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Ulster Scots people

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This article is about a community of Ulster, Ireland. For the emigrants to North America, see Scots-Irish American. For the dialect of the Scots language, see Ulster Scots dialect.

"Ulster-Scots" is a term used to refer to the people descended from Presbyterians of Scotland who live in Ulster (mostly in Northern Ireland but sometimes also including the Irish counties of Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan). "Scotch-Irish" is the usual term in the United States; "Scots-Irish" is also used to refer to the same people, and is not to be confused with Irish-Scots, i.e. Irish immigrants to Scotland. They are largely descendant from the Northumbrians of the Scottish Borders Country, although some may descend from Brythonic-speaking Britons of the larger Scottish Lowlands as well. Ulster-Scots generally eschew being labeled "Celtic" but often identify themselves with England instead, and this is reflected in the design of the semi-official flag for Northern Ireland, which is based on the Cross of Saint George.

The migration of Scots to Ulster occurred mainly during the 17th and 18th centuries (as detailed in the articles History of Scotland and Plantations of Ireland). The first major influx of Scots into Ulster came during the settlement of east Down, which was led by Sir James Hamilton and Sir Hugh Montgomery, two Ayrshire lairds. This started in May 1606 and was followed in 1610 by the arrival of many more Scots as part of the Plantation of Ulster. During the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the native Irish Catholics attempted to expel the English and Scottish settlers, resulting in inter-communal violence and ultimately leading to the death of somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 settlers. The memory of this traumatic episode and the savage repression which followed, poisoned the relationship between the Scottish and English settlers and the Irish Roman Catholics almost irreparably.

The Scottish population in Ulster was further augmented during the subsequent Irish Confederate Wars, when a Scottish Covenanter army was landed in the province to protect the settlers from the native Irish Catholic forces. After the war was over, many of the soldiers settled permanently in Ulster. Finally, another major influx of Scots into northern Ireland happened in the 1690s, when tens of thousands of people fled a famine in Scotland to come to Ulster. Also in the 1690s, the Scottish population of Ulster fought another war against the Irish Catholics - the Williamite war in Ireland. The Protestant victories at Derry, the Boyne and Aughrim are still commemorated today, because many Irish Protestants believed they had saved their community from annihilation or exile at the hands of the Jacobites.

With each influx of Scottish settlers, more of the native Irish were dispossessed and forced onto poor land, or to other regions of Ireland. After this point, the settlers and their descendants, the majority of whom were Presbyterian, became the majority in the province. However, along with Roman Catholics, they were legally disadvantaged by the Penal Laws, which gave full rights only to Anglicans, who were mainly the descendants of English settlers. For this reason, up until the 19th century, and despite their common fear of the dispossessed Catholics, there was considerable disharmony between the Ulster-Scots and the Ulster-English population of Ulster. In 1798, many Ulster-Scots joined the United Irishmen and participated in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

However soon after 1798 most Presbyterian radicals who had supported the United Irishmen were reconciled to British rule by their inclusion into the establishment following the Act of Union. Samuel Thompson, the Bard of Carngranny, expressed the position of eighteenth century loyalist Irish people of Scottish descent in the following verse: -

"I love my native land, no doubt,
Attach'd to her thro' thick and thin,
Yet tho' I'm Irish all without,
I'm every item Scotch within.".

With the enforcement of Queen Anne's 1703 Test Act in Ulster, which caused further discrimination against non-Anglicans, considerable numbers of Ulster-Scots migrated to the North American colonies throughout the 18th century (450,000 settled in the USA between 1717 and 1770 alone). Disdaining the heavily English regions on the Atlantic coast, most groups of Ulster-Scot settlers crossed into the "western mountains", where their descendants populated the Appalachian regions and the Ohio Valley. Others settled in northern New England, The Carolinas, Georgia and various parts of Eastern Canada.

American Presidents of Ulster Scots Descent


One-third of all US Presidents had their ancestral origins in the northern province of Ireland (Ulster)

During his two visits to Ulster, President Bill Clinton spoke proudly of his ancestral links with the province and of the remarkable fact that a third of all US Presidents had their roots in Ulster.

President Clinton, whose connection is through his Blythe and Ayer ancestors, is one of at least 14 Chief Executives who are descended from the 250,000 immigrants from the north of Ireland who had already settled along the American frontier by 1800.

