Conceived in Liberty, authored byMurray Rothbard, is a 4-volume narrative concerning the history of the United States from the pre-colonial period through the American Revolution. The volumes, released in the 1970's are beloved by specialists and respected by historians. The 12 minute audio excerpt presented below is from Volume II, Chapter 10: "The Ulster Scots". Volume II - "Salutary Neglect" covers the American colonies in the first half of the 18th century. Chapter 10 details the arrival & settlement of the Scots-Irish in Pennsylvania, as well as the reception they received from the Puritans in an earlier settlement in New England.
10. The Ulster Scots. Conceived in Liberty: Vol. II - "Salutary Neglect": The American Colonies in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century.
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....
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 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.
In an interview with author Nell Irving Painter, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert puts his opinion across albeit with tongue planted firmly in cheek:
“Scots-Irish are not Irish. There’s no Irish blood in Scots-Irish people. They are Scots Presbyterians who were given land in Ireland. They took our land, and drove my people across the River Shannon, where we were forced to farm rocks by Oliver Cromwell, and I will see him rot in hell before you call Scots-Irish people Irish!”
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is of Irish Catholic heritage. He grew up in South Carolina, his wife is of Scots-Irish heritage. He once quipped; "I am in a mixed-race marriage. I’m Irish, and my wife is Scots-Irish. Somehow we make it work.”
So was Stephen's tongue in cheek statment correct?... I guess it all depends on your point of view. Certainly the early Scots-Irish families that settled in colonial America had only lived in Ireland for a couple of generations before moving on, and still today in Northern Ireland many Ulster-Scots don't regard themselves as Irish.... But, Scots have been migrating to-and-fro between Ulster and south western Scotland for thousands of years. In fact the first human settlers in Ulster were from the land now known as Scotland so these people of northern Britain were indigenous to Ulster. The inhabitants of both lands shared the same ancestors. The Y-DNA gene pattern called M222, the so called 'Niall of the Nine Hostages' marker is most common in Northern Ireland and Lowland Scotland. It can be found in many Ulster-Scots and is proof of the close genetic similarities of the people of Ulster and the Lowlands of Scotland.
Many of the early Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scots settlers in America did indeed regard themselves as Irish. Having been born in Ireland their nationality was certainly Irish even though they were ethnically & culturally Scottish. These Scots-Irish even created the tradition of St. Patrick's day parades in America. This was in a time before the emergence of Irish Nationalism deemed that one had to be a Catholic and a Gael to be considered Irish.
So were the Scots-Irish actually Irish? Well, what do you mean by Irish? Are you talking nationality? ethnicity? culture? citizenship? In my opinion it's all down to interpretation. Of the many ethnic groups, tribes or cultures which have existed on the island of Ireland over the millennia, not one has exclusivity on the term 'Irish'.
the first Irish society in America was formed by Ulster Presbyterians
It is usually assumed that Irish Catholics were the first to bring the traditions of St. Patrick's day to America and were the first to hold parades on that day to celebrate their Irishness. That assumption is wrong...
In 1737 theCharitable Irish Societywas formed in Boston by Scots-Irish Ulster Presbyterian colonists. The Society was set up with the purpose to assist newly arriving fellow immigrants from Ireland in the traumatic process of settling in a strange new country. In March 17th of that year they decided to mark St. Patrick's day with a dinner at a local tavern followed by a modest parade through the streets. This was to be the first St. Patrick's Day parade in America, and most likely the world (Ireland didn't commemorate Patrick with parades until the 1930's). The Charitable Irish Society is the oldest Irish organisation in America and it is still in existence. It was exclusively Presbyterian until 1804 when the society became non-denominational. Today, understandably, it's membership is mostly made up of Catholics.
greeting card featuring the St. Patrick's flag of Ireland.
It is often wrongly cited that the first St. Patrick's Day parade was held in New York but the first records of celebrations for the Irish apostle in that city come from 1762 (25 years after the Boston event). An Irish Protestant called John Marshall invited Friends to his house at Mount Pleasant for a party to celebrate the day. His guests marched as a body to the party thus forming the first unofficial "parade".
In 1766, the first proper St. Paddy's day parade in New York was held when soldiers from the British Army's Irish regiments met at the Crown & Thistle tavern in Manhattan, drank a toast to King George III and then paraded through New York with the "playing of fifes and drums, which produced a very agreeable harmony." before heading back to the pub for more drinks. These were Irish Protestant soldiers, as Catholics were forbidden from joining the army until 1778. Today, Irish regiments in the British Army still mark St. Patrick's day with a parade.
British colonial troops in NYC
Also in 1766 the New York Gazette reported on a notable March 17th celebration at the house of a gentleman by the name of Mr. Bardin. Among the toasts raised on the evening were; "The prosperity of Ireland!", "Success to the Sons Of Liberty in America!" and "The glorious memory of King William of Orange!".
