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.
Anyone who lives in Ulster will be very familiar with surnames such as Armstrong, Irving, Murray, Kerr, Maxwell, Johnstone, Carruthers, Potts, Elliott, Burns, Douglas, Bell, Crozier, Scott & Graham. These are all Border Reiver family names.
Many Ulster-Scots (Scots-Irish) are descended from these Border Reivers; lawless clans from the border between Scotland & England, where a lifestyle of raiding and marauding was the only way to survive. They started off as subsistence farmers but owing to their geographical position they were frequently harassed by passing armies who, at the very least, would require provisioning, often without payment, but who were more often hell bent on destroying everything before them and causing as much damage and misery as they could. Crops were destroyed, homesteads burnt and the people murdered or dispersed.
It is no coincidence that these people, having had their crops regularly destroyed and their livestock stolen, looked for other means of sustaining themselves and their families... They took to reiving.
Raiding parties in battle
a short excerpt from Born Fighting on the Reivers
For over 400 years between the 13th & 17th centuries, warring families from both sides of the lawless border valleys would carry out deadly raids on each other. These skilled warrior horsemen would live a life of looting, arson, murder & rustling. The life of the Border Reiver was not necessarily ruled by his allegiance to the English or Scottish Crowns, but more likely by his allegiance to a family surname. The history of the Border Reivers has many similarities to that of the American Wild West. It produced its share of outlaws and broken men, corrupt officials, greed, misery and struggle for survival.
Reiver map of the Scottish - English border
Reiver re-enactors
In 1603 James VI of Scotland became James I of England. He immediately set about unifying the two countries and started by bringing the Reivers under control. Many Reiver families were faced with the choice of hanging or accept exile across the Irish sea to the wild badlands of Ulster as part of James' Plantation project to bring the Irish natives under control.
ballads of the Border Reivers
In Ulster the Border Reiver family names were found in particularly concentrated numbers in county Fermanagh. Are you descended from the Border Reivers? Have a look a this list of the major family names from the Border Reivers website.
