TRANSPLANTED IRISH INSTITUTIONS - University of Canterbury

Chapter 1.
INTRODUCTION.
The people of Irish birth who migrated to New Zealand in the latter half of the
nineteenth century came from two distinct cultural traditions: Irish Protestantism and Irish
Catholicism. (See Table 1).
Table 1- Religious Denominations by Numbers in Provinces in Ireland. 1881. 1
Roman Church of
Provinces Catholics Ireland Presb~terians Methodists Others
Connacht 783,116 32,522 3,059 2,239 721
(95.3%) (3.9%) (0.4%) (0.3%) (0.1 %)
Leinster 1,094,825 157,522 12,059 7,006 7,577
(85.6%) (12.3%) (0.9%) (0.6%) (0.6%)
Munster 1,249,384 70,128 3,987 4,769 2,847
(93.8%) (5.3%) (0.3%) (0.4%) (0.2%)
Ulster 833,.566 379,402 451,629 34,825 43,653
(47.8%) (21.8%) (25.9%) (2.0%) (2.5%)
The Church of Ireland and Ulster Presbyterianism were the maIn Protestant
denominations in Ireland. By the 1850s the different strands in the Protestant tradition
mattered less. R.F. Foster states that with "the development of organized Catholic politics,
the differences between Anglicans and Presbyterians in Ulster became less important: the
evangelical fervour of the 1850s, and the Catholic triumphal ism of the same decade,
reinforced their common Protestantism." 2 The fact that Catholicism was the major religion
in Ireland, that "the Church of Ireland was the established church of a small minority, and
that Ulster Presbyterianism was virtually a state within a state, ensured that the province's
[Ulster] religious life would have more than its fair share of ecclesiastical and political
turbulence. "3
1 David Hempton and Myrtle Hill, Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster Society 1740-1890, London and
New York, Routledge, 1992, p. 163.
2R.F. Foster, Modem Ireland 1600-1972, London, Penguin Books, 1988, pp. 387-388.
30p. cit., Hempton and Hill, p. 5.