8 - Free Staters, 1922–1923

Summary

This chapter discusses the neglected experience of Protestants who supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Irish Free State that it brought about. The first section examines Protestant nationalists, such as Ernest Blythe, W. B. Yeats, and Alice Stopford Green, who welcomed the cessation of hostilities and compromise with England. The second section discusses Protestant servicemen in the Free State, or National Army during the Irish Civil War. It analyses the social, economic, geographical, and confessional background of these soldiers. It describes how this minority, serving in what was described as ‘the Army of the most Catholic nation in the world’, retained a separate identity, largely by means of the appointment of Protestant chaplains to the forces.