Hey folks, if you're listening to this in the UK and in particular England and Wales,

I'll be speaking at the Bristol Radical History Festival at 2.30 on Saturday, April 26th.

My talk is going to be on the famine, but there's a super line-up at the festival,

including six different Irish historians.

So check out BRH.org.org.uk to find out more.

That's BRH.org.org. To find out more. That's BRH.org.org.

To find out more.

Between 1911 and 1926, Ireland's Protestant community went into rapid decline. In the space of just 15 years, it fell by over 30%. In some communities, the decline was even more stark. In Watford City, for example, it nearly halved and in some rural areas, entire communities left.

Understanding the reasons for this decline is complicated to say the least. Now, the internet

is rarely a good place for nuanced debate and much of the commentary around this chapter

in our history is reduced to sensational one-liners that generate more heat than light.

These range from claims that Ireland, or at least parts of the island at least, experienced ethnic cleansing,

to arguments on the other end of the spectrum that dismiss the issue completely and claim Irish Protestants were somehow not really Irish.

Now, neither of these perspectives explains the history of the 1920s and in this podcast I want to explore the factors at play

that led so many Irish people to leave Ireland and then look at how the Irish Protestants who

did remain, that's the majority, adjusted to life in the Irish free state.

Their experience in the main was unusual.

For many who had supported the Irish Revolution, there was a distinct disappointment by the lack of change.

But for many Irish Protestants, it was precisely the opposite.

Change came hard and fast, and few welcomed it.

Hello and welcome to the Irish History podcast. My name is Finn DeWar. Though they say

politics and religion are topics best avoided in conversation, but this episode explores the point where these two meet in Irish history,

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