The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded as the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movement. Following the partition of Ireland, it was the governing party of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. It was supported by most unionist voters throughout the conflict known as the Troubles, during which time it was often referred to as the Official Unionist Party (OUP).
Unionism in Ireland is a political tradition that professes loyalty to the crown of the United Kingdom and to the union it represents with England, Scotland and Wales. The overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority, unionism mobilised in the decades following Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to oppose restoration of a separate Irish parliament. Since Partition in 1921, as Ulster unionism its goal has been to retain Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the United Kingdom and to resist the prospect of an all-Ireland republic. Within the framework of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, which concluded three decades of political violence, unionists have shared office with Irish nationalists in a reformed Northern Ireland Assembly. As of February 2024, they no longer do so as the larger faction: they serve in an executive with an Irish republican First Minister.
Ballymoney is a town and civil parish in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is within the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council area. The civil parish of Ballymoney is situated in the historic baronies of Dunluce Upper and Kilconway in County Antrim, as well as the barony of North East Liberties of Coleraine in County Londonderry. It had a population of 11,048 people at the 2021 census.
The Imperial Grand Black Chapter of the British Commonwealth, or simply the Royal Black Institution, is a Protestant fraternal society.
The Twelfth is a primarily Ulster Protestant celebration held on 12 July. It began in the late 18th century in Ulster. It celebrates the Glorious Revolution (1688) and victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne (1690), which ensured a Whig political party and Anglican Ascendancy in Ireland and the passing of the Penal Laws to disenfranchise and persecute the nation's Catholic majority, and to a lesser extent Protestant Dissenters, until Catholic Emancipation in 1829.
The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants. It also has lodges in England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, as well as in parts of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United States.
David Alexander Tweed was a Northern Irish unionist politician, Irish rugby union international and serial child sex offender.
Clifford Smyth is a Northern Irish historian and former unionist politician.
Andrew Gardiner Kane, known as Gardiner Kane is a former Northern Irish Unionist politician who was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for North Antrim from 1998 to 2003. Initially a member of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), he was a Moyle Councillor for the Ballycastle DEA from 1985 until his resignation in 2002.
William Johnston was an Irish Orangeman, unionist and Member of Parliament for Belfast, distinguished by his independent working-class following and commitment to reform. He first entered the United Kingdom Parliament as an Irish Conservative in 1868, celebrated for having broken a standing ban on Orange Order processions and as the nominee of an association of "Protestant Workers". At Westminster, Johnston supported the secret ballot; the accommodation of trade unions and strike action; land reform; and woman's suffrage. He was succeeded in 1902 as the MP for South Belfast, by Thomas Sloan, similarly supported by loyalist workers in opposition to the official unionist candidates favoured by their employers.
Sir Robert George Caldwell Kinahan, ERD was a Northern Irish unionist politician, businessman and a senior member of the Orange Order. In his obituary, he was described as one of the last of the "county elite" to remain a high-ranking member of the Orange Order during the turbulent years of The Troubles, when it became potentially dangerous to belong. In his personal life he deplored bigotry and was almost expelled from the Orange Order for having attended a Roman Catholic funeral service.
The Loyal Orange Institution, better known as the Orange Order, is a Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland. It has been a strong supporter of Irish unionism and has had close links with the Ulster Unionist Party, which governed Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1972. The Orange Order has lodges throughout Ireland, although it is strongest in the North. There are also branches throughout the Commonwealth, and in the United States. In the 20th century, the organisation went into sharp decline outside Northern Ireland and County Donegal. McGarry, John; O'Leary, Brendan (1995). Explaining Northern Ireland: Broken Images. Blackwell Publishers. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-631-18349-5.; The Orange marches</ref> The Order has a substantial fraternal and benevolent component.
The Evangelical Protestant Society (EPS) is a pressure group representing Christian evangelicalism in Northern Ireland. It was founded in Belfast in 1946 and opposes what it terms "liberalism and false ecumenism", "Romanism" and "Popery".
Thomas Henry Sloan (1870–1941) was an Irish unionist and co-founder of the Independent Orange Order (IOO). The choice of a loyalist workers association over the official Conservative Unionist nominee, he represented the Belfast South constituency as an Independent Unionist at the Westminster parliament from 1902 to 1910. He and members of the IOO supported workers in the Belfast Lockout of 1907.
Thomas Carnduff, poet and playwright, was born on 30 January 1886 in Belfast and died in that city on 17 April 1956. He was raised in the Protestant working-class district of Sandy Row; worked in the city's shipyards ; was a member of the early labour-supporting Independent Orange Order.
The Caleb Foundation, created in 1998, is a creationist pressure group in Northern Ireland. It also lobbies on a range of social policy issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage from an evangelical Protestant perspective, and has been particularly influential with Democratic Unionist Party ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive. The organisation has described its mission as "promoting the fundamentals of the historic evangelical Protestant faith".
Ulster Protestants are an ethnoreligious group in the Irish province of Ulster, where they make up about 43.5% of the population. Most Ulster Protestants are descendants of settlers who arrived from Britain in the early 17th century Ulster Plantation. This was the settlement of the Gaelic, Catholic province of Ulster by Scots and English speaking Protestants, mostly from the Scottish Lowlands and Northern England. Many more Scottish Protestant migrants arrived in Ulster in the late 17th century. Those who came from Scotland were mostly Presbyterians, while those from England were mostly Anglicans. There is also a small Methodist community and the Methodist Church in Ireland dates to John Wesley's visit to Ulster in 1752. Although most Ulster Protestants descend from Lowland Scottish people, many descend from English, and to a lesser extent, from Irish, Welsh and Huguenots.
Linda Ervine MBE is a language rights activist from East Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is an Ulster Irish speaker and supporter of the Gaelic revival and is the project leader of the "Turas" Irish language project which "aims to connect people from Protestant communities to their own history with the Irish language". Turas is operated through the East Belfast Mission of the Methodist Church in Ireland. Ervine has attracted media attention because of her coming from a Protestant and Unionist family background and her support for an Irish Language Act.
The flag of the Orange Order, also known as the Boyne Standard, or the Orange Standard, is the flag used by a Northern Irish Protestant fraternal organisation, the Orange Order. The flag consists of an orange background with a purple star and a Saint George's Cross in canton.
Robert Lindsay Crawford (1868–1945) was an Irish Protestant politician and journalist who shifted in his loyalties from Unionism and the Orange Order to the Irish Free State. He was a co-founder of the Independent Orange Order through which he hoped to promote Irish reconciliation and democracy. Later he became a committed Irish nationalist mobilizing support in Canada for Irish self-determination and serving the new Irish state as its trade representative and consul in New York City.
