Anglo-Irish people
Anglo-Irish people (Irish: Angla-Éireannach) denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland.[4] They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until 1871, or to a lesser extent one of the English dissenting churches, such as the Methodist church, though some were Roman Catholics. They often defined themselves as simply "British", and less frequently "Anglo-Irish", "Irish" or "English".[5] Many became eminent as administrators in the British Empire and as senior army and naval officers since the Kingdom of England and Great Britain were in a real union with the Kingdom of Ireland for over a century, before politically uniting into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.
"Anglo-Irish" redirects here. For the medieval Anglo-Irish, see Old English (Ireland). For the bank, see Anglo Irish Bank. For Anglo-Irish poetry, see Irish poetry.Regions with significant populations
The term is not usually applied to Presbyterians in the province of Ulster, whose ancestry is mostly Lowland Scottish, rather than English or Irish, and who are sometimes identified as Ulster-Scots or Orangemen. The Anglo-Irish hold a wide range of political views, with some being outspoken Irish Nationalists, but most overall being Unionists. And while most of the Anglo-Irish originated in the English diaspora in Ireland, others were descended from families of the old Gaelic nobility of Ireland.[6]
Following the English victory in the Nine Years' War (1594–1603), the "Flight of the Earls" in 1607, the traditional Gaelic Irish nobility was displaced in Ireland, particularly in the Cromwellian period. By 1707, after further defeat in the Williamite War and the subsequent Union of England and Scotland, the aristocracy in Ireland was dominated by Anglican families who owed allegiance to the Crown. Some of these were Irish families who had chosen to conform to the established Church of Ireland, keeping their lands and privileges, such as the Dukes of Leinster (whose surname is FitzGerald, and who descend from the Hiberno-Norman aristocracy), or the Gaelic Guinness family. Some were families of British or mixed-British ancestry who owed their status in Ireland to the Crown, such as the Earls of Cork (whose surname is Boyle and whose ancestral roots were in Herefordshire, England).
Among the prominent Anglo-Irish peers are:
Until the year 1800, the peers of Ireland were all entitled to a seat in the Irish House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of Ireland, in Dublin. After 1800, under the provisions of the Act of Union, the Parliament of Ireland was abolished and the Irish peers were entitled to elect twenty-eight of their number to sit in the British House of Lords, in London, as Irish representative peers. During the Georgian Era, titles in the peerage of Ireland were often granted by the British monarch to Englishmen with little or no connection to Ireland, as a way of preventing such honours from inflating the membership of the British House of Lords.[21]
A number of Anglo-Irish peers have been appointed by Presidents of Ireland to serve on their advisory Council of State. Some were also considered possible candidates for presidents of Ireland, including: