Dublin’s Protestant population
Published in
Issue 3 (May/June 2014),
Volume 22
Membership card of the Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA), an organisation of Connacht, Munster and Leinster unionists. In November 1913 the IUA gathered 3,000 delegates in Dublin for an anti-Home Rule demonstration.
In the city of Dublin in 1911 less than 20% of the population were Protestant; more startling is that the suburbs of Glasthule and Pembroke were each over 30% Protestant, Kingstown East was 35% and Rathmines East and West both almost 40%, while the Monkstown ward actually had a Catholic minority. In terms of employment, Protestants were disproportionately over-represented—vastly in some cases—in the fields of law, medicine, banking, teaching and engineering. In all, over 100,000 Protestants lived within County Dublin, including the city, more than the c. 70,000 for the Ulster counties of Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal combined.
