Scotch-Irish Americans

{{short description|American descendants of Ulster Scots}}
{{distinguish|Irish Scottish people|Ulster Scots people}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2023}}
{{Use American English|date=February 2023}}
{{Infobox ethnic group
| group            = Scotch-Irish Americans<br>Scots-Irish Americans
| total            = '''2,500,076 (0.7%) alone or in combination'''<br/>
'''977,075 (0.3%) "Scotch-Irish" alone'''<br/>
{{small|2021 estimates, self-reported}}<ref name="ACS2021">{{cite web|url=https://usa.ipums.org/usa/|title=IPUMS USA|publisher=[[University of Minnesota]]|access-date=October 12, 2022}}</ref>

'''Estimate of Scots-Irish total'''<br />'''27,000,000''' (2004)<ref>''Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America'' (New York: Broadway Books, 2004), front flap: 'More than 27 million Americans today can trace their lineage to the Scots, whose bloodline was stained by centuries of continuous warfare along the border between England and Scotland, and later in the bitter settlements of England's Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland.' {{ISBN|0-7679-1688-3}}</ref><ref name="Secret">{{cite news|last=Webb|first=James|author-link=Jim Webb|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB109814129391148708|title=Secret GOP Weapon: The Scots Irish Vote|work= [[The Wall Street Journal]]|date=October 23, 2004|access-date=September 7, 2008}}</ref><br />Up to 9.2% of the U.S. population (2004)<ref>{{cite report|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]]|title=Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2004–2005|date=August 26, 2004|url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2004/compendia/statab/124ed/tables/pop.pdf?#|page=8|access-date=June 6, 2019}}</ref>
| ref1             = 
| region2          = 
| pop2             = 
| ref2             = 
| popplace         = [[California]], [[Texas]], [[North Carolina]], [[Florida]], and [[Pennsylvania]]<br /> Historic populations in the [[Upper South]], [[Appalachia]], the [[Ozarks]] and northern [[New England]]
| langs            = [[English language|English]] ([[American English|American English dialects]]), [[Ulster Scots language|Ulster Scots]], [[Scots language|Scots]]
| rels             = Predominantly [[Calvinism|Calvinist]] ([[Presbyterianism in the United States|Presbyterian]], [[Congregationalism in the United States|Congregationalist]]), [[Baptists in the United States|Baptist]], [[Quakers|Quaker]], with a minority [[History of Methodism in the United States|Methodist]], [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopalian]]
| related          = [[Ulster Protestants]], [[Ulster Scots people|Ulster Scots]], [[Anglo-Irish people|Anglo-Irish]], 
[[English people|English]], [[Huguenots]], [[British Americans]], [[Welsh people|Welsh]], [[Manx people|Manx]], [[Irish Americans]], [[Scottish Americans]], [[English Americans]], [[American ancestry]]
}}

'''Scotch-Irish''' (or '''Scots-Irish''') '''Americans''' are American descendants of [[Ulster Scots people]] (predominantly [[Ulster Protestants]]) who emigrated from [[Ulster]] ([[Ireland|Ireland's]] northernmost province) to America during the 18th and 19th centuries. Their ancestors had originally migrated to Ulster mainly from the [[Scottish Lowlands]] and [[Northern England]] in the 17th century.<ref name="Dolan p. x">{{cite book|last=Dolan|first=Jay P.|title=The Irish Americans: A History|page=x|year=2008|isbn=978-1596914193|publisher=[[Bloomsbury Press]]|quote=The term [Scotch-Irish] had been in use during the eighteenth century to designate Ulster Presbyterians who had emigrated to the United States. From the mid-1700s through the early 1800s, however, the term Irish was more widely used to identify both Catholic and Protestant Irish. As long as the Protestants comprised the majority of the emigrants, as they did until the 1830s, they were happy to be known simply as Irish. But as political and religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants both in Ireland and the United States became more frequent, and as Catholic emigrants began to outnumber Protestants, the term Irish became synonymous with Irish Catholics. As a result, Scotch-Irish became the customary term to describe Protestants of Irish descent. By adopting this new identity, Irish Protestants in America dissociated themselves from Irish Catholics... The famine migration of the 1840s and '50s that sent waves of poor Irish Catholics to the United States together with the rise in anti-Catholicism intensified this attitude. In no way did Irish Protestants want to be identified with these ragged newcomers.}}</ref><ref>Scholarly estimates vary, but here are a few: "more than a quarter-million", [[David Hackett Fischer|Fischer, David Hackett]], ''[[Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America]]'' [[Oxford University Press]], USA (March 14, 1989), p. 606; "200,000", Rouse, Parke Jr., ''The Great Wagon Road'', Dietz Press, 2004, p. 32; "...250,000 people left for America between 1717 and 1800...20,000 were Anglo-Irish, 20,000 were Gaelic Irish, and the remainder Ulster-Scots or Scotch-Irish...", Blethen, H.T. & Wood, C.W., ''From Ulster to Carolina'', North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 2005, p. 22; "more than 100,000", Griffin, Patrick, ''The People with No Name'', [[Princeton University Press]], 2001, p. 1; "200,000", Leyburn, James G., ''The Scotch-Irish: A Social History'', [[University of North Carolina Press]], 1962, p. 180; "225,000", Hansen, Marcus L., ''The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860'', Cambridge, Mass, 1940, p. 41; "250,000", Dunaway, Wayland F. ''The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania'', Genealogical Publishing Co (1944), p. 41; "300,000", Barck, O.T. & Lefler, H.T., ''Colonial America'', New York (1958), p. 285.</ref> In the 2017 [[American Community Survey]], 5.39 million (1.7% of the population) reported Scottish ancestry, an additional 3 million (0.9% of the population) identified more specifically with Scotch-Irish ancestry, and many people who claim "[[American ancestry]]" may actually be of Scotch-Irish ancestry.<ref>[https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/17_1YR/B04006 2017 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20200213004654/https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/17_1YR/B04006 |date=2020-02-13 }} - United States Census Bureau</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Leyburn|first=James G.|title=The Scotch-Irish: A Social History|url=https://archive.org/details/scotchirishsocia0000leyb|url-access=registration|publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]]|place=[[Chapel Hill, North Carolina|Chapel Hill, NC]]|year=1962|isbn=978-0807842591|quote=[The Scotch-Irish] were enthusiastic supporters of the American Revolution, and thus were soon thought of as Americans, not as Scotch-Irish; and so they regarded themselves.|page=xi}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Carroll|first=Michael P.|title=American Catholics in the Protestant Imagination: Rethinking the Academic Study of Religion|publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]]|place=[[Baltimore]]|year=2007|isbn=978-0-8018-8683-6|quote=...the character traits associated with "being Irish", in the minds of Protestant Americans, continue to resonate with the rhetoric of the American Revolution and with the emphases of evangelical Christianity. In all three contexts— Scotch-Irishness, the American Revolution, and evangelical Christianity— there is an emphasis on rugged individualism and autonomy, on having the courage to stand up for what you believe, and on opposition to hierarchical authority. The result is that...claiming an Irish identity is a way for contemporary Protestant Americans to associate themselves with the values of the American Revolution, or, if you will, a way of using ethnicity to 'be American.'|pages=25–26}}</ref>

