Protestant Irish freedom fighters.

Sceala Philosopher Location: Recife Brazil

Joining in with this Protestant Rebels against the British and against the English Crown.
Shame on me, and most Irish for not knowing more about these brave Irish freedom fighters.
Inspired me to do a bit of digging around history of Ireland.

This is a Irish rebel song called Protestant Men.

Protestant Men (Lyrics)
It was back in history's page, the story's told of Napper Tandy brave and bold
With his scarlet and green, he then was seen with his big long gun and his fighting men
They did beat upon the drum, they fired their gun and shook the English establishment
And the Lords and the Peers they then took fears and Grattan got his Parliament
So here's to those brave Protestant Men
Who gave their lives to free our land
All the people they sang their praises then
For the brave United Irishmen
In Belfast town there lived a man and his name was Samuel Neilson
A minister's son, Presbyterian, and the paper called the Northern Star
There was Henry Joy, the Green Volunteers and Thomas Russell and McCabe and McTeir
And to them was known a man Wolfe Tone and they formed the first United Men
So here's to those brave Protestant Men
Who gave their lives to free our land
All the people they sang their praises then
For the brave United Irishmen
So your laws with dragons teeth and then you'll see you've sowed the seeds of bigotry
The English fool divide they'll rule so they set to break the United Men
And they killed them in the fields and some in jail and some upon the Gallows high
When Willie Orr did die his very last cry was "Unite and fight brave Irishmen"
So here's to those brave Protestant Men
Who gave their lives to free our land
All the people they sang their praises then
For the brave United Irishmen
Cast dissensions to the wind let all men lend to the common name of an Irishman
For across historys page to rant and rage men crossed the pails of bigotry
There was the men of '98 no sadder fate, Lord Edward, Tone and the brothers Sheres
It was Emmet's plea in 18 and 3 when he tried to set our country free
So here's to those brave Protestant Men
Who gave their lives to free our land
All the people they sang their praises then
For the brave United Irishmen

British propaganda has painted the conflict in Ireland to the world as a religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. This is false. The British occupation of Ireland by force and terrorism is the root cause of the conflict, not religion.
The planted and native elite we know as the Anglo Irish Aristocracy have for centuries ensured the divisions and hatred for their own gain.
These elites who own vast estates spread the message of ignorance and fear, they had to in order to keep their estates.
When the ignorance of the ordinary person stops, they will see the real cause of division and what it was all for.
The aristocrat crime families.

The reclaiming of the Protestant Irish.
These videos detail some of the many Protestant Irish republicans who founded Irish Republicanism and fought against British rule in Ireland.
The Orange Order was invented to discourage enlightenment and create division using terrorism.
Among the Orange orders first actions was the cowardly murder of their own neighbors, Irish Protestants of the United Irishmen.
The Orange Order persecuted and murdered free thinking Christian Protestants.
The Orange order is a English Royalist order, it is not for genuine free thinking Christian Protestants, and never was.

In 1795, the Orange Order was founded as an auxiliary military force by the English to counteract the spread of the United Irishmen on the ground.
The Orange order was created by the English authorities to divide the united Irish, they now feared would demand equal rights and liberty for all.
The invention of the Orange Order in 1795 was to prove particularly useful as it provided the Government with allies who had detailed local knowledge of the activities of their enemies. The brutal disarming of Ulster in 1797, where the United Irish had successfully radicalized both Protestants and Catholics, saw thousands of Catholics driven from counties Antrim, Down and Armagh, and the murder, torture and imprisonment of hundreds of Protestants suspected of United Irish sympathies - carried out by the orange order militia.

Catholic Bishops allied to the British Government
The loyalty of the hierarchy of the Catholic church was purchased by the founding of Maynooth College in the same year.
The majority Irish people at the time were Catholic and they assumed that the Irish catholic church would be on their side, the side of Irish independence. But the Catholic church was a traitor to the Irish people.

In 1795 the English administration funded the new St Patrick's College seminary for Roman Catholic priests, which ensured the support of the Irish Catholic hierarchy. The church was opposed to republicanism, though individual priests were supportive.

The English scared of losing another colony, set about their propaganda and division of the Irish. Following the years of 1798, the English simplified and exploited the Irish religious split. Using loyalist politicians to cement the sectarian divide and to ensure the loyalty of Protestants to the English Crown. The fact that the vast majority of the estimated 30,000- 50,000 Irish people of both religions who lost their lives during the rebellion were victims of British and Loyalist troops was ignored and covered up by English historians and their traitorous Irish recruits.

This song is about the United Irishmen rebellion in 1798 when Protestants and Catholics joined forces to try to free Ireland from British rule. Many Protestants throughout the centuries have played important roles in the Republican movement, right from its foundation. The Orange in the Irish tricolor represents Protestants, The founding father of Irish Republicanism, Wolfe Tone was a Protestant, known to quote another famous Rebellious Irish Protestant Jonathon Swift
Burn everything English but their coal

"Let no man write my epitaph, for as no man who knows my motives dares not vindicate them, let no prejudice or ignorance asperse them... When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written."- Robert Emmet

"To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils and to assert the independence of my country- these were my objectives. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter - these were my means."- Theobald Wolfe Tone

“Our freedom must be had at all hazards. If the men of property will not help us they must fall, we will free ourselves by the aid of that large and respectable class of the community - the men of no property.” - Theobald Wolfe Tone
Some of the many protestant republicans throughout the centuries.

