President Obama talks about Ulster's contribution to America.

US President Barrack Obama (himself, partly of Irish Protestant ancestry) talks about the men and women of Ulster who emigrated to America and helped found the United States...

 

Karen McCarthy interview on Wisconsin Public Radio.

Karen McCarthy, author of  'The Other Irish, The Scots-Irish Rascals Who Made America', is interviewed by Wisconsin Public Radio about the Scots-Irish and the researching of her book in the southern states of the USA.


Listen at link below:
(copyright Wisconsin Public Radio)

Karen McCarthy's book is available at Amazon. Click book cover below....

Ulster Tartan

Ulster tartan is basically the only Irish tartan with any historic pedigree. Before Victorian times different tartans didn't represent clans or families  they represented regions. Even this was more by accident than design, it was due to differing styles of local weavers and the limitations of locally sourced natural dyes available. 

'God's Frontiersmen - The Scots-Irish Epic'

In 1988 Channel 4 (UK) in co-operation with Ulster Television produced a four episode mini-series and accompanying book entitled 'God's Frontiersmen - The Scots-Irish Epic' by Rory Fitzpatrick.  The TV production was part drama, part documentary exploring the Ulster-Scot journey from Scotland to Ulster and then for many, onto America. The series containing around 3.5 hours of video was released on VHS in 1989 and possibly on DVD a little later. Both the book and the video are worth trying to track down for anyone interested in Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scot history.

the hardback book

Presented below are a series of clips from TV series plotting part of that journey.... Thanks to YouTube user BickyBox for uploading these clips!


Clip 1
The introduction to 'God's Frontiersmen'. This opening clip looks at an infamous section of the Anglo-Scots border communities who comprised part of the plantation settlers in Ulster; The riding families or Border Reivers.

The Ulster-Scots & The Fiddle.

Fiddle music is of course very popular in Ireland... but few know that the fiddle (or more technically, the violin) along with traditional reels were introduced into Ireland mainly by Ulster-Scots. And within a few generations the Ulstermen took their fiddle music with them to the frontiers of America where in their areas of settlement around the Appalachia it evolved over time into Old-Time and Bluegrass styles....

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The Fidula (medieval fiddle) had been known in Ireland at least since the 1500's but the style of music played on them was much different than the traditional Irish music heard today. The fiddle we know today (the Violin) arrived through Ulster probably early in the 17th century, and with the great movement of people from Scotland to Ulster at that time the popularity of the instrument (and the now traditional reels and strathspeys) spread quickly around the country in areas where the planters settled and beyond.

Playlist of over 70 videos relating to Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scots on YouTube...

watch videos above or click below...

Forged in Ulster video playlist.... click here.

Forged In Ulster's YouTube playlist of over 70 videos relating to Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scots on . History, music & culture from Ulster, America & beyond.

Free eBook... DONALD MCELROY SCOTCH IRISHMAN

Free E-Book: Donald McElroy Scotch Irishman, a novel by W.W.Caldwell, 1918

A short excerpt from this novel by Willie Walker Cadwell...

CHAPTER I

The life story of most men, who have lived earnest and active lives, would doubtless be worth the hearing, if the various influences and the many vicissitudes which compose it could be separated and skillfully rearranged into some well wrought design. As I look back upon my own life, it seems to me full of interest and instruction, yet I suppose not more so than that of many another; wherefore, were personal experiences and conclusions the sum of it, I should hesitate to write them down, lest those events and struggles which to me have seemed notable and significant, should prove in the telling of them to have been but commonplace incidents to which all are liable. Because of the accident of my birth in the year 1754, however, I have lived through a period which will be ever memorable in the history of the world—a period so crowded with worthy deeds and great men, especially on this continent, that there is small danger its interest will be soon exhausted. Do not conclude that I intend to venture upon a tale of the American Revolution; only a master's hand can fill in with due skill and proportion so wide a canvas, and that story waits. Where my own life's story has been entangled with some of the events of that struggle I must touch upon them, and the real purpose of my narrative—which is to chronicle for future generations the noble part played in the great drama of the nation's making by a certain worthy people—will require me to review briefly a few of the battles and campaigns of our war against autocracy.

The Scotch-Irish - A poem from 1890

A poem by Mrs. Kate Brownlee Sherwood, of Canton, O.  First published in The Scotch Irish In America 1891.

The Scotch-Irish

From Scot and Celt and Pict and Dane, 
And Norman, Jute, and Frisian,
Our brave Scotch-Irish come; 
With tongues of silver, hearts of gold, 
And hands to smite when wrongs are bold,
At call of pipe or drum.

"We're nothing like THOSE Kennedys!" - Book review of 'The Other Irish'

From the Huffington Post...

Book review of 'The Other Irish' by Karen McCarthey.
by: Court Stroud

Click to buy at Amazon

"We're nothing like those Kennedys. They're Catholic!" my petite, schoolmarm grandmother chided through pursed lips. Her terse reply startled me since Kennedy was her maiden name. I never mentioned the matter again, but often wondered why my query upset her so much.

An Ulster-Scots / Scotch-Irish Nation?

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jqmv8


What is a nation? Is it the same as a country? Are a people, or a tribe, the same thing as a nation?

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in five episodes, American writer & journalis Michael Goldfarb tries to find the answers. This 14min essay was the first episode and looks at the close connections between Ulster's Protestant community and their blood relations in America, the Scotch-Irish. Separated by centuries and an ocean they still have many cultural similarities including using religion as a principle of political action.


"No Surrender" and the "South Will Rise Again" are not just slogans to be tattooed on biceps and across knuckles. They are phrases that define the tribe's pugnacious sense of self-righteousness - but it is it enough to make those of Ireland's North and America's South a nation? 
Listen on the link below