The term  ''Scotch-Irish'' is used primarily in the United States,<ref name=Leyburn327>Leyburn 1962, p. 327.</ref> with people in Great Britain or Ireland who are of a similar ancestry identifying as [[Ulster Scots people]]. Many left for North America, but over 100,000 Scottish Presbyterians still lived in Ulster in 1700.<ref>John Sherry, "Scottish Presbyterian networks in Ulster and the Irish House of Commons, 1692–1714." ''Parliaments, Estates and Representation'' 33.2 (2013): 120−139 at p. 121.</ref>  Many English-born settlers of this period were also Presbyterians. When King [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] attempted to force these Presbyterians into the [[Church of England]] in the 1630s, many chose to re-emigrate to North America where religious liberty was greater. Later attempts to force the Church of England's control over dissident Protestants in Ireland led to further waves of emigration to the transatlantic colonies.<ref>[http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~varockbr/scotpres.htm ''Scotch-Irish Presbyterians: From Ulster to Rockbridge'', by Angela M. Ruley 3 October 1993. Rootsweb]</ref>

==Terminology==
The term is first known to have been used for Scottish Catholics in Ireland. In a letter of April 14, 1573, in reference to descendants of "[[gallowglass]]" mercenaries from Scotland who had settled in Ireland, [[Elizabeth I]] of England wrote:

<blockquote>We are given to understand that a nobleman named [[Sorley Boy MacDonnell]] and others, who be of the Scotch-Irish race&nbsp;...<ref>''Calendar of Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery,'' as cited in Leyburn, op. cit., 329.</ref></blockquote>

This term continued in usage for over a century<ref>H. Dalrymple, ''Decisions of the Court of Sessions from 1698 to 1718,'' ed. by Bell and Bradfute (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1792), 1:73/29. See ''Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue,'' s.v. toung.</ref> before the earliest known American reference appeared in a Maryland affidavit in 1689–90.<ref>"William Pattent was at worke at James Minders and one night as I was at worke Mr Matt: Scarbrough came into the house of sd Minders and sett down by me as I was at work, the sd Minder askt him if he came afoot, he made answer again and sd he did, saying that man, meaning me, calling me Rogue makes me goe afoot, also makes it his business to goe from house to house to ruinate me, my Wife and Children for ever. I made answer is it I Mr. Scarbrough(?) and he replyed and said ay you, you Rogue, for which doing ile whip you and make my Wife whipp to whipp you, and I answered if ever I have abused (you) at any time, or to any bodies hearing, I will give you full satisfaction to your own Content. (At which Scarbrough said) You Scotch Irish dogg it was you, with that he gave me a blow on the face saying it was no more sin to kill me then to kill a dogg, or any Scotch Irish dogg, giving me another blow in the face. now saying goe to yr god that Rogue and have a warrant for me and I will answer it." Wm. Patent</ref>{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

''Scotch-Irish,'' according to James Leyburn, "is an Americanism, generally unknown in Scotland and Ireland, and rarely used by British historians".<ref>Leyburn p xi.</ref> It became common in the United States after 1850.<ref>Leyburn p. 331.</ref> The term is somewhat ambiguous because some of the Scotch-Irish have little or no Scottish ancestry at all: numerous dissenter families had also been transplanted to Ulster from northern England, in particular the border counties of [[Northumberland]] and [[Cumberland]].<ref>{{cite book|first=A. L.|last=Rowse|author-link=A. L. Rowse|title=The Expansion of Elizabethan England|url=https://archive.org/details/expansionofeliza00rows|url-access=registration|publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]]|place=New York|year=1972|orig-year=1955|page=[https://archive.org/details/expansionofeliza00rows/page/28 28]|isbn=9780684130637|quote=This the Grahams did not grasp, and the government swept down on them with a measure for transplanting them to Ireland, where James's epoch-making Plantation of Ulster was transforming the landscape. A tax was levied on [[Cumberland]] to pay for their removal, "to the intent their lands may be inhabited by others of good and honest conversation". Three boat-loads of them left from [[Workington]] in 1606 and 1607&nbsp;...}}</ref> Smaller numbers of migrants also came from [[Wales]], the [[Isle of Man]], and the southeast of England,<ref>{{cite book|last=Robinson|first=Philip S.|title=The Plantation of Ulster: British Settlement in an Irish Landscape, 1600–1670|edition=2nd|publisher=Ulster Historical Foundation|orig-year=1984|year=2000|isbn=978-1903688007|page=113|quote=Areas of English settlement in County Londonderry, north Armagh, south-west Antrim and Fermanagh support the assumption that most non-Presbyterian British were of English stock. In places these "English" settlers included Welsh and Manx men.}}</ref> and others were Protestant religious refugees from [[Flanders]], the [[German Palatines|German Palatinate]], and France (such as the French [[Huguenot]] ancestors of [[Davy Crockett]]).<ref>Robinson, Philip, ''The Plantation of Ulster'', [[St. Martin's Press]], 1984, pp. 109–128</ref> What united these different national groups was a base of [[Calvinist]] religious beliefs,<ref>Hanna, Charles A., ''The Scotch-Irish: or the Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America,'' G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1902, p. 163</ref> and their separation from the [[State church|established church]] (the [[Church of England]] and [[Church of Ireland]] in this case). That said, the large ethnic Scottish element in the Plantation of Ulster gave the settlements a Scottish character.

Upon arrival in North America, these migrants at first usually identified simply as Irish, without the qualifier ''Scotch''. It was not until a century later, following the surge in Irish immigration after the [[Great Irish Famine]] of the 1840s, that the descendants of the earlier arrivals began to commonly call themselves "Scotch-Irish" to distinguish themselves from the newer, poor, predominantly Catholic immigrants.<ref>Patrick Fitzgerald, "The Scotch-Irish & the Eighteenth-Century Irish Diaspora". ''History Ireland'' 7.3 (1999): 37–41.</ref><ref name=Dolan>{{cite book|last1=Dolan|first1=Jay P|title=The Irish Americans: A History|date=2008|publisher=Bloomsbury|page=x|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q8BMg6wu7BUC&q=scotch+irish+known+simply+as+irish&pg=PP10|access-date=13 August 2015|chapter=Preface|isbn=9781608190102}}</ref> At first, the two groups had little interaction in America, as the Scots-Irish had become settled many decades earlier, primarily in the backcountry of the [[Appalachian Mountains|Appalachian]] region. The new wave of Catholic Irish settled primarily in port cities such as Boston, New York, Charleston, Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans, where large immigrant communities formed and there were an increasing number of jobs. Many of the new Irish migrants also went to the interior in the 19th century, attracted to jobs on large-scale infrastructure projects such as [[Erie Canal#Impact|canals]] and [[First transcontinental railroad#Laborers|railroads]].<ref name=Leyburn327334>Leyburn 1962, pp. 327–334.</ref>

