  anglo-irish () was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the protestant ascendancy.the anglo-irish, fidelma maguire, university college cork and donnchadh Ã corrÃ¡in they mostly belonged to the anglican church of ireland, which was the established church of ireland until 1871, or to a lesser extent one of the english dissenting churches, such as the methodist church. its members tended to follow english practices in matters of culture, science, law, agriculture and politics. many became eminent as administrators in the british empire and as senior army and naval officers. the term is not usually applied to presbyterians in the province of ulster, whose ancestry is mostly scottish, rather than english, and who are generally identified as "ulster-scots." in the united states, people who identify with the ulster-scots are usually called "scotch-irish."maldwyn jones, "scotch-irish" in stephen thernstrom, ed., harvard encyclopedia of american ethnic groups (cambridge, ma: 1988), pp. 895-907michael montgomery, [http://www.ulsterscotslanguage.com/en/texts/scotch-
Anglo-Irish_people Ethnic_groups_in_Ireland Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom History_of_Ireland History_of_the_United_Kingdom