Saturday, November 22, 2008
The ‘Scots-Irish’ in America
Professor Brian Walker from the School of Politics at Queen’s University Belfast has a piece published in the Irish Times today about the Scots-Irish in America.
He points out that over half of some 40 million people who gave their country of origin as Ireland are actually of Protestant descent. He also points out that many were Ulster Presbyterians, descending from Scotland in the 17th-century:
“To explain this situation attention now focused on the Scots Irish. The first waves of emigrants from Ireland to America in the eighteenth century consisted largely of Ulster Presbyterians, numbering about a quarter of a million people, who were descendants of 17th-century Scottish immigrants to Ireland. Due to their early arrival and thanks to a multiplier factor, it was argued, their descendants made up a major part of those in America with an Irish background.”
The article offers interesting reading and shines a light on the extent of immigration by Protestants, of Scotish origin, from Ireland to America. I recalled when reading the article the story from the Ulster-Scots musical ‘On Eagles Wings’.
Andrew Charles @ 02:42 PM
They couldnt wait to get to the fledgling United States to enjoy the Rights and Liberties of Englishmen.
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 04:19 PMMaybe they’ll start celebrating the 12th July!!
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 04:37 PMOf course they became just ordinary Americans- not like the Irish Americans.
T.RuthPosted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 05:14 PMSarah Palin was born a Roman Catholic before converting to Pentecostalism.
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 06:20 PMGood article.
Sophie,
Maybe not the 12th, but how about March 17?
An American friend who lives in Pgh, Pa, and whose ancestors came from Co. Down (McFerran), wears an orange tie to his school to show that Patrick was a protestant. He doesn’t consider himself to be a hyphenated America, but is proud of his Scots-Irish heritage.
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 06:31 PMWatchman
There are pentecostal Catholics. I think she converted to Christ.
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 06:33 PMOops.
He doesn’t consider himself to be a hyphenated American, but is proud of his Scots-Irish heritage
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 06:36 PMI know that there was a huge exodus of Scots-Irish pre 1790s to the Southern-Frontier states of America-Appellations due to Anglican Persecution; I was amazed to find a Belfast in Georgia using Google maps, Id love to know of its origins.
Lord Cornwallis and his Redcoat Continental army were actually kicked out of America by the Brothers, Friends and Cousins, descendants of Ulster Men, some of these new Americans even spoke with Ulster accents. He knew and remembered this well and took a devastating revenge on the United Irishmen during the 1798 Rebellion.
Although the Scots-Irish seemed to have absorbed into Americans a lot easier than the later Famine Catholic Irish 1840s onwards.Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 07:38 PMDue to anti catholic and anti-irish bigotry in part
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 07:40 PMI would have thought all this was common knowledge. It is known that one in three of Washington’s Continental Army were Irish (upon arrival in America they were simply regarded as Irish - kinda like an Ulsterman going over to Britain today).
Approx 1200 officers were Irish and Sixteen generals were Irish. The declaration of Independance was printed by a Tyrone guy called Dunlop and many of the signitories of the document were of Ulster heritage.
Indeed it is rumoured that Washington also had an Irish mistress. General Washington is known to have had Ulster born spies operating within the British establishment here in the US.
The Ulster Irish were so supportive of Washingtons cause due to their experiences at the hands of the British in Ulster and the penal laws. This was their revenge, no taxation without representation. It was the exact same beliefs and values that drove the 1798 rising in Ireland, and it is no co-incidence that this rising was also led by the same Protestant elders, men such as Wolfe Tone and Henry Joy McCracken.
Upon completion of the War of Independance General Washington is also known to have publically and specifically thanked the Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scots for their help during the war, although as is the custom here I believe Washington himself referred to them simply as Irish, it would be nice if someone could post a link to it.
It is a fascinating period of Irish and American history and perhaps a shame the Protestant people in Ulster are not more accepting of it today.Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 08:47 PMI don’t know why the Irish Times asked Brian Walker to pen a piece on the Scots-Irish in America, when the authority with 12 books written on the subject is Billy Kennedy. Walker is incorrect in that half of those claiming ‘Irish’ ancestry are Scots-Irish; it was much more like 3/4 [75%] of all those with Irish ancestry are from the Ulster-Scots who went to America and were known as the Scots / Irish or Scotch/Irish.
Perhaps, if Andrew Charles wishes to know more on the subject he should buy some of Billy’s excellent publications on the subject and see the great contribution those Presbyterians of Scottish descent who emigrated to the New World, over one hundred years before the Roman Catholic Irish left at the time of the Famine.
As well as 16 Presidents, Cyrus McCormick [Agricultural machinery], author Mark Twain to name but two have a Ulster-Scots ancestry together with well-known singersDolly Parton and Ricky Skaggs. Eight of the singnatories of the American Declaration of Independence were of Ulster-Scots ancestry and a Maghera man, named Thompson printed it.
So you see, hundreds of Ulster Presbyterians made their mark on America long before the Irish appeared in the mid 17th century.Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 08:58 PMAaagh!
He points out that over half of some 40 million people who gave their country of origin as Ireland are actually of Protestant ascent.
Well, “descent”, perhaps. The return to the womb would otherwise be not entirely metaphorical, and certainly actionable in most jurisdictions.
Beyond that quibble, this truism has been established for many years, and repeatedly traipsed out here, not least by ... errm, this guy Malcolm Redfellow. Curiously, it is not one of our local-manufactured myths. Leyburn, publishing in 1962, stated:
“Between 1717 and the Revolutionary War some quarter of a million Ulstermen came to America.”
[Now, there’s a book I’m glad I bought before it went out-of-print. Check your second-hand shops, chaps: you might make the odd bob or many.]
Leyburn, incidently, discusses whether we can trust that number. His final appraisal is that the total emigration was somewhere between 212,000 and 528,000:
Certainly this element, next to the English, was the largest nationality group in the country.
That quarter-million is therefore a conservative estimate: they were substantially the Presbyterian “Scots-Irish”.
In any case, the emigration of Presbyterians was so substantial, Parliament passed measures to try and “prevent” it. Huh, you reckon?
So why did the Ulster emigrants “disappear”?
Of course, they didn’t.
Two factors intervened.
The first is that the “Northern Dissenters” (a far better definition than “Scots-Irish”, surely) were the invisible and individualist frontiersmen. They came to the Ulster Plantation as a “new frontier”, and kept moving west. Our regular up-your-nose aggravator, Harry Flashman, was here making that connection, via [Senator] Jim Webb’s Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, over three years ago. As Webb reminds us, very effectively, these were the guys who saw off the Redcoats and later the Spanish (check out the names at the Alamo), went back to the mountains, and then pushed back the frontier ever further.
Then the second factor: the arrival of the “Black Irish”. After the War of Independence, the Northern Dissenter diaspora slackened (as a result of the lifting of sanctions on non-conformists) and diverted elsewhere (the remaining colonies). The United States, therefore, (particularly when manufacture grew to supply the needs of the Napoleonic Wars) was short of wage-labour. So:
From 1815 to the Famine, between 800,000 and one million Irish—about twice the total for the previous two centuries—sailed for America.
Now, that is taken from Noel Ignatiev’s provocative and worthwhile How the Irish Became White. Allow a bit more from that source:
... of those arriving between 1815 and 1819, two-thirds were from Ulster, primarily Presbyterians and Anglicans. Between 1827 and 1832 Ulster still contributed half of Irish emigrants to North America. It was not until some time in the early 1830s that annual departures by Catholics began to exceed those of Dissenters and Anglicans combined.
I remember, tallying in my head the growth of emigrants on the wall at the Cobh museum, noting that the growth of emigration was likely to be a geometric curve, rather than something more dramatic. The emigration of the 1840s was probably going to happen anyway, with or without An Gorta Mór. The Hibernicising of Liverpool might be a different matter.
These emigrants entered the American labour market even below slaves. After all, a “dollar-a-day” labourer was cheaper than a slave who had to be maintained all-year-round, no matter what the economic conditions. Obviously, “Scots” was deinitively better ancestry than any “Irish” connection.
And so it has remained.
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 09:06 PMJimmy….there is a Londonderry in New Hampshire and a few miles down the road is a Derry….this came about due to there being a dispute within the Presbyterian Church in Londonderry, NH and as the Government of the Day wouldn’t allow two churches in the one town, those Scots-Irish created a new town, called it Derry and set up another church.
As to Belfast, there is also a Belfast in South Africa….I was there in 1998….
I totally agree with you in relation to the absortion of the Scots/Irish into the fabric of their new home in America. The Irish [mainly Catholic] who left after the Famine still harked after the ‘ould country’ and it wasn’t really until the late 1950s that they started to make their mark in business / politics culminating in the election of J.F. Kennedy as President. Prior to that the Irish were more renowned for their criminality / gang wars etc., including bootlegging during Prohibition, which Kennedy’s father was prominent in. Of course nowadays, the Irish looby is pretty vocal, whether it is as important as it likes to think in American politics one wonders….with folk like that bigot, ‘Father’ Sean McManus leading the posse, I don’t think it is !!
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 09:09 PMUSA…..
What do you mean by this remark:
‘....perhaps a shame the Protestant people in Ulster are not more accepting of it today.’
The Ulster Protestant people are very aware and accepting of ‘it’ today….however, many Nationalists demean it and claim that our history ‘is made up’ .... of course being used to myths and legends it is no wonder they nationalist community think this way !!
PLEASE EXPLAIN YOURSELF…USA
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 09:12 PMMethinks that USA might live in The States but his syntax and spelling suggest that he is not an American.
Am I right, USA?
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 09:50 PMJimmy,
There is also a Belfast, Maine, an Ulster County in upstate New York which I usually visit once or twice a year and Donegal County in PA. Examples of Ulster placenames are much to numerous to list here.
Malcolm,
Good post.William,
I was passing through the Shannandoah Valley some years ago and picked up a copy of a Billy Kennedy book in Winchester Virginia. It was a good read.
“Please explain yourself”
I was referring to the working class Ulster Protestant community still living in Ireland today, and how they seem reluctant to embrace their role in fighting against Britain, especially in relation to the 1798 rebellion. The links to the War of Independance are IMHO too obvious to ignore.I am however unimpressed by the sentiment in your posts numbered 13 and 14, you are obviously an anti Irish bigot who knows little and probably cares little about the role the Irish play here in the US.
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 10:02 PM6countyprod,
That would be an ecumenical matter.Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 10:06 PMPrior to that the Irish were more renowned for their criminality / gang wars etc., including bootlegging during Prohibition, which Kennedy’s father was prominent in.
Oddly enough, I think Buck Alec used to work for him. Of course as well as crime, as William points out, Irish-Americans had made their mark in the arts by that time (1950s): John Ford, gene Kelly, Spencer Tracey, James Cagney, Walter Brennan, Eugene O’Neill, Flannery O’Connor, Pat O’Brien, Grace Kelly etc.
William, based on the American experience of the early 20th century, what’s your opinion of Italians?
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 10:43 PMUSA….
I know a lot about the Irish in America….we have had them poking their noses into UK affairs in Northern Ireland at regular intervals over the years…that crooked adulterer Clinton [sadly of Ulster-Scots descent] being a prime example.
I did remark that the Irish did have great sway in US business now and in politics but the vocal loonies of the Brehon Society, the AOH and ‘Father’ McManus’s Irish-American group are very difficult to stomach….the truth isn’t something that they understand and their support of Sinn Fein whilst they were murdering is rather difficult to comprehend.
It appears that you are the bigot….I most certainly am not….I’m Irish born, British by choice and proud of it. What are you?...if you’re in the USA [which I doubt], you’re probably a Plastic Paddy….
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 10:45 PMDec….I totally agree with you about the film stars, starlets etc…..as to the Italians, much the same as the Irish, the Arts - Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin etc and the Mafia !!
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 10:49 PMUSA,
You shouldn’t be mixing church and state!Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 11:05 PMWilliam @ 11:49 PM:
...the film stars, starlets etc…
Now, why do I know I’ll seriously regret posting this, sober and in the morning night?
Still, here goes:
The Irish film industry received a welcome boost today when it was announced that Hollywood big shot and religious lunatic Tom Cruise is to star in an Irish production early next year.
The movie, which is to be a biopic of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, will be produced by Neil Jordan, directed by Oliver Stone and has a working title of ‘B’. According to insiders it will be a light-hearted look at the reign of one of Ireland’s most controversial politicians, with plans to make Ahern’s life appear more interesting by ‘vaguely’ fictionalising certain parts.
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 11:09 PMMalcolm
Storyboards show Ahern cacking wildly as he cavorts on the floor of his St Luke’s office
LOL. Bertie will sue for this. He was/is a great many ugly things ... but incontinent?
Posted by on Nov 22, 2008 @ 11:58 PM“together with well-known singersDolly Parton and Ricky Skaggs”
If one looks at the names of famous Country singers in the US it reads like a membership list of the East Londonderry DUP; Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Don McLean, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, Don Williams, Rita Coolidge, Charlie Daniels, Lyn Anderson, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Reba McEntire, Jim Reeves, Kenny Rogers etc.
I’m not saying they’re all descended from our wee province but it seems compulsory to at least sound like you did if you want to make a go of it.
Posted by on Nov 23, 2008 @ 12:43 AMThere is no Donegal County in Pennsylvania.
Posted by on Nov 23, 2008 @ 12:58 AM