On 17th March 1780, in honour of his large contingent of Irish soldiers, General George Washington issued a General Order to give his troops the day off for St. Patrick's day. Over one third of the Continental Army were of Irish descent or Irish born, the vast majority of whom were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. Soldiers from within these ranks had formed a society called TheFriendly Sons of St. Patrick in 1771 of which George Washington was an honorary member. The original society was largely Scots-Irish in membership with some Anglo-Irish Episcopalians and three Irish Catholics, one of whom they elected as their first president; General Stephen Moylan. The Friendly Sons held the first St. Paddy's celebrations in Philadelphia in 1771 where the organisation had been formed. They also organised the official St. Patrick's day parades in New York city from 1784 into the 1800's.
The Friendly Son's membership was originally mostly Scots-Irish (Ulster-Scots)
On March 17, 1812, in Savannah Georgia, thirteen men founded the Hibernian Society, dedicated to aiding largely Catholic destitute Irish immigrants. A few months later, the group, now up to 44 members, adopted a constitution and the motto, "non sibi sed alis" (not for ourselves, but for others). Not one charter member was a Catholic. One year later, on March 17, 1813 the group held the city's first St Paddy's day parade. They marched in procession to a Presbyterian church.
It's a similar story with Canada's oldest parade;Montreal’s St. Patrick’s Day parade was first held in 1824. Soon after, the St. Patrick's Society was born in the city, it's membership was overwhelmingly Protestant. In 1856, many of the members left and formed the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society.However, the first recorded celebration of St Patrick's Day in Canada was in 1759, again by Irish Protestant soldiers serving with the British army, this was following their conquest of part of New France, a French colony in North America.
The Canadian Irish Protestant Benevolent Society
From the mid 1800's, as Catholic immigrants from Ireland started to outnumber their Protestant counterparts the parades started being organised and controlled by the exclusively Catholic Ancient Order of Hibernians, which was formed in New York in 1836. The parades became less secular and took on a Catholic, Nationalist political outlook. Non-denominational societies such as The Friendly Sons, The Charitable Irish & the Hibernian Society became more Catholic & Gaelic, moving away from their Protestant origins. Thanks though, to it's Irish Protestant beginnings in America, St. Patrick's Day celebrations remained less serious than in Ireland, where it was considered a day of holy obligation. In fact, until the 1970s the bars in Dublin were closed on March 17.
St. Patrick stained glass window in Armagh's Protestant cathedral.
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Another common misconception today is that Irish-Americans are predominately Catholic. This is an easy assumption to make as in the last 160 years the overwhelming majority of Irish immigrants to the USA have indeed been Catholic... But in fact more than half of the 40 million Americans who claim Irish heritage are Protestant in faith. One of the main factors for this is that in the colonial period 30 percent of all immigrants from Europe arriving between 1700 and 1820 came from Ireland and the great majority of those were Presbyterians from Ulster. To give perspective on this; in 1790, when Fr. John Carroll was ordained as the first Roman Catholic bishop of the USA, there were approx 30,000 practising Catholics (around 1% of the population) and 22 priests in the new United States. This number represented Catholics of all nationalities (English, Irish, Dutch, German etc.). At the same time there were around 200 practising Presbyterian ministers from Ulster alone and an estimated 250,000 Scots-Irish.
Although they didn't come in numbers as huge as the later Catholic wave of immigration the descendants of these early Scots-Irish arrivals have been multiplying ever since. A study in the 1970's showed that 83% of Irish-American Protestants have been in America for four generations or more compared to only 41% of Irish-American Catholics.
Patrick, apostle of Ulster
There seems to be a growing trend in America for people of Irish Protestant heritage to wear orange on St. Patrick's day in recognition of their faith & heritage. In the video clip below from The Simpsons, the Orange & the Green fight it out on St. Paddy's Day!
Saint Patrick's story is essentially an Ulster story. According to the legends it was Ulster where he was enslaved as a boy, that is where he returned to as a man. It's where he built his first church, it's where he evangelized and it is where he lived & died. Today, St. Patrick's grave stone can be viewed in the grounds of Down Anglican Cathedral in Downpatrick, Ulster... not far from where he built his first house of Christian worship in Saul, Co. Down.
St. Patrick mural in an Ulster-Scots district of Belfast.
A lot of people like to make the point that the Scottish are in fact ancestrally Irish, which is only partly true. They are usually referring of course to the Scoti, a Latin name given by the Romans to describe Irish raiders, who would loot & plunder parts of northern Britain in the 4th century before later going on to carve out the kingdom of Dalriada. Of course there was already a large population of indigenous Picts & Britons living in Caledonia (Scotland) long before the arrival of the Scoti. The kingdom of Dalriada and the greater Highlands area has always been sparsely populated and the vast majority of the Scottish people have always lived in the Lowlands. If the Scoti were indeed Irish settlers/invaders of the western Highlands (some academics nowdoubt this) then it's estimated there would have been only a few thousand souls that settled there during that time. Today the population of the entire Highlands is less than 5% of the total population of Scotland, even though it covers a third of the country's land mass. In fact there is a lot more traceable Ulster genetic heritage in the Lowlands than there is in the Highlands. So while a portion of Scotland's population overall is undoubtedly descended from the Irish, the majority isn't.
