Protestant religion in Northern Ireland to 1980

The religious beliefs and practices of Protestants in Northern Ireland have not been well served by scholars. ‘Protestant’ is reduced to a synonym for political unionism, and much attention has been devoted to sectarianism and the fundamentalism of Rev Ian Paisley. Yet religion cannot simply be reduced to political identity and conflict; it is also clear that the overwhelming majority of Protestants, and evangelicals specifically, did not join Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church and remained members of mainstream Protestant denominations. Furthermore, Protestant religion in this period is unhelpfully described in binary terms—‘evangelicals’ versus ‘ecumenists’—a morality tale of reactionary conservatives stifling liberals who articulated an ecumenical or ‘dissenting’ vision. By placing the experience of Northern Ireland Protestants in broader perspectives, this chapter offers an interpretation that prioritizes religious developments, highlights the diversity of evangelicalism, and complicates the ‘evangelicals’ and ‘ecumenists’ binary.