ABSTRACT
In 1838 the Railway Commissioners of Ireland, surveying the whole country, said of the northern population: ‘They are a frugal, industrious and intelligent race, inhabiting a district for the most part inferior in natural fertility to the southern portion of Ireland, but cultivating it better.’ This is a traditional view of the Ulster people, taken by writers and analysts who were largely Protestant, and there is no denying the importance in Ulster of the Protestant work ethic. Travellers, philanthropists and entrepreneurs coming to Ireland in the nineteenth century to try to solve its problems were wont to remark approvingly on the efficiency of the northern population compared to that of the rest of the country.