Most of these early migrants were Ulster Scots, those people of Scottish origin who spent a century or more in the northern counties of Ireland before moving to the New World. These pioneering people and their descendants, known in the USA as the 'Scotch-Irish', have often been called "the first true Americans". They have had a huge and disproportionate impact on American education, politics, commerce, the military, journalism, literature, the arts and entertainment.

While many of the Presidents have typically Ulster-Scots surnames - Jackson, Johnson, McKinley, Wilson - others, such as Bush, Roosevelt and Cleveland, have maternal links with the homeland which are less obvious.


7th President 1829-37. He was born in the predominantly Ulster-Scots Waxshaws area of South Carolina two years after his parents left Boneybefore, near Carrickfergus in County Antrim. A heritage centre in the village pays tribute to the legacy of 'Old Hickory', the People's President.


11th President 1845-49. His ancestors were among the first Ulster-Scots settlers, emigrating from Coleraine in 1680 to become a powerful political family in Mecklenberg County, North Carolina. He moved to Tennessee and became its Governor before winning the Presidency.


15th President 1857-61. Born in a log-cabin (which has been relocated to his old school in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania), 'Old Buck' cherished his origins: "My Ulster blood is a priceless heritage". The Buchanans were originally from Deroran, near Omagh in County Tyrone where the ancestral home still stands.


17th President 1865-69. His grandfather left Mounthill, near Larne in County Antrim around 1750 and settled in North Carolina. Andrew worked there as a tailor and ran a successful business in Greenville, Tennessee, before being elected Vice-President. He became President following Abraham Lincoln's assassination.


18th President 1869-77. The home of his maternal great-grandfather, John Simpson, at Dergenagh, County Tyrone, is the location for an exhibition on the eventful life of the victorious Civil War commander who served two terms as President. Grant visited his ancestral homeland in 1878.


21st President 1881-85. His election was the start of a quarter-century in which the White House was occupied by men of Ulster-Scots origins. His family left Dreen, near Cullybackey, County Antrim, in 1815. There is now an interpretive centre, alongside the Arthur Ancestral Home, devoted to his life and times.


22nd and 24th President 1885-89 and 1893-97. Born in New Jersey, he was the maternal grandson of merchant Abner Neal, who emigrated from County Antrim in the 1790s. He is the only President to have served two terms with a break between.


23rd President 1889-93. His mother, Elizabeth Irwin, had Ulster-Scots roots through her two great-grandfathers, James Irwin and William McDowell. Harrison was born in Ohio and served as a Brigadier General in the Union Army before embarking on a career in Indiana politics which led to the White House.


25th President 1897-1901. Born in Ohio, the descendant of a farmer from Conagher, near Ballymoney, County Antrim, he was proud of his ancestry and addressed one of the national Scotch-Irish Congresses held in the late 19th Century. His second term as President was cut short by an assassin's bullet.


26th President 1901-09. His mother, Martha Bulloch, had Ulster Scots ancestors who emigrated from Larne, County Antrim, in May 1729. Teddy Roosevelt's oft-repeated praise of his "bold and hardy race" is evidence of the pride he had in his Scotch-Irish connections.


28th President 1913-21. Of Ulster-Scot descent on both sides of the family, his roots were very strong and dear to him. He was grandson of a printer from Dergalt, near Strabane, County Tyrone, whose former home is open to visitors. Throughout his career he reflected on the influence of his ancestral values on his constant quest for knowledge and fulfilment.


37th President 1969-74. The Nixon ancestors left Ulster in the mid-18th Century; the Quaker Milhous family ties were with Counties Antrim and Kildare.


41st President 1989-93: His Ulster Scots links are through William Gault and Jonathan Weir, his great-great-great-great grandfathers who both settled in Blount County, Tennessee, around the Revolutionary War period. President Bush was made aware of this ancestry during a visit to Knoxville, where Gault is buried in nearby Baker's Creek United Presbyterian Church cemetery.


42nd President, 1993-2001: see introduction to this section.


43rd President, 2001 - present: See George Herbert Walker Bush


Other occupants of the White House said to have some family ties with the north of Ireland include Presidents Adams, Monroe, Truman, Eisenhower and Carter.

See also

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