Anybody in Ulster keen on claiming US Vice President JD Vance as one of their own?

In his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy JD Vance wrote that “to understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart”

So writing from the heart on X  Vance waded into the lists in the politicians’ row over the murder of Henry Novak

“He should still be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.”

Vance has joined  a chorus about the murder from leading American right wingers started by Elon Musk and continued by the US State Department ( boss Mario Rubio).  Did Vance  join in  because his likely rival for the Republican presidential nomination got in first?

I’m not dwelling here on the understandably angry reaction to US interference led by Keir Starmer in British affairs.  It’s a lost cause .  Social media comment spills over borders  and the  Trumpists are hardly noted for their comment restraint regardless  of the beam  in the own eyes. Rather  than that I wonder  why with so much on their plate these guys can be bothered?

The Times’ David Charter offers an analysis

The alleged degeneration of London through mass immigration is an oft-repeated article of faith among leading figures in President Trump’s Maga (Make America Great Again) movement.

Trump also feels a personal connection to the UK, directly through his Scottish mother but also ideologically through a romanticised view of Empire and Anglo-Saxon culture. Both of these are code for his core supporters of a time when both nations were more white and, in Britain’s case, more globally dominant.

The UK has become, for Trump and his senior officials, a warning to American voters of how a once powerful nation declined by pandering to liberalism. Individual incidents such as the murder of Nowak are used to bolster this narrative.

“The first Americans saw themselves as free men carrying forward … the central liberties and ancient rights of the Anglo-Saxons into this new and beautiful world,” Trump said at the state dinner for King Charles last month.

America’s War of Independence was “fought not to reject this heritage but to reclaim it and perfect it”

This view of the ancient Anglo Saxon rights as the  foundation of the British  Empire was quietly superseded years ago until revived by the Right, from Farage in Britain to Trump and co in the States.

What about the  influence of  our own wee corner of the world?.

Irish heritage has always been Disneyfied, less so the “Scotch Irish” huddled  in remote villages in the Appalachian mountains

Vance’s memoir vividly depicts a society coping with alcoholism and drug addiction with a mixture of  Old Testament fierce family love and equally fierce retribution for slights including physical violence. Characteristics  respected and often lauded in the Christian Right at the heart of Maga. And recognisable as inflated versions of their origins in the homeland Vance claims he cherishes but has done little to investigate.

From the Guardian review.

Vance designates himself as “Scots-Irish”, taking care to distinguish the people of “Greater Appalachia” from “the WASPS of the north-east”. This is a hugely loaded distinction, a claim of outlaw whiteness that has been politically mobilised in the victory of Donald Trump’s revanchist identity politics.

How strong are  Vance’s links  to  his so called spiritual home  in Ulster?

The NI Civil service  has been following   the tradition of  Eric Montgomery  a head of the NICS  sitting out the early Troubles in the 1970s  who compiled  the evidence of no less 10 US Presidents with Ulster Protestant heritage. For  Vance  the heritage trail is not quite conclusive.

The research results traced a potential link to an Andrew ­Williamson Vance who was born in ­Ireland circa 1666 and emigrated circa 1733 to America.

“The research has been passed to US government officials and is hoped to be formally presented at a future date.”

However, internal emails obtained by The Sunday Times were more cautious.

One shows that in February Mr Lyons’ office was advised that “it has not been possible to establish conclusive proof of a direct Vance link back to Ulster at this stage”.

But local historian John Hagan has written extensively about the history of the village and said the Vance family has a local burial plot in St Luke’s Parish Church, Tamlaght.

“I researched the Vans, Vaus or Vance family some time ago. The family had a burial plot in St Luke’s Parish Church, overlooking Coagh,” he said.

“When I heard JD speak of his Scots-Irish ancestry, I knew there had to be a link but I didn’t expect a direct link to the Coagh Vances.

“The Vance family came to Ulster during the great migration in the early 1600s from Barnbarroch in Wigtownshire, Scotland,” he explained.

Is JD Vance aware that a small village in rural Tyrone is his ancestral home? Very unlikely, but I would love him to visit Coagh.

“I would love to show him where his ancestors built a house just yards from the Ballinderry River, show him where his ancestors rest and take him on a trip of Londonderry to walk those same walls where his famous ancestor Lancelot Vance fought and died.”

Members of the Vance family from across the world have been visiting Coagh for generations.

 But not JD it seems.

Anyone like to claim him?

If he wins the Republic presidential nomination would he look for a warm welcome in Coagh?