Ulster-Scottish kingdom of Dalriada
Going in the opposite direction, there has always been migration of people from Scotland to Ulster, stretching back to Mesolithic period when the first humans permanently settled in Ireland. Long before the Plantations, before the Hamilton & Montgomery settlement, before the Gallowglass (the Antrim Scots), the Scots had influence in Ulster.
In the summer of 637, the Battle Of Moira was reputed to be the largest battle ever fought on the island of Ireland. King Congal of Ulster and his allies from Dalriada mustered an army of Ulstermen, Cruthin, Scots, Picts & Anglo Saxons (Sassenachs) to fight against the High King of Ireland, Domnall II. The defeat & death of Congal led to the loss of Ulaid & Dalriada territory to the Ui'Neills and the retreat of many Ulstermen/Cruthin to Scotland. The Cruthin people of Ulster were referred to by the Gaels as Picts. The Irish word Cruithnemeaning that they believed the Cruthin originated in Pritani (or Qritani in Goidelic), which was Britain, most likely from modern day Scotland. Perhaps they had originally spoke the same ancient form of the Brythonic (British) celtic language as the Scottish Picts. Noted historian professor T. F. O'Rahilly said of the Cruthin, that they were "the earliest inhabitants of these islands to whom a name can be assigned".
Battle of Moira, Co. Down 673 A.D.
Even before the Ulster-Scottish kingdom of Dalriada and even before the Cruthin there were 'Scots' (or rather people originating from northern Britain) in Ulster. One of the earliest known human settlements in Ireland is in Mountsandel, Co. Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It's believed these Mesolithic peoples came here from Scotland, first settling in Co Antrim some 9000 years ago. It is thought they were attracted to the coast of Co. Antrim in the search for flint, which they would have known was to be found in the limestone cliffs they could see distantly glinting in the sun from the coast of modern day Scotland. Flint was a rare and valuable commodity in northern Britain. These were amongst Ireland's first people. They would have been descendants of Iberian migrants who first settled southern England and over the course of many generations, as the Ice Age receded, moved up through Britain and finally over to Ireland, maybe via a seasonal land-bridge connecting south west Scotland to the Antrim coast. The ancient stone Court Cairn tombs of the British Isles, built around 6000 years ago in the Neolithic period are most highly concentrated in South west Scotland & North East Ireland. This is proof of a common culture and shared beliefs between Scotland and Ulster going back into the midsts of time.
Mountsandel (1) and other prehistoric sites
artists impression of a Court Cairn tomb
So it is perhaps more accurate to say that the Irish are descended from the people of (what is now called) Scotland. We are indigenous peoples of this land and the migration between Ulster & Scotland has been constant throughout the millennia. Ireland, Scotland and the rest of Britain share the same ancient race of ancestors at their core. For anyone to say the Scots are foreigners in Ulster is plainly wrong and i would suggest they take a long look back into the depths of Irish history!
Formed in 1914 by Ulster-Scots migrants, Toronto Ulster United F.C. were one of the most legendary Canadian soccer teams of the past.
Also known as 'The Red Handers' They won the National Championship in 1925, 1946 and 1951 and were finalists in 1922 and 1937. Also won the Ontario Cup in 1927, 1929 and 1937. Playing in the National Soccer League, which was formed in 1926, they were champions in the first year and again in 1932, 1933, 1934 and 1941. In 1926 Ulster won the Nathan Straus Cup as champions of the International League, a competition played between U.S. and Canadian clubs. Sadly the club disbanded in 1963.
They had played against teams such as Liverpool, Manchester united, Glasgow Rangers, Sparta Prague, Belfast Celtic & Dusseldorf.
Above is a rare silent film clip from 1930 showing Ulster United take on Glasgow Rangers at the Ulster Stadium, Toronto, Canada. The event included a display of Scots culture with Scottish dancing pre-match and a regimental bagpipe band at half-time.
The teams on the day were as follows:
Ulster: Bobby Kirk, Dave Eadie, Dick Pryor, Billy Stewart, Matt Wilson, Jimmy Hagan, John Paxton, Allan Mathieson, George Graham, Jimmy Galloway, Jimmy Moir.
Rangers: T. Hamilton, Gray, R. Hamilton, McDonald, Simpson, Craig, Archibald, Brown, Fleming, Muirhead, Morton.
Unfortunately, just like the team, the Ulster Stadium no longer exists. The only reminder that stands today is a an old dive bar called the Ulster Arms Tavern that sits just across the road on Gerrard St. East where the Ulster United's ground once stood. It's over 80 years old and used to be the Ulster Arms Hotel when United were the top team in Canada. The bar has seen better days. The Ulster United team were inducted into the Canadian soccer hall of fame in 2011.
