I Am Northern Ireland
The Ancesteral Home Of The Scots Irish
The Scots Irish
Most people associate that the immigration to America from Ireland was during the famine in the eighteen hundreds. The immigration from Northern Ireland was a hundred years before that and they became known as the Scots Irish. Over two hundred and fifty thousand left Northern Ireland for America in the seventeen hundreds. It is estimated over 27 million Americans claim Scots-Irish descent. The people below are only a few of the many Scots Irish that helped make America what it is today - Presidents, bankers, country music legends,
writers and inventors. Many of these came from the Scots-Irish immigration to America. The people listed below are just a few of the Scots Irish race that helped to make America what it is today. The term Scots - Irish means the Scottish that came to Ireland then on to America.
General Henry Knox
One of four key generals during the American Revolution. Fort Knox and the city of Knoxville Tennessee were all named in his honour.
The Lone Star was the flag of the Scots-Irish
It was known as The Bonnie Blue Flag.
Princeton University
One of the Universities in America founded by the Scots-Irish.
Davy Crockett
Mark Twain
Daniel Boon
Ulysses Grant
The Nashville flag
We have been twin cities with Nashville since 1992.
Andrew Jackson
Three Confederate Generals in the American Civil War
of Scots Irish decent.
Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson.
Robert Edward Lee.
James Ewell Brown Stuart known as Jeb to his friends.
The Last Post.
This is one of the claims where the Last Post originated.
Reportedly it all began in 1862 during the American Civil War, when Union Army Captain Robert Ellecombe heard. moans from a severely wounded soldier in the field. The confederate Army was on the other side of the narrow strip of Land.
Not knowing if it was a Confederate or Union soldier he crawled on his stomach through the gunfire to reach the stricken soldier and pull him towards the Union Lines. When he reached his lines he realised it was a Confederate soldier that he had rescued. The Captain lit a lantern and suddenly caught his breath and went into shock! in the dim light he saw the face of the soldier ... it was his own son. The boy had been studying music in the South when the war broke out and had enlisted in the Confederate Army without telling his father.
The following morning heartbroken, the Captain asked permission of his superiors to give his son a full military burial but his request was only partially granted. The Captain asked if he could have a group of of Army band members to pay a funeral dirge at the burial. Out of respect for the Captain, they allowed him to have one musician, the Captain chose a bugler. He asked the bugler to play a series of musical notes he had found on pieces of paper in the pocket of the deceased son. The haunting melody, we now know as " The Last Post" used at military funerals was born.
Here are the words to that melody
Day is done, gone the sun from the lakes. The Hills. The Sky.
All is well, safely rest God is nigh... Fading light dims the sight and a star gems the sky. Gleaming bright from afar. Drawing nigh, falls the night... Thanks and praise for our boys neath the sun...
Lewis and Clarke
The Lewis and Clark Expedition from 31 of August 1803 to September 25th 1806 was also known as the corps Of Discovery Expedition. It began in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania and made its way westward, and crossed the Continental Divide of the Americas before reaching the Pacific coast. President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the expedition under the command of Caption Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Lieutenant William Clark.
Samuel Houston
Sam houston was an American soldier and politician. An important leader in the Texas revolution Houston served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas. He was one of the first two people to represent Texas in the United States Senate.
Audie Leon Murphy
Audie Murphy was a soldier, actor, songwriter and rancher. He was born in Texas on June 1925 and died 28th of May 1971. Audie Murphy was one of the most decorated American soldiers in World War Two.
George Smith Patton Jr,KCB
General Patton was a general in the United States Army who commanded the U.S Seventh Army in the Mediterranean theatre of war in World War Two. He also lead the Third Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of of Normandy in June 1944.
Hank Williams King Of Country Music
Hank Williams is regarded as one of the most significant and influential singer/ songwriter of the 20th century. Born on September 1923 and died in Jan 1st 1953.
Dolly Parton Queen Of Country
Dolly Rebecca Parton born the 19th January 1946. Dolly is a multi instrumentalist singer songwriter. She is also a record producer actress and business woman. Dolly was born in the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee the home of many great country artists from Scots Irish descent. From a dirt poor beginning as she described it, Dolly has become one of the most influential musicians of our time.
Johnny R Cash
Johnny was born on the 26th of February 1932 in Arkansas and died on the 12th of September. He was one of the best selling artists of all time and sold more than ninety million records worldwide. He always claimed to be Scots Irish.
Rickie Lee Skaggs
Ricky Skaggs is a bluegrass singer, musician, producer and composer. He primarily plays mandolin however, he also plays Fiddle, guitar, mandocaster, and banjo.