The usage ''Scots-Irish'' developed in the late 19th century as a relatively recent version of the term. Two early citations include: 1) "a grave, elderly man of the race known in America as 'Scots-Irish{{'"}} (1870);<ref>{{cite book|first=Robert|last=Somers|author-link=Robert Somers|title=The Southern States since the War, 1870–71|year=1965|orig-year=1870|page=239|publisher=[[University of Alabama Press]]}}</ref> and 2) "Dr. Cochran was of stately presence, of fair and florid complexion, features which testified his Scots-Irish descent" (1884).<ref>See [https://books.google.com/books?id=1bMTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA258 ''Magazine of American History'' 1884 p 258]</ref> In [[Ulster Scots dialects|Ulster-Scots]] (or "Ullans"), Scotch-Irish Americans are referred to as the ''Scotch Airish o' Amerikey''.<ref>[http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ULLANS/2004-11/1101751288 American Presidents], The [[Ulster-Scots Agency]]. Retrieved 27 October 2011.</ref>

Twentieth-century English author [[Kingsley Amis]] endorsed the traditional ''Scotch-Irish'' usage implicitly in noting that "nobody talks about ''butterscottish'' or ''hopscots'',&nbsp;... or ''Scottish pine''", and that while ''Scots'' or ''Scottish'' is how people of Scots origin refer to themselves in Scotland, the traditional English usage ''Scotch'' continues to be appropriate in "compounds and set phrases".<ref>Kingsley Amis, ''The King's English: A Guide to Modern Usage'', St. Martin's Griffin, 1999, pp. 198–199.</ref>

===History of the term ''Scotch-Irish''===
[[File:Scotch vs. Scottish.jpg|thumb|An example, showing the usage of Scotch as an adjective, in the 4th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica, Edinburgh, Scotland (1800), and modernized to Scottish in the 7th edition (1829).]]

The word "[[Scotch (adjective)|Scotch]]" was the favored adjective for things "''of Scotland''", including people, until the early 19th century, when it was replaced by the word "Scottish". People in [[Scotland]] refer to themselves as Scots, as a noun, or adjectivally/collectively as Scots or [[Scottish people|Scottish]]. The use of "Scotch" as an adjective has been dropped in the UK and Ireland where it is now more commonly regarded as offensive,<ref>{{cite news|title=6 times it's OK to use the word Scotch and why you don't want to get it wrong|work=[[Irish News]]|publisher=[[The Irish News Ltd.]]|date=17 November 2017|url=https://www.irishnews.com/magazine/daily/2017/11/16/news/6-times-it-s-ok-to-use-the-word-scotch-and-why-you-don-t-want-to-get-it-wrong-1189740/}}</ref> but remains in use in the U.S. in place names, names of plants, breeds of dog, a type of tape, a type of [[whiskey]], etc., and in the term Scotch-Irish.

Although referenced by [[Merriam-Webster]] dictionaries as having first appeared in 1744, the American term ''Scotch-Irish'' is undoubtedly older. An affidavit of William Patent, dated March 15, 1689, in a case against a Mr. Matthew Scarbrough in [[Somerset County, Maryland]], quotes Mr. Patent as saying he was told by Scarbrough that "it was no more sin to kill me then to kill a dogg, or any Scotch Irish dogg".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~merle/Articles/OldestUseSI.htm |title=Ancestry.com |publisher=Homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com |access-date=2012-06-04}}</ref>

Leyburn cites the following as early American uses of the term before 1744.<ref name=Leyburn330>Leyburn 1962, p. 330.</ref>
*The earliest is a report in June 1695, by Sir Thomas Laurence, Secretary of Maryland, that "In the two counties of [[Dorchester County, Maryland|Dorchester]] and Somerset, where the Scotch-Irish are numerous, they clothe themselves by their linen and woolen manufactures."
*In September 1723, Rev. George Ross, Rector of Immanuel Church in [[New Castle, Delaware]], wrote in reference to their anti-[[Church of England]] stance that, "They call themselves Scotch-Irish&nbsp;... and the bitterest railers against the church that ever trod upon American ground."
*Another Church of England clergyman from [[Lewes, Delaware]], commented in 1723 that "great numbers of Irish (who usually call themselves Scotch-Irish) have transplanted themselves and their families from the north of Ireland".

The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' says the first use of the term ''Scotch-Irish'' came in Pennsylvania in 1744: 
*1744 [[Witham Marshe|W. MARSHE]] Jrnl. 21 June in ''Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society''. (1801) 1st Ser. VII. 177: "The inhabitants [of [[Lancaster, Pennsylvania]]] are chiefly [[Pennsylvania Dutch|High-Dutch]], Scotch-Irish, some few English families, and unbelieving Israelites." Its citations include examples after that into the late 19th century.

In ''[[Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America]]'', historian [[David Hackett Fischer]] asserts:
<blockquote>
Some historians describe these immigrants as "Ulster Irish" or "Northern Irish". It is true that many sailed from the province of Ulster&nbsp;... part of much larger flow which drew from the lowlands of Scotland, the north of England, and every side of the Irish Sea. Many scholars call these people ''Scotch-Irish''. That expression is an Americanism, rarely used in Britain and much resented by the people to whom it was attached. "We're no Eerish bot Scoatch," one of them was heard to say in Pennsylvania.<ref>Fischer, p. 618.</ref>
</blockquote>

Fischer prefers to speak of "borderers" (referring to the historically war-torn England-Scotland border) as the population ancestral to the "backcountry" "cultural stream" (one of the four major and persistent cultural streams from Ireland and Britain which he identifies in American history). He notes the borderers had substantial [[English people|English]] and [[Scandinavia]]n roots. He describes them as being quite different from Gaelic-speaking groups such as the Scottish Highlanders or Irish (that is, Gaelic-speaking and predominantly Roman Catholic).

