Paul McElhinney: The huge - but little trumpeted - influence of Ulster-Scots in America

These Ulster-Scots are more often known in the United States as the Scotch-Irish or Scots-Irish.

Much has been written of the influence on the United States of Irish people from a Gaelic, nationalist and Roman Catholic background. By contrast, less is known about the impact (a notably significant one) of those from an Ulster-Scots/Scotch-Irish, Protestant background.

The reasons for this lack of attention is multi-faceted, but it has led to a somewhat skewed and incomplete understanding of the overall impact of Ireland on the United States. Indeed, according to recent US Censuses of Population, of those claiming Irish heritage (some roughly 40 million) there are, in fact, more from an Scotch-Irish background than from a Gaelic-nationalist background – a fact surprising to many given the prominent role of that latter culture in US society at large.

In fact, before the mass migrations post the Irish famine in the 1840s, the Ulster-Scots were among the first settlers in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries in what eventually became the United States.

Most of this migration focused on the Appalachian colonies/states of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and the southern areas of the Carolinas, Georgia, Arkansas and parts of the Deep South. This is very evident in the surnames of citizens in these areas which bear a strong Scottish and Ulster flavour. Names like Johnston, Nixon, Sinclair, Cochrane, McConnell (and a plethora of other Mcs and Macs) bear witness to this strong connection.

At every level, this influence has been significant. At a political level, those of Scotch-Irish heritage in the US have provided 20 Presidents of the United States, significantly more than those from a Gaelic/nationalist background. At every other rung of the political ladder, the Scotch-Irish have been strongly represented over the centuries whether as US senators, congressmen or those holding state-level and county-level positions.

Several of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence signed in Philadelphia in 1776 were of Ulster-Scots stock. Indeed, that spirit of protest and the tolerance of protest for which the US is famous is said to draw many of its roots from that very spirit of protest of the Ulster-Scots in Ulster. The zeal with which the colonial settlers confronted the King and Britain in the 1770s was closely akin to that spirit which motivated the Dissenters in Ulster in their opposition to both King James II and the Anglican English establishment some decades before the American War of Independence.

At a cultural level, the Ulster-Scots connection is also evident. The strong, sturdy and independent spirit of those from Appalachia is said to have been linked to the flinty and resilient features of the first settling Ulster-Scots from the late 17th century onwards as they settled and found their way in often inhospitable and dangerous terrains.

The Appalachian mountains provided a challenging backdrop to these early settlements - areas with such lyrical names as the Shenandoah Valley, the Cumberland Gap and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Many of the local settlers and inhabitants, moreover, became known as ‘Hillbillies’ owing to their continuing allegiance to ‘King Billy’ or King William III long after their migration from Ulster. Although the term has taken on negative, less flattering connotations in subsequent times, the original nickname related purely to their political allegiance.

Part of the well-known doggedness, devotion to duty and resilience was also said to have been as a result of the predominant Presbyterian faith of those early settlers which stood them in good stead during the straitened times experienced by most immigrant settlers. Much of the spine of the temperance and prohibition movement in the 19th and early 20th century also had a strong evangelic flavour, with those of an Ulster-Scots Presbyterian background playing prominent leadership roles in its promulgation.

What is widely known as ‘country music’ in the US is largely based on traditional Scotch-Irish folk music from the hills of Appalachia, in the states mainly of Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Even to this day, the fiddle-playing and banjo sounds in US country music are resonant of current-day folk music produced and played in Ireland.

The cross-over is strongly evident with much transatlantic interaction between the two genres. Many Irish folk and country music artists have travelled to and performed at the home of country, at Nashville and its Grand Ole Opry. By the same token, the popularity of US country music is there to see in many a country dancehall, ballroom, pub or barn across the length and breadth of Ulster.

A series of folk sessions furthermore, was organised in Ireland and Scotland some years ago called the ‘Transatlantic Sessions’ involving folk and traditional musicians from North America, Britain and Ireland, highlighting the strong links in and through music. Although not directly out of the Ulster-Scots tradition, the music of Sarah Makem (mother of balladeer, Tommy Makem) from Keady in Armagh attracted much interest from folk circles in Virginia who took the Armagh woman to their bosom almost as one of their own.

One of the difficulties faced by the Ulster-Scots/Scotch-Irish tradition within the United States in carving out its distinct identity has been the tendency of most Americans to conflate all the Irish traditions there into one big mass. Ignorance of the historical, political and cultural nuances of the Irish has been a regular feature of the debate there about Ireland and Ulster, one that has been hard to counter. Many Americans are only vaguely aware of key facts about Irish and Ulster history and politics which has only compounded the problem. The Ulster-Scots influence has been significant, if not widely known.

Paul McElhinney, a lecturer, writer and former official in the Department of the Taoiseach, has written many articles in Irish and international journals and is the author of ‘Lion of the RAF’, a biography of Air Marshal Sir George Beamish.