Ricky was born in Cordell Kentucky July 18th 1954. He was inducted into the The Musicians Hall OF Fame in 2016 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2018.
Crystal Gayle
Crystal Gayle was born Brenda Gail Webb on January 9th 1951. She is an American country music singer and song writer .Crystal is the sister of Loretta Lynn and was one of the most successful crossover artists of the 1970s and 80s.
Loretta Lynn Webb
Loretta Lynn was born on the 13 of April 1932. She was an American singer songwriter with multiple gold albums in a career spanning 60 years. She had awards from the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music. Loretta Lynn has scored 24 hit singles and 11 number one albums.
Kristoffer Kristofferson
Kristoffer was born on June the 22nd 1936 in Brownsville Texas. He was an actor, singer songwriter. Among his songwriting credits were Me and Bobby McGee and Help me make it through the night.
Waylon Arnold Jennings
Waylon Jennings was born 15 of June 1937 and died on 13 of February 2002. In 1958 Buddy Holly arranged Jennings first recording session, and hired him to play bass. Jennings give up his seat on the ill-fated flight in 1959 that crashed and killed Buddy Holly.
Stephen Edwin King
Stephen King was born on 21 September 1947.
He is an American author of horror ,supernatural, fiction, crime, and fantasy novels. His books have sold more than 350 million copies.
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist best known for her role in the Montgomery bus boycott. Rosa refused to surrender her seat to a white person on the same bus. Born in Alabama on 4th of February 1913 and died on 24 October 2005.
Scots Irish and the African American
With all of the sad scenes in the USA in the past few days, it is good to be reminded of the positive relations that often existed between the Scotch-Irish and their African American neighbours. Carter G Woodson is regarded as the Father of Black History. The son of former slaves, he was educated at Berea College in Kentucky, the first integrated college in the South. It was founded in 1855 by a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Minister, Rev John Fee. Writing about the community he grew up in, Carter G Woodson wrote,
"… the strongest stock among these immigrants, however, were the Scotch-Irish, "a God-fearing, Sabbath-keeping, covenant-adhering, liberty-loving and tyrant-hating race" which had formed its ideals under the influence of philosophy of John Calvin, John Knox, Andrew Melville, and George Buchanan. By these thinkers they had been taught to emphasise equality, freedom of conscience, and political liberty ... when they demanded liberty for the colonists they spoke also for the slaves ... the ideals of the westerners were principally those of the Scotch-Irish, working for "civil liberty in fee simple, and an open road to civil honour's, secured to the poorest and feeblest members of society" ...they therefore hated the institution [of slavery] ... on the early southern frontier there was more prejudice against the slave holder than against the Negro ..."
John Paul Getty
The Gettys immigrated from Co Londonderry and made their fortune in the petroleum Industry.
John Paul Getty
Thomas Mellon
The Mellons were from a farm in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Their family home is now The American Folk museum and attracts many visitors every year. They also host a large bluegrass festival with performers from different parts of the world. They founded the Mellon bank in 1869 and had investments in many other industries.
Thomas Mellon
Edward Higgins White 11 the first American to walk in space
Ed White was a test pilot, astronaut and military officer. Born on the 14th of November 1930 in San Antonio Texas. He died on the 3rd of June 1965 with astronauts Virgil Gus Grissom and Robert B.Chaffee during the prelaunch testing of the first manned Apollo mission at Cape Canaveral. He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and the Congressional Space Medal of Honour posthumously.
Cyrus Hall McCormic
Cyrus McCormick was born in 1809 in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Cyrus was the inventor of the mechanical reaper that changed farming in America. He founded the Harvest Machine Company which later became part of the International Harvest Company in 1902
John Boyd Dunlop
John Boyd Dunlop was a veterinary surgeon and inventor of pneumatic tyres.
Stephen Foster
Stephen Foster born in 1826 was known as "the Father of American music. He wrote more than 200 songs like Oh Susanna, Camptown Races, Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair, My Old Kentucky Home, Old Black Joe and Beautiful Dreamer etc.
Scots Irish flag in America
John Hughes
New York
Heartland was the first CD I wrote and recorded. It tells of the immigration of the the Scots-Irish from their ancestral home Northern Ireland to the United States of America in the seventeen hundreds. When people think of immigration from Ireland they automatically think of the famine. The Scots-Irish made their journey one hundred years before that and had pushed on from Pennsylvania westward on wagon trains. They spread out through Virginia and Tennessee westward to Missouri and the Rio Grande. They had been forced out of Ireland through rack renting and persecution and were not able to practice their faith freely. Most of them would have been Presbyterian and held very strong christian values. Because of the lack on ministers many converted to the Baptist faith over the years.
