This paper examines the Irish Society for Promoting the Education of the Native Irish (1818-1853) to explore the relationship between state recognition, inequality, and minority religious authority. Drawing on Karina Bénazech Wendling's De la Bible irlandaise au soupérisme, it argues that early nineteenth-century Ireland presents a paradox: Anglicans were politically dominant under British rule, yet increasingly operated as a religious minority, alongside other Protestant minorities, seeking cultural recognition within a Catholic-majority society. The Irish Society's promotion of Irish-language literacy and vernacular Bibles aimed to reshape religious authority and secure symbolic legitimacy. These strategies, however, produced new inequalities by challenging religious territoriality - aligning Catholic converts with Protestant elites - and provoking renewed accusations of colonisation. The later rise of souperism further exposed asymmetrical power relations. By reframing recognition as legal, cultural, linguistic, and religious, the paper shows that formal state recognition does not guarantee equality and may coexist with profound symbolic marginalisation. The Irish case thus broadens comparative understandings of Protestant minority recognition.