Scotch-Irish Americans

==Origins==
{{Main|Ulster Protestants|Ulster Scots people|Anglo-Irish people|English Dissenters}}
{{see also|Gallowglass|Gaels}}
Because of the proximity of the islands of Britain and Ireland, migrations in both directions had been occurring since Ireland was first settled after the [[ice age|retreat of the ice sheets]]. [[Gaels]] from Ireland colonized current southwestern Scotland as part of the Kingdom of [[Dál Riata]], eventually mixing with the native [[Picts|Pictish]] culture throughout Scotland.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}} The Irish Gaels had previously been named [[Scoti]] by the [[Roman Empire|Romans]], and eventually their name was applied to the entire [[Kingdom of Scotland]].{{citation needed|date=April 2016}}

The origins of the Scotch-Irish lie primarily in the [[Scottish Lowlands|Lowlands]] of [[Scotland]] and in northern [[England]], particularly in the [[Border Country]] on either side of the [[Anglo-Scottish border]], a region that had seen centuries of conflict.<ref>David Hackett Fischer, ''Albion's Seed'', Oxford, 1989, p. 618.</ref> In the near constant state of war between England and Scotland during the Middle Ages, the livelihood of the people on the borders was devastated by the contending armies. Even when the countries were not at war, tension remained high, and royal authority in one or the other kingdom was often weak. The uncertainty of existence led the people of the borders to seek security through a system of family ties, similar to the [[Scottish clan|clan system]] in the [[Scottish Highlands]]. Known as the [[Border Reivers]], these families relied on their own strength and cunning to survive, and a culture of cattle raiding and thievery developed.<ref>George MacDonald Fraser, ''The Steel Bonnets'', HarperCollins, 1995.</ref>

[[File:IrelandUlster.svg|right|thumb|A Map of Ireland. The counties are indicated by thin black lines, including those in [[Ulster]] in green, and the modern territory of [[Northern Ireland]] indicated by a heavy black border across the island that separates six of the Ulster counties from the other three.]]

Though remaining politically distinct, Scotland, England (considered at the time to include Wales, annexed in 1535), and Ireland came to be ruled by a single monarch with the [[Union of the Crowns]] in 1603, when [[James I of England|James VI]], King of Scots, succeeded [[Elizabeth I]] as ruler of England and Ireland. In addition to the unstable border region, James also inherited Elizabeth's conflicts in Ireland. Following the end of the Irish [[Nine Years' War (Ireland)|Nine Years' War]] in 1603, and the [[Flight of the Earls]] in 1607, James embarked in 1609 on a systematic plantation of English and Scottish Protestant settlers to Ireland's northern province of Ulster.<ref>Patrick Macrory, ''The Siege of Derry'', Oxford, 1980, pp. 31–45.</ref>  The [[Plantation of Ulster]] was seen as a way to relocate the [[Border Reiver]] families to Ireland to bring peace to the Anglo-Scottish border country, and also to provide fighting men who could suppress the native Irish in Ireland.<ref>George MacDonald Fraser, ''The Steel Bonnets'', HarperCollins, 1995, pp. 363, 374–376.</ref><ref>Patrick Macrory, ''The Siege of Derry.', Oxford, 1980, p. 46.</ref>

The first major influx of Scots and English into Ulster had come in 1606 during the settlement of east [[County Down|Down]] onto land cleared of native Irish by private landlords chartered by James.<ref>Philip Robinson, ''The Plantation of Ulster'', St. Martin's Press, 1984, pp. 52–55.</ref>  This process was accelerated with James's official plantation in 1609, and further augmented during the subsequent [[Irish Confederate Wars]]. The first of the [[House of Stuart|Stuart]] Kingdoms to collapse into civil war was Ireland where, prompted in part by the anti-Catholic rhetoric of the [[Covenanters]] in Scotland, Irish Catholics launched a [[Irish Rebellion of 1641|rebellion in October]], 1641.<ref name="John Kenyon 1998 p. 278">John Kenyon, Jane Ohlmeyer, John Morrill, eds. (1998). ''The Civil Wars: A Military History of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1638–1660''. Oxford University Press. p. 278.</ref>