An example of the use of the term is found in ''A History of Ulster'': "Ulster Presbyterians – known as the "Scotch Irish" – were already accustomed to being on the move, and clearing and defending their land."<ref>{{cite book|first=Jonathan|last=Bardon|title=A History of Ulster|publisher=Blackstaff Press|place=[[Belfast]]|year=1992|page=210}}</ref>

Many have claimed that such a distinction should not be used, and that those called Scotch-Irish are simply Irish.<ref name=Leyburn327/> Other Irish limit the term ''Irish'' to those of native Gaelic stock, and prefer to describe the [[Ulster Protestants]] as ''British'' (a description many Ulster Protestants have preferred themselves to ''Irish'', at least since the [[Irish Free State]] broke free from the United Kingdom, although ''Ulstermen'' has been adopted in order to maintain a distinction from the native Irish Gaels while retaining a claim to the North of Ireland).<ref>James G. Leyburn (1962). [http://www.irishgenealogy.com/surnames/migration-scotch-irish.htm "The Scotch-Irish"]. In ''The Scotch-Irish: A Social History''. University of North Carolina Press.</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Walker|first=Brian M.|title=We all can be Irish, British or both|work=[[Belfast Telegraph]]|publisher=[[Independent News & Media]]|url=http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-analysis/we-all-can-be-irish-british-or-both-31290843.html|date=June 10, 2015}}</ref> However, as one scholar observed in 1944, "in this country [the US], where they have been called Scotch-Irish for over two hundred years, it would be absurd to give them a name by which they are not known here.&nbsp;... Here their name is Scotch-Irish; let us call them by it."<ref>Wayland F. Dunaway, ''The Scotch-Irish of Colonial America'', 1944, University of North Carolina Press</ref>

==Migration==
From 1710 to 1775, over 200,000 people emigrated from Ulster to the original thirteen American colonies. The largest numbers went to Pennsylvania. From that base some went south into Virginia, the Carolinas and across the South, with a large concentration in the [[Appalachian region]]. Others headed west to western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and the Midwest.<ref name="Jones 1980 p. 904">{{cite book|last=Jones|first=Maldwyn A.|year=1980|chapter=Scotch-Irish|editor-last=Thernstrom|editor-first=Stephan|editor-link=Stephan Thernstrom|editor-last2=Orlov|editor-first2=Ann|editor-last3=Handlin|editor-first3=Oscar|editor-link3=Oscar Handlin|title=Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups|place=[[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge, MA]]|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|pages=895–908|isbn=978-0674375123|oclc=1038430174|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/harvardencyclope00ther|url=https://archive.org/details/harvardencyclope00ther/page/895}}</ref>

Transatlantic flows were halted by the [[American Revolution]], but resumed after 1783, with total of 100,000 arriving in America between 1783 and 1812. By that point few were young servants and more were mature craftsmen, and they settled in industrial centers, including Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York, where many became skilled workers, foremen and entrepreneurs as the [[Industrial Revolution]] took off in the U.S.{{citation needed|date=December 2013}} Another half million came to America 1815 to 1845; another 900,000 came in 1851–99.{{citation needed|date=December 2013}} <!-- What about the gap from 1845 to 1851?! --> That migration decisively shaped Scotch-Irish culture.<ref name="Jones 1980 p. 904"/>

According to the ''Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups'', there were 400,000 U.S. residents of Irish birth or ancestry in 1790 and half of this group was descended from Ulster, and half from the other three provinces of Ireland.<ref name="Blessing 1980 p. 529">{{cite book|last=Blessing|first=Patrick J.|editor-last=Thernstrom|editor-first=Stephan|editor-link=Stephan Thernstrom|editor-last2=Orlov|editor-first2=Ann|editor-last3=Handlin|editor-first3=Oscar|editor-link3=Oscar Handlin|title=Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups|year=1980|chapter=Irish|place=[[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge, MA]]|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|page=[https://archive.org/details/harvardencyclope00ther/page/529 529]|isbn=978-0674375123|oclc=1038430174|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/harvardencyclope00ther|url=https://archive.org/details/harvardencyclope00ther/page/528}}</ref>

A separate migration brought many to [[Irish Canadian|Canada]], where they are most numerous in rural [[Ontario]] and [[Nova Scotia]].{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}

==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}}

==American settlement==
{{multiple image
 |align    = right
 |width    = 175
 |direction= vertical
 |image1   = Scotch Irish or American ancestry by county.png
 |caption1 = U.S. counties by percentage of population self-identifying Scotch-Irish and [[American ancestry]] according to the [[United States Census Bureau|U.S. Census Bureau]] [[American Community Survey]] 2013–2017 5-Year Estimates.<ref name="ACS 2013–17 5Y Estimate">{{cite web|url=http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_13_5YR_DP03&prodType=table|archive-url=https://archive.today/20150117113227/http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_13_5YR_DP03&prodType=table|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 17, 2015|title=B04006 – PEOPLE REPORTING SINGLE ANCESTRY 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau|U.S. Census Bureau]]|access-date=June 3, 2019}}</ref> Counties where Scotch-Irish and American ancestry are statistically overrepresented relative to the United States as a whole are in dark orange.
 |image2   = Irish ancestry by state.png
 |caption2 = U.S. states by percentage of population self-identifying [[Irish Americans|Irish]] ancestry according to the U.S. Census Bureau.<ref name="ACS 2013–17 5Y Estimate" /> States where Irish ancestry is statistically overrepresented relative to the United States as a whole are in full green.{{clarify|reason=All of the US is green in this map and "full" is not a standard adverb of colour. Not remotely clear what it's supposed to mean|date=October 2019}}
 |image3   = Irish Catholics by state.png
 |caption3 = U.S. states where self-identified Irish Americans are overrepresented by self-identified [[Catholic Church in the United States|Catholics]] according to the [[Pew Research Center]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Catholics - Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics|publisher=[[Pew Research Center]]|url=https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/catholic/|access-date=June 3, 2019}}</ref> States where Catholics are statistically overrepresented relative to the United States as a whole are in vivid red.
 |image4   = Irish Protestants by state.png
 |caption4 = U.S. states where self-identified Irish Americans are overrepresented by self-identified [[Protestantism in the United States|Protestants]] according to the Pew Research Center.<ref>{{cite web|title=Evangelical Protestants - Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics|publisher=[[Pew Research Center]]|url=https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/evangelical-protestant/|access-date=June 3, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Mainline Protestants - Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics|publisher=[[Pew Research Center]]|url=https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/mainline-protestant/|access-date=June 3, 2019}}</ref> States where Protestants are statistically overrepresented relative to the United States as a whole are in vivid blue.
}}
[[File:Portrait of Scotch-Irish-American boy 1909.jpg|thumb|Scotch-Irish-American boy in [[Hawaii]], 1909]]
Scholarly estimate is that over 200,000 Scotch-Irish migrated to the Americas between 1717 and 1775.<ref>"...summer of 1717...", Fischer, David Hackett, ''Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America'', Oxford University Press, USA (March 14, 1989), p. 606; "...early immigration was small,...but it began to surge in 1717.", Blethen, H.T. & Wood, C.W., ''From Ulster to Carolina'', North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 2005, p. 22; "Between 1718 and 1775", Griffin, Patrick, ''The People with No Name'', Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 1; etc.</ref> As a late-arriving group, they found that land in the coastal areas of the British colonies was either already owned or too expensive, so they quickly left for the more mountainous interior where land could be obtained less expensively. Here they lived on the first frontier of America. Early frontier life was challenging, but poverty and hardship were familiar to them. The term [[hillbilly]] has often been applied to their descendants in the mountains, carrying connotations of poverty, backwardness and violence.

