their commitment to the parliamentary union with Britain that had followed the 1798 rebellion, opposing the nationalist campaign for Irish Home Rule.

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

That opposition to Home Rule led to the partition of Ireland in 1921, with Presbyterians as the majority Protestant population in Northern Ireland. The estimated 650,000 Irish Presbyterians in 1840 have now been reduced by at least half, and numbers in what is now the Republic of Ireland have fallen from 50,000 to 15,000 since partition, though that decline seems recently to have been reversed. Most Presbyterians in the Republic of Ireland regard themselves as Irish, not British, while most Presbyterians in Northern Ireland see no contradiction between their Irishness and Britishness, of which they are equally proud. Within the existing political context the Presbyterian Church, which remains undivided in Ireland, endeavors to promote peace, justice, and reconciliation between the two communities in both parts of the island. Relations between different churches in Ireland are better today than in previous centuries, although the theologically conservative Irish Presbyterians remain wary of relationships that they believe would compromise their distinctive Reformed witness.

Bibliography

Beckett, James C. Protestant Dissent in Ireland, 1687–1780. 1948.

Brooke, Peter. Ulster Presbyterianism. 1987.

Dunlop, John. A Precarious Belonging: Presbyterians and the Conflict in Ireland. 1995.

Holmes, R. Finlay. Our Irish Presbyterian Heritage. 1992.

Holmes, R. Finlay. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland: A Popular History. 2000.

Kilroy, Phil. Protestant Dissent and Controversy in Ireland, 1660–1714. 1994.

McBride, I. R. Scripture Politics: Ulster Presbyterians and Irish Radicalism in the Late Eighteenth Century. 1998.

Miller, David. "Presbyterianism and 'Modernization' in Ulster." Past and Present 80 (1978): 66–90.

Westerkamp, Marilyn. The Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1620–1760. 1988.

Finlay Holmes

Teacher Ratings: See what

others think

of your teachers

xxxxxxx