Some of the more notable Irish and Protestant Republicans, Irish patriots.

Martha McTier
Thomas McCabe
Doctor William Drennan
Robert Simms
William Simms
Henry Hazlett
Sam McTier
Thomas Russell.
William McCracken
Reverend Sinclair Kelburne.
William Sinclair
Samuel Neilson
Gilbert McIlveen
Thomas Pearce
Bagenal Harvey (United Irishmen commander)
Robert Emmet
Thomas Addis Emmet
The Sheares Brothers
James Hope
James Orr
William Orr
William Sampson
Archibald Hamilton Rowan
Thomas Muir (political reformer)

James Napper Tandy- United Irishmen

Robert Erskine Childers- Sinn Féin

I dreamed of a future where our people know their worth,
Where the laws are written by reason, not landlords kings or priests.
You can have this boys if you would walk with me.
Henry Joy McCracken- United Irishmen
Henry Joy McCracken was exectuted for leading the Republican armies of Ulster in 1798. Almost 50 years later his friend and comrade James Hope recalled his ideals and described him as 'Faithful to the last'.
Henry Joy Protestant Irish freedom fighter and Rebellion Leader, (faithful to the last)

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Theobald Wolfe Tone- United Irishmen
(and founder of Irish republicanism)

John Mitchell - Young Irelanders

Charles Stewart Parnell - Irish
Parlimentary Party

Roger Casement IRA

Noel Lyttle- INLA

Jack White - IRA

George Plant- IRA

Sean Beaumont Irish Republican

Ronnie Bunting - INLA

John Martin - Young Irelanders

Lord Edward FitzGerald - United Irishmen

Robert Emmet - United Irishmen

The IRA had many protestant members.
The IRA in Belfast had Protestant commanders nicknamed 'The Prod Squad' This included Billy Smith, Rex Thompson and John Graham.
Jack White was another protestant IRA member from Broughshane, Co. Antrim who had previously founded the Irish Citizen Army. Erskine Childers was a protestant IRA member, as was George Plant and George Gilmore from Portadown. Bulmer Hobson from Holywood Co. Down was a leading member of the Irish Volunteers and IRB. He also helped to found the Fianna na hEireann youth movement.
Protestants from the loyalist shankill road also were invloved in the Republican Congress in the 1930's.
Ronnie Bunting was a protestant IRA member who went on to found the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) Noel Lyttle was also a Protestant member of the INLA

Sinn Fein have an protestant ex-orangeman, Billy Leonard who is elected in Coleraine, Co. Derry.
In 1905 the Sinn Fein party was co-founded by Edward Martyn, who served as its first President.

The Sam Maguire Cup, the biggest prize in Gaelic Football, is named after another famous protestant Irish Republican. Sam Maguire was the man who recruited Michael Collins into the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

The British created the division and the Religious leaders are happy to go along for their own bit of power.

Protestant Irish freedom fighter Henry Joy McCracken was executed for leading the Republican armies of Ulster in 1798. Almost 50 years later his friend and comrade James Hope recalled his ideals and described him as 'Faithful to the last'.

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An Ulsterman I am proud to be
From the Antrim Glens I come.
Although I labour by the sea
I have followed flag and drum.
I have heard the martial tramp of men
I've seen them fight and die.
Ah, lads, I well remember when
I followed Henry Joy.
I pulled my boat up from the sea
I hid my sails away,
I hung my nets on a greenwood tree
And I scanned the moonlit bay.
The boys were out, and the Redcoats too,
I kissed my wife goodbye,
And in the shade of the greenwood glade
I followed Henry Joy. "
In Antrim town the tyrant stood,
He tore our ranks with ball,
But with a cheer and a pike to clear
We swept them o'er the wall.
Our pikes and sabres flushed that day,
We won, but lost, ah, why?
No matter lads, I fought beside
And shielded Henry Joy.
Ah, boys, for Ireland's cause we fought,
For her and home we bled,
Though our pikes were few still our hearts beat true,
And five to one lay dead,
And many a lassie mourned her lad,
And mother mourned her boy,
For youth was strong in that gallant throng
Who followed Henry Joy.
West Belfast natives Kevin Brennan and Gerry McCann perform a well known Irish rebel song about Henry Joy McCracken, a Belfast Protestant leader of the United Irishmen rebels in the 1798 Rising. Following the Battle of Antrim McCracken was captured and taken to Belfast where he was hanged in the Cornmarket. He is buried in the Clifton Street Cemetery in Belfast with his sister Mary Ann McCracken who lived to a great age and was a lifelong campaigner for freedom and social justice.
Recorded live at a Benefit Concert for Irish Republican Prisoners of War.
Kevin Brennan, vocals and guitar
Gerry McCann, four string banjo
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Protestant Irish freedom fighters.

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