The Ulster Protestant community emerged during the
Plantation of Ulster. This was the colonisation of Ulster with loyal English-speaking Protestants from Great Britain under the reign of
King James. Those involved in planning the plantation saw it as a means of controlling, anglicising, and "civilising" Ulster. The province was almost wholly
Gaelic, Catholic and rural, and had been the region most resistant to English control. The plantation was also meant to sever the ties of the Gaelic clans of Ulster with those from the
Highlands of Scotland, as it meant a strategic threat to England. Most of the land colonised was confiscated from the native Irish. Begun privately in 1606, the plantation became government-sponsored in 1609, with much land for settlement being allocated to the livery companies of the
City of London. By 1622 there was a total settler population of about 19,000, and by the 1630s it is estimated there were up to 50,000. The native Irish reaction to the plantation was generally hostile, as Irish Catholics lost their land and became marginalized. In 1641 there was
an uprising by Irish Catholics in Ulster who wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and to undo the plantations. Some rebels attacked, expelled or massacred Protestant settlers during the rebellion, most notably the
Portadown massacre. Some settlers massacred Catholics in kind. It is estimated that up to 12,000 Ulster Protestants were killed or died of illness after being driven from their homes. The rebellion had a lasting psychological impact on the Ulster Protestant community and they commemorated its anniversary for two centuries. In the
war that followed, a Scottish
Covenanter army invaded and re-captured eastern Ulster from the rebels, while a
Protestant settler army held northwestern Ulster. These Protestant armies retreated from central Ulster after the
Irish Confederate victory
at Benburb. Following the
Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–52), Catholicism was repressed and
most Catholic-owned land was confiscated. Another influx of an estimated 20,000 Scottish Protestants, mainly to the coastal
counties of
Antrim,
Down and
Londonderry, was a result of the
seven ill years of famines in Scotland in the 1690s. This migration decisively changed the population of Ulster, giving it a Protestant majority. There were tensions between the two main groups of Ulster Protestants; Scottish Protestant migrants to Ulster were mostly Presbyterian and English Protestants mostly Anglican. The
Penal Laws discriminated against both Catholics and Presbyterians, in an attempt to force them to accept the
state religion, the Anglican
Church of Ireland. Repression of Presbyterians by Anglicans intensified after the
Glorious Revolution, especially after the
Popery Act 1703 (2 Anne c. 6 (I), and was one reason for heavy onward emigration to
British America by Ulster Presbyterians during the 18th century; emigration was particularly heavy to the
Thirteen Colonies, where they became known as the
Scotch-Irish or Scots-Irish. Between 1717 and 1775, an estimated 200,000 migrated to what became the
United States. Some Presbyterians also returned to Scotland during this period, where the Presbyterian
Church of Scotland was the state religion. These Penal Laws are partly what led Ulster Presbyterians to become founders and members of the
United Irishmen, a
republican movement which launched the
Irish Rebellion of 1798. Repression of Presbyterians largely ended after the rebellion, with the relaxation of the Penal Laws. The
Kingdom of Ireland became part of the
United Kingdom in 1801. As
Belfast became industrialised in the 19th century, it attracted yet more Protestant immigrants from Scotland. After the
partition of Ireland in 1920, the new
government of Northern Ireland launched a campaign to entice Irish unionists/Protestants from the
Irish Free State to relocate to
Northern Ireland, with inducements of state jobs and housing, and large numbers accepted. ==Present day==