The first trickle of Scotch-Irish settlers arrived in New England. Valued for their fighting prowess as well as for their Protestant dogma, they were invited by [[Cotton Mather]] and other leaders to come over to help settle and secure the frontier. In this capacity, many of the first permanent settlements in [[Maine]] and [[New Hampshire]], especially after 1718, were Scotch-Irish and many place names as well as the character of Northern New Englanders reflect this fact. The Scotch-Irish brought the potato with them from Ireland (although the potato originated in South America, it was not known in North America until brought over from Europe). In Maine it became a staple crop as well as an economic base.<ref>Rev. A. L. Perry, Scotch-Irish in New England:Taken from The Scotch-Irish in America: Proceedings and Addresses of the Second Congress at Pittsburgh,1890.</ref>

From 1717 for the next thirty or so years, the primary points of entry for the Ulster immigrants were Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Castle, Delaware.{{citation needed|date=December 2010}} The Scotch-Irish radiated westward across the [[Allegheny Mountains|Alleghenies]], as well as into [[Virginia]], [[North Carolina]], [[South Carolina]], [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], [[Kentucky]], and [[Tennessee]].<ref>Crozier 1984; Montgomery 1989, 2001</ref>  The typical migration involved small networks of related families who settled together, worshipped together, and intermarried, avoiding outsiders.<ref>Russell M. Reid, "Church Membership, Consanguineous Marriage, and Migration In a Scotch-Irish Frontier Population", ''Journal of Family History,'' 1988 13(4): 397–414,</ref>

===Pennsylvania and Virginia===
Most Scotch-Irish landed in Philadelphia. Without much cash, they moved to free lands on the frontier, becoming the typical western "squatters", the frontier guard of the colony, and what the historian [[Frederick Jackson Turner]] described as "the cutting-edge of the frontier".<ref>quoted in Carl Wittke, ''We Who Built America: The Saga of the Immigrant'' (1939) p. 51.</ref>

The Scotch-Irish moved up the [[Delaware River]] to [[Bucks County]], and then up the [[Susquehanna Valley|Susquehanna]] and [[Cumberland Valley|Cumberland]] valleys, finding flat lands along the rivers and creeks to set up their [[log cabin]]s, their [[grist mill]]s, and their Presbyterian churches.{{citation needed|date=December 2010}} Chester, Lancaster, and Dauphin counties became their strongholds, and they built towns such as Chambersburg, Gettysburg, Carlisle, and York; the next generation moved into western Pennsylvania.<ref>Dunaway, ''The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania'' (1944)</ref>

With large numbers of children who needed their own inexpensive farms, the Scotch-Irish avoided areas already settled by Germans and Quakers and moved south, through the [[Shenandoah Valley]], and through the Blue Ridge Mountains into Virginia.{{citation needed|date=December 2010}}  These migrants followed the [[Great Wagon Road]] from Lancaster, through Gettysburg, and down through Staunton, Virginia, to Big Lick (now Roanoke), Virginia. Here the pathway split, with the [[Wilderness Road]] taking settlers west into Tennessee and Kentucky, while the main road continued south into the Carolinas.<ref name=LeyburnNoPage/><ref>Rouse, Parke Jr., ''The Great Wagon Road'', Dietz Press, 2004</ref>

===Conflict with Native Americans===
Because the Scotch-Irish settled the frontier of Pennsylvania and western Virginia, they were greatly affected by the [[French and Indian War]] and [[Pontiac's War]].<ref>Edwin Thomas Schock, Jr., "Historiography of the Conestoga Massacre through Three Centuries of Scholarship", ''Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society'' 1994 96(3): 99–112</ref> The Scotch-Irish were frequently in conflict with indigenous tribes, and did most of the fighting on the frontier from New Hampshire to the Carolinas.<ref name=Leyburn228>Leyburn 1962, p. 228</ref><ref>Ray Allen Billington, ''Westward Expansion'' (1972) pp 90-109; Toby Joyce, "'The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indian': Sheridan, Irish-America and the Indians", ''History Ireland'' 2005 13(6): 26–29</ref> The Scots-Irish also became the middlemen who handled trade and negotiations between indigenous tribes and the colonial governments.<ref>James E. Doan, "How the Irish and Scots Became Indians: Colonial Traders and Agents and the Southeastern Tribes", ''New Hibernia Review'' 1999 3(3): 9–19</ref>

Especially in Pennsylvania, whose pacifist [[Quaker]] leaders had made no provision for a militia, Scotch-Irish settlements were frequently destroyed and the settlers killed, captured or forced to flee after attacks by the [[Lenape]] (Delaware), [[Shawnee]], [[Seneca people|Seneca]], and others tribes of western Pennsylvania and the [[Ohio Country]].<ref>Kevin Kenny, ''Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment'', Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 119–126.</ref> Indigenous attacks occurred within 60 miles of Philadelphia, and in July 1763 the Pennsylvania Assembly authorized the raising of a 700-strong militia to be used only for defense. Formed into two units of rangers, the Cumberland Boys and the [[Paxton Boys]], the militia soon exceeded their mandate and began offensive forays against Lenape villages.<ref>Kenny, ''Peaceable Kingdom Lost'', pp. 69–75.</ref>

The Paxton Boys' leaders received information, which they believed credible, that "hostile" tribes were receiving information and support from the "friendly" tribe of Susquehannock (Conestoga) settled in Lancaster County, who were under the protection of the Pennsylvania government. On December 14, 1763, about fifty Paxton Boys rode to Conestoga Town, near Millersville, Pennsylvania, and murdered six Conestogas. Pennsylvanian authorities placed the remaining fourteen Conestogas in protective custody in the [[Lancaster, Pennsylvania|Lancaster]] workhouse, but the Paxton Boys broke in, killing and mutilating all fourteen on December 27, 1763.<ref>Kenny, ''Peaceable Kingdom Lost'', pp. 130–146.</ref>

In February 1764, the Paxton Boys with a few hundred backcountry settlers, primarily Scotch-Irish, marched on Philadelphia with the intent of killing the [[Moravian Indians]] who had been given shelter there. [[Benjamin Franklin]] led a delegation that met the marchers at [[Germantown, Philadelphia]]. Following negotiations the Paxton Boys agreed to disperse and submit their grievances in writing.<ref>Kenny, ''Peaceable Kingdom Lost'', pp. 161−171.</ref>