The Scots Irish
They landed in Pennsylvania and on to Philadelphia
Caught the wagon train took the great wagon Road
They spread out through Virginia and on to Tennessee
Westward to Missouri on to the Rio Grande
Some hungered for their homes like a dog clings to it's bones
They clung to what ever that they had
But with their strength and their will
They Know they can't stand still
And With all of the dangers they move on.
It was seventeen seventeen when the first ship set sail
To take them to a new life in a new world far away
They were weavers they were farmers men of many trades
they were determined hard working they were brave
On wooden ships they sailed many floundered in the gales
But in their thousands they kept coming
With their hopes and their faith
The Ulster Scots set sail
And with bibles in their hands they moved on.
From this Northern Irish race history would be made
AS they led the battle for the freedom of the land
When the forces of the crown were sent to put them down
Four hundred Virginian's turned the force around
George Washington said if defeated everwhere
I will make my stand for liberty
Amongst the Scots Irish in my native Virginia
When the war is over we'll be free
In the Appalachian mountains sat and played their music
Sang about their journeys from the old world to the new
They called them"hill-billies" as they played their billy tunes
Built homesteads in the mountains with the dangers that they Knew
They were frontiersmen who went to defend
Texas at the Alamo
And many died died there with pride
Davy Crockett is the one you'll know.
They give all they had to America
AS they moved to all parts of the land
And in the battles of the civil wars
On both sides they took their stand
Seventeen US Presidents
Came from the Scots Irish race
And the astronaut Edward D White
Was the first American to walk in space
If the ask you where you come from
Walking in the Shenandoah
Tell them you Scots Irish
You have been there for three hundred years or more
Jim Lindsay
They settled in the Appalachian mountains telling their stories through their songs and so began the birth of country music. Many of the big country stars today are from Scots-Irish stock no-one less than the great Dolly Parton. Blue Grass is one of the main music styles to come from the Appalachian mountains also known as Hillbilly music. Billy is an old Scottish word for friend and they were all friends and family finding their new freedom in America.
Many famous people came from the Scots-Irish race including nineteen US presidents. Andrew Jackson, Ulysses Grant and Woodrow Wilson are just a few who came from Scots Irish roots. In the American war of independence one of the turning points in the war was the defeat of the British forces at Kings Mountain. They suffered heavy losses to the Scots-Irish frontiers men with their long rifles. In the American civil war they fought on both sides - for the south with Stonewall Jackson - for the north with Ulysses Grant. Some of the most famous frontiers men from the Scots Irish stock who helped open up the west were men like Jim Bowie, Davie Crockett and Kit Carson. This has been a forgotton history not recognized at times for their contribution to America. The Geddes, the Mellons in finance and the astronaut Edward D.White the first man to walk in space. People like Cyrus McCormic who invented the first practical reaping machine to revolutionize farming in America. The term Scots-Irish is not a hybrid name but means the Scottish who came from Scotland to the north of Ireland and then on to the United States of America. There was not great contact between the Scots and the Irish as the Irish saw them as invaders of their lands. Before the Scots arrived in Ireland during the plantation it was bog land and with their skills and hard work they developed it. Belfast became one of the great industrial cities in the early ninteen hundreds through its shipbuilding and weaving industries. There is a lot of information on the web site Ulster-Scots.website . They prefer to use the term Ulster-Scots rather than the term Scot-Irish. Some other famous Scots- Irish are :- Stephen Foster, one of Americas eminent song writers, Samuel Longhorne Clemens better known as Mark Twain. The adventures of Huckleberry Finn was one of his great novels. John Boyd Dunlop, the inventer of the first pneumatic inflatable tyre.
A list of Presidents with Scots Irish roots.
Andrew Jackson 7th president
James Knox 11th
James Buchanan 15th
Andrew Johnson 17th
Ulysses Grant 18th
Chester A Arthur 21st
Grover Cleveland 22st
Benjamin Harrison 23rd
William McKinley 25th
Theodore Rosevelt 26th
William Howard Taff 27th
Woodrow Wilson 28th
Warren Harden 29th
Harry S Truman 33rd
Richard Nixon 37th
Jimmy Carter 39th
George H Bush 41st
William Jerrerson Clinton 42nd
George W Bush 43rd
There are many more famous people who came from the North of Ireland and gave up everything for a new life in America.
There are many good books available relating to their quest for a better life. Gods Frontiers Men and Born Fighting are two books I would recommend. Some new books by my friend Alister McReynolds
are now available on Amazon.
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Gods Frontiers Men
Rory Fitzpatrick
Born Fighting
James Webb
Legacy of The Scots Irish
Alister McReynolds
Kith And Kin
Alister McReynolds
