Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scots

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SCOTS-IRISH / ULSTER SCOTS:

The terms Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scots refers to those Scots (mostly of Presbyterian stock) who settled in Ulster (modern-day Northern Ireland) from the early seventeenth century. From these 200,000 original settlers, many are still in Ulster but up to 2 million of their descendants eventually reached North America. Today they number an estimated 27.2 million.


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SCOTS-IRISH IN AMERICA:

The Scots-Irish settlers who first colonised America, and then illegally slipped across the Appalachians to live among the Indian tribes, were not out to found a new empire. Having been chased out of Scotland and Ulster for economic and religious reasons, then having clashed with the conservative English merchant elites who ran the eastern colonies, the Scots-Irish just wanted to be left to their own devices.


Scots-Irish helped forge U.S. history...
Scots-Irish Ulstermen played a major role during the American War of Independence. Twenty-five of the American generals were of Ulster descent as was upto half of the revolutionary army. One famous force of regular soldiers was the Pennsylvania Line and it was composed almost entirely of Ulstermen and the sons of Ulstermen. The turning point in the war was the Battle of King's Mountain in South Carolina on 7 October 1780. A body of American militiamen defeated a British force twice its size and took 1,000 prisoners. The five colonels in the American force were all Presbyterian elders of Ulster stock and their men were of the same race and faith.

The famous Declaration of Independence is in the handwriting of an Ulsterman, Charles Thompson, who was secretary of the Congress and who was born in Maghera. It was first printed by an Ulsterman, John Dunlap of Strabane. It was first read in public by the son of an Ulsterman, Colonel John Nixon. The first signature on it was that of John Hancock, president of the Congress, whose ancestors came from County Down, and at least seven of the other signatories were of Ulster extraction. The first newspaper outside of the USA to print the declaration was the Belfast Newsletter in Ulster!


* The Belfast Newsletter is the oldest surviving english language newspaper in the world. It's still in print today! -click here-





George Washington:
'If defeated everywhere else, I will make my final stand for liberty among the Scots-Irish in my native Virginia.'

James Buchanan:
'My Ulster blood is my most priceless heritage.'

William McKinley:
'The Scots-Irish were the first to proclaim for freedom in these United States; even before Lexington Scots-Irish blood had been shed for American freedom.'

General Robert E. Lee:
'What race of people makes the best soldiers? The Scots who came to this country by way of Ireland.'

Theodore Roosevelt:
'In the Revolutionary war . . . the fiercest and most ardent Americans of all were the Presbyterian Scots-Irish settlers and their descendants. . . the love of freedom rooted in their very hearts' core.'


English Hessian commander:
'Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more or less than a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion.'






U.S. Presidents of Ulster-Scots descent:
Andrew Jackson
James Buchanan
Chester Alan Arthur
James Knox Polk
Ulysses S. Grant
Grover Cleveland
Andrew Johnston
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
Harry Truman
Richard Nixon
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George Bush
Bill Clinton.


SCOTS-IRISH WALL MURALS IN NORTHERN IRELAND:


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THE WHISKEY REBELLION:

Ulstermen brought whiskey to America. By 1776 as many as 400,000 Scots-Irish had emigrated to the new world, with them came their tradition of making whiskey and fighting authority. In 1791 the federal government imposed a tax excise on whiskey. The tax levvy was higher for small family run distillers than it was for bigger mass producers. This angered the mainly Scots-Irish farmers as it effectively eliminated any profit from the sale or barter of an important means of income and became the lightning rod for a wide variety of grievances against the federal government. The settlers in Pennsylvania refused to pay... the uprising that followed was to be known as the Whiskey Rebellion.


Flag of the whiskey rebels.


* Ulster is home to the world's oldest whiskey distillery; Bushmills in co. Antrim is still producing fine irish whiskey today!


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ANCIENT ULSTER:



Around 7,000 B.C. settlers crossed the narrow channel from Britain to Ulster to become Ireland's first inhabitants. Thirty centuries later they were peaceably joined by new settlers from what is now Scotland, who brought agriculture and commerce.

By 700 B.C. the Celts were established in Central Europe north of the Alps. From there they spread to Italy, Spain, France and eventually the "Islands of the Pretani" (British Isles).

Various Celtic peoples became the dominant caste in different parts of Britain and Ireland. However the majority of the population in Scotland and Ireland remained the Pretani (known as 'Picts' in Scotland and 'Cruthin' in Ireland). In Ulster the Celtic Ulaid from Britain (from whom Ulster got it's name - Norse for 'place of the Ulaid') became a powerful force. However, Ulster was sometimes still ruled by a Cruthinic king although Generally, the two peoples united as Ulidians when faced with their common enemy, the southern Gaels.

The oldest story in Western European literature tells of an attack on Ulster by the combined armies of the other kingdoms on the island. From the court of the King of Ulster at Navan Fort came the Red Branch Knights. The most fearsome of these Ulster Knights was the mighty Cúchulainn (Setanta). His exploits fighting "the men of Ireland" are certainly at least exaggerated, but Ulster did fight wars to preserve her independence from Southern aggressors. There are great 'Walls' such as the 'Black Pig's Dyke' which runs across much of lower Ulster, consisting of great linear earthworks, a series of massive defenses, guarding the routeways into Ulster identified by archaeologists as fortifications against such attacks.



Ulster was continually under pressure from rival irish kingdoms. The Cruthin and Ulaid forces were eventually driven from Donegal, and the citadel at Navan was destroyed around 450 A.D. South and west of the River Bann a tribe called the Airgialla took control as the Ulstermen retreated eastwards into Antrim and Down and ultimately many left for Scotland, particularly in the sixth century. The Romans named tribes coming from Ireland the "Scotti", from whence Scotland was named.

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