===American Revolution===
The [[United States Declaration of Independence]] contained 56 delegate signatures. Of the signers, eight were of Irish descent.{{Citation needed|date=March 2011}}   Two signers, [[George Taylor (Pennsylvania politician)|George Taylor]] and [[James Smith (delegate)|James Smith]], were born in Ulster. The remaining five Irish-Americans, [[George Read (U.S. statesman)|George Read]], [[Thomas McKean]], [[Thomas Lynch, Jr.]], [[Edward Rutledge]] and [[Charles Carroll of Carrollton|Charles Carroll]], were the sons or grandsons of Irish immigrants, and at least McKean had Ulster heritage.{{Citation needed|date=March 2011}}

In contrast to the Scottish Highlanders, the Scotch-Irish were generally ardent supporters of American independence from Britain in the 1770s. In Pennsylvania, Virginia, and most of the Carolinas, support for the revolution was "practically unanimous".<ref name=LeyburnNoPage/> One Hessian officer said, "Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more or less than a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion."<ref name=LeyburnNoPage>Leyburn 1962, p. 305</ref>  A British major general testified to the House of Commons that "half the rebel Continental Army were from Ireland".<ref>Philip H. Bagenal, ''The American Irish and their Influence on Irish Politics'', London, 1882, pp 12-13.</ref>  Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, with its large Scotch-Irish population, was to make the first declaration for independence from Britain in the [[Mecklenburg Declaration]] of 1775.{{Disputed inline|Mecklenburg claim unverified|date=December 2016}}

The Scotch-Irish "[[Overmountain Men]]" of Virginia and North Carolina formed a militia which won the [[Battle of Kings Mountain]] in 1780, resulting in the British abandonment of a southern campaign, and for some historians "marked the turning point of the American Revolution".<ref>John C. Campbell, ''The Southern Highlander and his Homeland,'' (1921)</ref><ref>Theodore Roosevelt, ''The Winning of the West,'' (1906).</ref>

====Loyalists====
One exception to the high level of patriotism was the Waxhaw settlement on the lower Catawba River along the North Carolina-South Carolina boundary, where [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalism]] was strong. The area experienced two main settlement periods of Scotch-Irish. During the 1750s–1760s, second- and third-generation Scotch-Irish Americans moved from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. This particular group had large families, and as a group they produced goods for themselves and for others. They generally were [[Patriot (American Revolution)|Patriots]].

Just prior to the Revolution, a second stream of immigrants came directly from Ireland via Charleston. This group was forced to move into an underdeveloped area because they could not afford expensive land. Most of this group remained loyal to the Crown or neutral when the war began. Prior to [[Charles Cornwallis]]'s march into the backcountry in 1780, two-thirds of the men among the Waxhaw settlement had declined to serve in the army. The British massacre of American prisoners at the [[Battle of Waxhaws]] resulted in anti-British sentiment in a bitterly divided region. While many individuals chose to take up arms against the British, the British themselves forced the people to choose sides.<ref>Peter N. Moore (2006), "The Local Origins of Allegiance in Revolutionary South Carolina: The Waxhaws as a Case Study", ''South Carolina Historical Magazine'' 107(1): 26–41</ref>

===Whiskey Rebellion===
In the 1790s, the new American government assumed the debts the individual states had amassed during the [[American Revolutionary War]], and the Congress placed a tax on whiskey (among other things) to help repay those debts. Large producers were assessed a tax of six cents a gallon. Smaller producers, many of whom were Scottish (often Scotch-Irish) descent and located in the more remote areas, were taxed at a higher rate of nine cents a gallon. These rural settlers were short of cash to begin with, and lacked any practical means to get their grain to market, other than fermenting and distilling it into relatively potable spirits.<ref name="Washington">{{cite book |last1=Chernow |first1=Ron |title=Washington |date=2010 |publisher=Penguin Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-14-311996-8 |pages=721–725}}</ref>

From [[Pennsylvania]] to [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], the western counties engaged in a campaign of harassment of the federal tax collectors. "Whiskey Boys" also conducted violent protests in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, and Georgia. This civil disobedience eventually culminated in armed conflict in the [[Whiskey Rebellion]]. President [[George Washington]] accompanied 13,000 soldiers from Carlisle to Bedford, Pennsylvania, where plans were completed to suppress the western Pennsylvania insurrection, and he returned to Philadelphia in his carriage.<ref name="Washington"/>

===Influence on American culture and identity===
Author and U.S. Senator [[Jim Webb]] puts forth a thesis in his book ''[[Born Fighting]]'' (2004) to suggest that the character traits he ascribes to the Scotch-Irish such as loyalty to [[Kinship|kin]], extreme mistrust of governmental authority and legal strictures, and a propensity to [[Right to arms|bear arms]] and to use them, helped shape the American identity. In the same year that Webb's book was released, [[Barry A. Vann]] published his second book, entitled ''Rediscovering the South's Celtic Heritage''. As in his earlier book, ''From Whence They Came'' (1998), Vann argues that these traits have left their imprint on the Upland South. In 2008, Vann followed up his earlier work with a book entitled ''In Search of Ulster Scots Land: The Birth and Geotheological Imagings of a Transatlantic People'', which professes how these traits may manifest themselves in conservative voting patterns and religious affiliation that characterizes the Bible Belt.

===Iron and steel industry===
The iron and steel industry developed rapidly after 1830 and became one of the dominant factors in industrial America by the 1860s. Ingham (1978) examined the leadership of the industry in its most important center, Pittsburgh, as well as smaller cities. He concludes that the leadership of the iron and steel industry nationwide was "largely Scotch-Irish". Ingham finds that the Scotch-Irish held together cohesively throughout the 19th century and "developed their own sense of uniqueness".<ref>John Ingham, ''The Iron Barons'' (1978) quotes pp 7 and 228</ref>

New immigrants after 1800 made Pittsburgh a major Scotch-Irish stronghold. For example, [[Thomas Mellon]] (b. Ulster; 1813–1908) left Ireland in 1823 and became the founder of the famous Mellon clan, which played a central role in banking and industries such as aluminum and oil. As Barnhisel (2005) finds, industrialists such as [[James H. Laughlin]] (b. Ulster; 1806–1882) of [[Jones and Laughlin Steel Company]] constituted the "Scots-Irish Presbyterian ruling stratum of Pittsburgh society".<ref>Gregory Barnhisel (2005), ''James Laughlin, New Directions, and the Remaking of Ezra Pound'' p. 48</ref>

==Customs==
Archeologists and folklorists have examined the folk culture of the Scotch-Irish in terms of material goods, such as housing, as well as speech patterns and folk songs. Much of the research has been done in [[Appalachia]].<ref>Audrey J. Horning, "Myth, Migration, and Material Culture: Archeology and the Ulster Influence on Appalachia", ''Historical Archaeology'' 2002 36(4): 129–149</ref>

