Protestant Ascendancy - Origin of Term

Origin of Term

The phrase was first used in passing by Sir Boyle Roche in a speech to the Irish House of Commons on 20 February 1782. George Ogle MP used it on 6 February 1786 in a debate on falling land values:

...When the landed property of the Kingdom, when the Protestant Ascendancy is at stake, I cannot remain silent.

Then on 20 January 1792 Dublin Corporation approved by majority vote a resolution to George III that included:

We feel ourselves peculiarly called upon to stand forward in the crisis to pray your majesty to preserve the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland inviolate...

The Corporation's resolution was a part of the debate over Catholic Emancipation. In the event, Catholics were allowed to vote again in 1793, but could not sit in parliament until 1829.

The phrase therefore was seen to apply across classes to rural landowners as well as city merchants. The Dublin resolution was disapproved of by a wide range of commentators, such as the Marquess of Abercorn, who called it "silly", and William Drennan who said it was "actuated by the most monopolising spirit".

The phrase became popularised outside Ireland by Edmund Burke, another liberal Protestant, and his ironic comment in 1792 was then used by Catholics seeking further political reforms:

A word has been lately struck in the mint of the castle of Dublin; thence it was conveyed to the Tholsel, or city-hall, where, having passed the touch of the corporation, so respectably stamped and vouched, it soon became current in parliament, and was carried back by the Speaker of the House of Commons in great pomp as an offering of homage from whence it came. The word is Ascendancy.