Neither one thing nor the other : The Ulster Protestant community in Cavan, Monaghan and Fermanagh, 1916 - 1923

Abstract

Histories of Irish partition and discussions of the Irish border portray the six-county settlement as the most natural division of the island. This formulation provides a false impression of a cohesive Ulster Protestant national group with clearly-defined territorial claims. This thesis responds to these problems by examining two peripheral communities for whom the partition of Ireland represented a time of particular crisis. Firstly, it examines Protestants south of the border in Cavan and Monaghan, who exhibited significant demographic differences from their co-religionists in the six counties of Northern Ireland, but who still asserted an Ulster Protestant identity and felt a keen sense of betrayal at the partition settlement. Secondly, it looks at the Protestant community of Fermanagh who, although they were included in the north, were intensely aware of the precarity of their situation, being in the most Catholic county in Northern Ireland. These two communities, bordering one another and with strong social connections, developed strikingly different articulations of what it meant to be an Ulster Protestant. The thesis first looks at more abstract expressions of an 'Ulster Protestant' identity in Cavan and Monaghan, before moving on to examine boycotting and then violent raiding in the next two chapters. It asks whether the Protestant community was more likely to be targeted for these acts than their Catholic neighbours. The next two chapters examine the same topics in Fermanagh. The final chapter examines the questions of post-partition Protestant migration northward, using the particular case study of migration into Fermanagh.