An unusual feature of the current presidential election campaign is the Presbyterian background of candidate Heather Humphreys. Ireland has never had a Presbyterian president or indeed candidate for the office.
Presbyterians are the largest Protestant denomination in Northern Ireland, numbering about 210,000, or almost 10 times the 22,699 in the Republic (according to the 2022 census).
North of the Border, where this presidential election campaign is being observed with interest due to Humphreys’s candidature, Presbyterians are the backbone of unionism, with many also members of the Orange Order. It goes with the terrain.
As close observers noted during the Drumcree crisis more than 20 years ago, few such Orangemen or women see themselves as anti-Catholic. Membership of the Orange Order for them is a positive expression of their British identity.
READ MORE
In much the same way, members of exclusively Catholic groups such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), the Knights of Columbanus, and the Friendly Sons of St Patrick, see their membership as a positive expression of their Irish identity. Flags, sashes, and prayer play their part where all are concerned.
At the outer edges of the Orange Order’s membership at Drumcree, for instance, were those aggressive fanatics who waved their Union flags as an expression of exclusion and hostility, not unlike what we have seen in the Republic more recently among similarly minded fanatics flaunting the Tricolour. Neither element could claim to be representative of the great majority in their respective communities. Indeed, such loud minorities are an embarrassment to both.
Irish Presbyterianism has a remarkable history. It is frequently forgotten that a founder of the United Irishmen, and a father of republicanism on this island, was Presbyterian Henry Joy McCracken, executed in 1798 for his role in the Rising of that year.
Heather Humphreys is in that tradition, which was probably a help when she led the 2016 Centenary Programme, nine years ago. She said then, that as “a Protestant and an Ulsterwoman who is a proud Irish republican, I appreciate the need to respect the differing traditions on this island”.
In March 2016, she approved the redevelopment as a national monument of buildings 14 to 17 on Dublin’s Moore St, where leaders of the 1916 Rising met for the last time before their execution.
This strain of Presbyterian republicanism, stretching from Henry Joy McCracken to Heather Humphreys, should come as no surprise to those familiar with the difficult history of Presbyterianism in Ireland.
Most Irish people would not be aware that Presbyterians on this island were persecuted every bit as much as Catholics under the Penal Laws. They may have been Protestant but they were not the “right kind” of Protestant.
They too were subjected to what Edmund Burke described in 1792 as “a machine of wise and deliberate contrivance as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man”.
It meant that Presbyterians were among the first Irish to emigrate to America in large numbers, mainly during the 18th century, where they became known as the “Scots Irish”.
They played a central role in securing American independence from the British in 1776. At least five signatories to the American Declaration of Independence were from their number and, since then, they have provided that Republic with at least 17 presidents.
In this Republic, they have not played as prominent a role, mainly due to the Catholic complexion of this State throughout most of the 20th century.
That Humphreys, a Presbyterian, is one of just two candidates for the presidency of Ireland this year is an indication of how much things have changed south of the Border on this island.
An Ulster woman from a minority background in the Republic can bring significant advantages where relations on the island are concerned, as was proved during the presidency of Mary McAleese, a Belfast woman from a minority background in Northern Ireland. Hers was a presidency that proved remarkable where relations between Áras an Uachtaráin and the majority community in Northern Ireland were concerned. She organised busloads of people from unionist and loyalist areas in Northern Ireland to celebrate the Twelfth of July there, annually and at other times, throughout her 14 years as president.
Relationships were established between Mary and Martin McAleese with some hardline paramilitaries on the loyalist side too. Just last July in The Irish Times, influential south Belfast Ulster Defence Association leader Jackie McDonald, told journalist Gerry Moriarty: “Mary changed things for us.”
He continued: “The politicians didn’t want to know us. The police wanted to arrest us. She made it easier for politicians up here to talk to us. Mary played a vital role. She is a great woman.”
It could be argued that only an Ulster woman could have reached across, so effectively, to “the other side” in Northern Ireland.
Heather Humphreys will be hoping voters believe she can provide similar assurance to those in Northern Ireland whose greatest fear is of being a permanent minority in a united Ireland.
Patsy McGarry was Religious Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times from 1997 to 2023.
