The Protestant community in Ulster, 1825–45

A society in transition

Daragh Curran

‘Daragh Curran has provided very useful analysis of the changes in Ulster society in the decades before the Great Famine and the reaction of protestants, particularly those below the élite, to these changes … the book covers much of rural and small-town Ulster from the Union onward. This coverage is much to be welcomed given the monopoly enjoyed by Belfast among historians in recent decades … this is a very welcome book which reminds how most of the dynamic changes later in the 1750–1850 period had a very detrimental impact on the economic and social fortunes of many of Ulster’s protestants … Daragh Curran gives us a fresh insight into what their thinking was and the fears that shaped it’, Eoin Magennis, Seanchas Ard Mhacha (2015).

‘Daragh Curran’s The Protestant Community in Ulster is an important contribution to the growing historiography of Ulster between the Act of Union and the Famine … it examines that ramifications that this turbulent period had upon the different social classes that made up what he calls the “Protestant Community” in Ireland’s northernmost province … it offers a helpful introduction to the ways in which the Protestants of Ulster reacted to the political and economic challenges they faced in the decades leading up to the Famine … the book is a useful addition to the social history of pre-Famine Ulster. Curran’s focus on the whole of the province, especially upon its rural inhabitants, is especially welcome, as this area of historiography has grown increasingly focused upon the civic politics of Belfast in recent years’, Richard Torpin, Irish Studies Review (2015).