In reaction to the proposal by [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] and [[Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford|Thomas Wentworth]] to raise an army manned by Irish Catholics to put down the Covenanter movement in Scotland, the [[Parliament of Scotland]] had threatened to invade Ireland in order to achieve "the extirpation of [[Popery]] out of Ireland" (according to the interpretation of [[Richard Bellings]], a leading Irish politician of the time). The fear this caused in Ireland unleashed a wave of massacres against Protestant English and Scottish settlers, mostly in Ulster, once the rebellion had broken out. All sides displayed extreme cruelty in this phase of the war. Around 4000 settlers were massacred and a further 12,000 may have died of privation after being driven from their homes. This, along with Irish Catholic refugees fleeing, caused Ireland's population to drop by 25%.<ref name="John Kenyon 1998 p. 278"/>

[[William Petty]]'s figure of 37,000 Protestants massacred is far too high, perhaps by a factor of ten; certainly more recent research suggests that a much more realistic figure is roughly 4,000 deaths.<ref name=BBC-Lough-Kernan>Staff, [https://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/northern_ireland/ni_6/article_2.shtml Secrets of Lough Kernan] [[BBC]], Legacies UK history local to you, website of the BBC. Accessed 17 December 2007</ref> In one notorious incident, the Protestant inhabitants of [[Portadown Massacre|Portadown]] were taken captive and then massacred on the bridge in the town.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.libraryireland.com/HullHistory/16412.php |title=The Rebellion of 1641-42 |publisher=Libraryireland.com |access-date=2012-06-04}}</ref> The settlers responded in kind, as did the [[Dublin Castle administration]], with attacks on the Irish civilian population. Massacres of native civilians occurred at [[Rathlin Island]] and elsewhere.<ref name=TR-143>{{cite book |surname1=Royle |given1=Trevor |year=2004 |title=Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638–1660 |location=London |publisher=Abacus |isbn=978-0-349-11564-1 |page=143}}</ref>

In early 1642, the Covenanters sent an army to [[Ulster]] to defend the Scottish settlers there from the Irish rebels who had attacked them after the outbreak of the rebellion. The original intention of the Scottish army was to re-conquer Ireland, but due to logistical and supply problems, it was never in a position to advance far beyond its base in eastern Ulster. The Covenanter force remained in Ireland until the end of the civil wars but was confined to its garrison around [[Carrickfergus]] after its defeat by the native Ulster Army at the [[Battle of Benburb]] in 1646. After the war was over, many of the soldiers settled permanently in Ulster. Another major influx of Scots into Ulster occurred in the 1690s, when tens of thousands of people fled a famine in Scotland to come to Ireland.

A few generations after arriving in Ireland, considerable numbers of Ulster-Scots emigrated to the [[British America|North American colonies of Great Britain]] throughout the 18th century (between 1717 and 1770 alone, about 250,000 settled in what would become the [[United States]]).<ref>Alister McReynolds. [http://www.nitakeacloserlook.gov.uk/index/american-connections/scots-irish.htm "Scots-Irish"]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090216090343/http://www.nitakeacloserlook.gov.uk/index/american-connections/scots-irish.htm |date=2009-02-16 }}, nitakeacloserlook.gov.uk</ref> According to Kerby Miller, ''Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America'' (1988), [[Protestantism|Protestants]] were one-third the population of Ireland, but three-quarters of all emigrants leaving from 1700 to 1776; 70% of these Protestants were Presbyterians. Other factors contributing to the mass exodus of Ulster Scots to America during the 18th century were a series of [[drought]]s and rising rents imposed by their landlords.

During the course of the 17th century, the number of settlers belonging to [[Calvinism|Calvinist]] dissenting sects, including [[Scotland|Scottish]] and [[Northumbria]]n [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]], English [[Baptists]], French and Flemish [[Huguenot]]s, and [[German Palatines]], became the majority among the Protestant settlers in the province of Ulster. However, the Presbyterians and other dissenters, along with Catholics, were not members of the [[established church]] and were consequently legally disadvantaged by the [[Penal Laws (Ireland)|Penal Laws]], which gave full rights only to members of the [[Church of England]] or [[Church of Ireland]].{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}

Members of the Church of Ireland mostly consisted of the [[Protestant Ascendancy]], Protestant settlers of English descent who formed the [[elite]] of 17th and 18th century Ireland. For this reason, up until the 19th century, and despite their common fear of Irish Catholics, there was considerable disharmony between the [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]] and the Protestant Ascendancy in Ulster. As a result of this, many Ulster-Scots, along with Catholic native Irish, ignored religious differences to join the [[Society of United Irishmen|United Irishmen]] and participate in the [[Irish Rebellion of 1798]], in support of [[Age of Enlightenment]]-inspired [[Egalitarianism|egalitarian]] and [[Republicanism|republican]] goals.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}