Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 19 on 20/3/2005.

This article is 44 months old and some information provided may be time sensitive. Please check all details of events, tours, opening times and other information before travelling or making arrangements.

Arms across the Irish sea

The link between Scotland and Ireland is a strong one, never more so than with Ulster. David Gordan looks at the association and its implications worldwide.

The Scots-Irish or Ulster Scots. Whatever name you choose, more than 27 million Americans claim their roots lie in the borders and south west of Scotland, and the townlands of Ulster.

They arrived to colonise the north of Ireland before making their way to America, settling in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.

Their roots in the Scottish Borders and on the west coast are well documented. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Scotland was a land of poverty, violence and religious intolerance.

The Borders area was a marshy and mainly uncultivated region farmed by tenants. As was also the case in the Highlands, the average home was made with mud walls and had a central hole on the roof acting as the chimney.

Whilst life was generally poor, religion was strong. In the reformed Presbyterian Church, discipline was strict, with everyone compelled to attend church twice on Sundays. In some districts, particularly during the Covenanting period, houses were checked to ensure no one had stayed at home.

Around the same time, land in Ireland owned by the Lord of Clandeboye, Conn O’Neill, was divided up between two Scottish landowners, Hugh Montgomery and James Hamilton. Both men wasted no time in enlisting Scottish settlers for their new extensive tracts of land.

They brought in farmers, who, in turn, brought in under-tenants, craftsmen and labourers. The Ulster Plantation stemmed from this move, with settlers arriving from Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, the .....

To read the rest of this article you can buy this issue or subscribe to Scotland Magazine to have every issue delivered direct to your door.

By David Gordon

Section : Scottish Ancestry

Page number : 24