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. 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". 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.
St Patrick's Cross is often seen as a symbol of the Anglo-Irish. | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Northern Ireland | 407,454 (Northern Irish Anglicans) (Northern Irish Methodists) (Other Northern Irish Protestants) |
| Republic of Ireland | 177,200 (Irish Anglicans) (Irish Methodists) (Other Irish Protestants) |
| Languages | |
| Standard English, Hiberno-English, Northern Ireland Sign | |
| Religion | |
| Anglicanism (some Methodist, Catholic or other Protestant) (see also Religion in Ireland) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| English • Irish • Irish Catholics • Scots • Ulster Scots • Ulster Protestants • Welsh | |
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. 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.