The border origin of the Scotch-Irish is supported by study of the traditional music and folklore of the [[Appalachia|Appalachian Mountains]], settled primarily by the Scotch-Irish in the 18th century. Musicologist [[Cecil Sharp]] collected hundreds of folk songs in the region, and observed that the musical tradition of the people "seems to point to the North of England, or to the Lowlands, rather than the Highlands, of Scotland, as the country from which they originally migrated. For the Appalachian tunes...have far more affinity with the normal English folk-tune than with that of the Gaelic-speaking Highlander."<ref>Olive Dame Campbell & Cecil J. Sharp, ''English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, Comprising 122 Songs and Ballads, and 323 Tunes'', G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1917, p. xviii.</ref>

Similarly, elements of mountain folklore trace back to events in the Lowlands of Scotland. As an example, it was recorded in the early 20th century that Appalachian children were frequently warned, "You must be good or Clavers will get you."  To the mountain residents, "Clavers" was simply a [[bogeyman]] used to keep children in line, yet unknown to them the phrase derives from the 17th century Scotsman [[John Graham, 1st Viscount of Dundee|John Graham of Claverhouse]], called "Bloody Clavers" by the Presbyterian Scottish Lowlanders whose religion he tried to suppress.<ref>Samuel Tyndale Wilson, ''The Southern Mountaineers'', New York: Presbyterian Home Missions, 1906, p. 24.</ref>

===Housing===
In terms of the stone houses they built, the [[hall and parlor house|"hall-parlor" floor plan]] (two rooms per floor with chimneys on both ends) was common among the gentry in Ulster. Scotch-Irish immigrants brought it over in the 18th century and it became a common floor plan in Tennessee, Kentucky, and elsewhere. Stone houses were difficult to build, and most pioneers relied on simpler log cabins.<ref>Carolyn Murray-Wooley, "Stone Houses of Central Kentucky: Dwellings of Ulster Gentry, 1780-1830", ''Journal of East Tennessee History,'' 2006 77 (Supplement): 50–58</ref>

===Quilts===
Scotch-Irish quilters in West Virginia developed a unique interpretation of pieced-block quilt construction. Their quilts embody an aesthetic reflecting Scotch-Irish social history—the perennial condition of living on the periphery of mainstream society both geographically and philosophically. Cultural values espousing individual autonomy and self-reliance within a strong kinship structure are related to Scotch-Irish quilting techniques. Prominent features of these quilts include: 1) blocks pieced in a repeating pattern but varied by changing figure-ground relationships and, at times, obscured by the use of same-value colors and adjacent print fabrics, 2) lack of contrasting borders, and 3) a unified all-over quilting pattern, typically the "fans" design or rows of concentric arcs.<ref>Fawn Valentine, "Aesthetics and Ethnicity: Scotch-Irish Quilts in West Virginia", ''Uncoverings'' 1994 15: 7-44</ref>

===Language use===
Montgomery (2006) analyzes the pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammatical distinctions of today's residents of the mountain South and traces patterns back to their Scotch-Irish ancestors.<ref>Michael Montgomery, "How Scotch-Irish Is Your English?" ''Journal of East Tennessee History'' 2006 77 (Supplement): 65–91</ref> However, Crozier (1984) suggests that only a few lexical characteristics survived Scotch-Irish assimilation into American culture.<ref>Alan Crozier, "The Scotch-Irish Influence on American English", ''American Speech'' 1984 59(4): 310–331</ref>

==Number of Scotch-Irish Americans==
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right;"
|- valign=top
! Year
! Total Population in U.S.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.1930census.com/united_states_federal_census.php |title=U.S. Federal Census :: United States Federal Census :: US Federal Census |publisher=1930census.com |access-date=2014-08-27}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://members.aol.com/ntgen/hrtg/census.html#ustimeline |title=United States Timeline population |publisher=Members.aol.com |access-date=2012-06-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/files/table-2.pdf |title=United States population 1790-1990 |access-date=2012-06-04}}</ref>
|- valign=top
! 1625
| 1,980
|- valign=top
! 1641
| 50,000
|- valign=top
! 1688
| 200,000
|- valign=top
! 1700
| 250,900
|- valign=top
! 1702
| 270,000
|- valign=top
! 1715
| 434,600
|- valign=top
! 1749
| 1,046,000
|- valign=top
! 1754
| 1,485,634
|- valign=top
! 1770
| 2,240,000
|- valign=top
! 1775
| 2,418,000
|- valign=top
! 1780
| 2,780,400
|- valign=top
! 1790
| 3,929,326
|- valign=top
! 1800
| 5,308,483
|}

===Population in 1790===
According to ''The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy'', by Kory L. Meyerink and Loretto Dennis Szucs, the following were the countries of origin for new arrivals coming to the United States before 1790. The regions marked * were part of, or ruled by, the Kingdom of Great Britain (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after 1801). The ancestry of the 3,929,326  population in 1790 has been estimated by various sources by sampling last names in the 1790 census and assigning them a country of origin.

According to the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Thernstrom, S 1980, "Irish," p.&nbsp;528), there were 400,000 Americans of Irish birth or ancestry in 1790; half of these were descended from Ulster, and half were descended from other provinces in Ireland.

==== 1790 population of Scotch-Irish origin by state ====
The [[United States Census Bureau|Census Bureau]] produced official estimates of the colonial American population with roots in the [[Provinces of Ireland|Irish province]] of [[Ulster]], in collaboration with the [[American Council of Learned Societies]], by scholarly classification of the names of all [[White Americans|White]] heads of families recorded in the [[1790 United States census|1790 Census]]. The government required accurate estimates of the origins of the population as basis for computing [[National Origins Formula]] immigration quotas in the 1920s (i.e. how much of the annual immigrant quota would be allotted to the [[Irish Free State]], as opposed to [[Northern Ireland]] which remained part of the [[United Kingdom]]). The final report estimated about 10% of the U.S. population in 1790 had ancestral roots in [[Ireland]], about three fifths of that total from Ulster–broken down by state below:

{{small|{{flagicon|Northern Ireland}}Estimated Scotch-Irish American population in the [[Contiguous United States|Continental United States]] as of the [[1790 United States census|1790 Census]]{{flagicon|USA|1777-Ross}}}}<ref name="ACLS1929">{{cite book|author=American Council of Learned Societies. Committee on Linguistic and National Stocks in the Population of the United States|date=1932|title=Report of the Committee on Linguistic and National Stocks in the Population of the United States|publisher=[[U.S. Government Printing Office]]|location=Washington, D.C.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DVA42JB6IYsC&pg=PA101|author-link=American Council of Learned Societies|oclc=1086749050}}</ref>
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:right"
|-  
! colspan=1 rowspan=3 style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;"|'''State or Territory'''||colspan=2 rowspan=1 style="text-align:center; background:#C8E5EE;"|{{flagicon|Ulster}} [[Ulster Scots people|Ulster]]
|-
! colspan=2 rowspan=1 style="text-align:center; background-color:#C8E5EE;"|{{flagicon|Northern Ireland|saltire}}[[Scottish Americans|Scotch]]-[[Irish Americans|Irish]]
|-
! style="background-color:#C8E5EE;"|#
! style="background-color:#C8E5EE;"|%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|Connecticut}}
|align="right"|{{nts|4,180}}
|align="right"|1.80%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|Delaware}}
|align="right"|{{nts|2,918}}
|align="right"|6.30%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flagcountry|Georgia (U.S. state)}}
|align="right"|{{nts|6,082}}
|align="right"|11.50%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|Kentucky}} & {{flagicon|Tennessee}}[[Tennessee|Tenn.]] 
|align="right"|{{nts|6,513}}
|align="right"|7.00%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|Maine}}
|align="right"|{{nts|7,689}}
|align="right"|8.00%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|Maryland}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|12,102}}
|align="right"|5.80%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|Massachusetts}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|9,703}}
|align="right"|2.60%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|New Hampshire}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|6,491}}
|align="right"|4.60%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|New Jersey}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|10,707}}
|align="right"|6.30%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flagcountry|New York (state)|1778}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|16,033}}
|align="right"|5.10%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|North Carolina}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|16,483}}
|align="right"|5.70%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|Pennsylvania}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|46,571}}
|align="right"|11.00%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|Rhode Island}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|1,293}}
|align="right"|2.00%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|South Carolina}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|13,177}}
|align="right"|9.40%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|Vermont|1770}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|2,722}}
|align="right"|3.20%
|-
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{flag|Virginia}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|27,411}}
|align="right"|6.20%
|- bgcolor="lightgrey"
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{Sort|1790 Area Enumerated|'''''{{flagicon|Thirteen Colonies}} [[1790 United States census|1790 Census Area]]'''''}} 
|align="right"|'''''{{nts|190,075}}'''''
|align="right"|'''''5.99%'''''
|- bgcolor="#EEF0F0"
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{Sort|Northwest|''{{flagicon|Ohio}} [[Northwest Territory]]''}}
|align="right"|''{{nts|307}}''
|align="right"|''2.92%''
|- bgcolor="#EEF0F0"
|border = "1"; align="left"|{{Sort|French|''{{flagicon|New France}} [[French America]]''}}
|align="right"|''{{nts|220}}''
|align="right"|''1.10%''
|- bgcolor="#EEF0F0"
|border = "1"; align="left"|''{{flagicon|Spanish Empire}} [[Spanish America]]'' 
|align="right"|''{{nts|60}}''
|align="right"|''0.25%''
|-
|- class="sortbottom" bgcolor="#B8E2E9"
|border = "1"; align="center"|'''{{flag|United States|1795}}'''
|align="right"|'''{{nts|190,662}}'''
|align="right"|'''5.91%'''
|}

{{Clear}}
{| class="toccolours" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="float:right; margin:0 0 1em 1em; font-size:95%;"
|-
! colspan="3"  style="background:#ccf; text-align:center;"| U.S. Historical Populations
|-
! style="text-align:center;"| Nation
! style="text-align:center;"| Immigrants Before 1790
! style="text-align:center;"| Population 1790–1
|-
| colspan=3|----
|-
! style="text-align:center;"|[[England]]*   || 230,000 ||2,100,000
|-
! style="text-align:center;"|[[Ireland]]*   || 142,000 || 300,000
|-
! style="text-align:center;"|[[Scotland]]*  || 48,500 || 150,000
|-
! style="text-align:center;"|[[Wales]]*     || 4,000 || 10,000
|-
! style="text-align:center;"|Other -5       ||500,000  (Germans, Dutch, Huguenots, Africans)

| colspan=3|----                                        1,000,000
|-
! style="text-align:center;"|Total           ||950,000 ||3,929,326
|}

==Geographical distribution==
Finding the coast already heavily settled, most groups of settlers from the north of Ireland moved into the "western mountains", where they populated the [[Appalachian Mountains|Appalachian]] regions and the [[Ohio]] Valley. Others settled in northern [[New England]], [[The Carolinas]], [[Province of Georgia|Georgia]] and north-central [[Nova Scotia]].{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}}

In the [[United States Census, 2000]], 4.3 million Americans (1.5% of the U.S. population) claimed Scotch-Irish ancestry.{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}}

[[File:Census Bureau Scotch-Irish Ancestry in the United States.gif|thumb|upright=1.15|Areas with greatest proportion of reported Scotch-Irish ancestry]]

The author [[Jim Webb]] suggests that the true number of people with some Scotch-Irish heritage in the United States is in the region of 27 million.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780767916899-1 |title=Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America |publisher=Powells.com |date=12 August 2009 |access-date=26 May 2012}}</ref>

The states with the most [[Ulster Scots people|Scotch-Irish]] populations as of 2020:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_10_1YR_DP02&prodType=table|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200212212624/http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_10_1YR_DP02&prodType=table|url-status=dead|archive-date=2020-02-12|title=American FactFinder - Results|author=Data Access and Dissemination Systems (DADS)}}</ref>
*[[Texas]] – 287,393 (1.1%)
*[[North Carolina]] – 274,149 (2.9%)
*[[California]] – 247,530 (0.7%)
*[[Florida]] – 170,880 (0.9%)
*[[Pennsylvania]] – 163,836 (1.3%)
*[[Tennessee]] – 153,073 (2.4%)
*[[Virginia]] – 140,769 (1.8%)
*[[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] – 124,186 (1.3%)
*[[Ohio]] – 123,572 (1.1%)
*[[South Carolina]] – 113,008 (2.4%)

The states with the top percentages of Scotch-Irish:
* [[North Carolina]] (2.9%)
* [[South Carolina]], [[Tennessee]] (2.4%)
* [[West Virginia]] (2.1%)
* [[Montana]], [[Virginia]] (1.8%)
* [[Maine]] (1.7%)
* [[Alabama]], [[Mississippi]] (1.6%)
* [[Kentucky]], [[Oregon]], [[Wyoming]] (1.5%)

=== 2020 population of Scottish ancestry by state ===
As of 2020, the distribution of self-identified Scotch-Irish Americans across the 50 states and DC is as presented in the following table:  
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ {{small|{{flagicon|Northern Ireland}}Estimated Scotch-Irish American population by state{{flagicon|USA}}}}<ref name="ACS2020states">{{cite web|url=https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?g=0100000US%240400000&tid=ACSDT5Y2020.B04006|title=Table B04006 - People Reporting Ancestry - 2020 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, All States|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]]|access-date=October 30, 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220717015112/https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?g=0100000US%240400000&tid=ACSDT5Y2020.B04006|archive-date=July 17, 2022}}</ref><ref name="ACS2020">{{cite web|url=https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?t=Ancestry&tid=ACSDT5Y2020.B04006|title=Table B04006 - People Reporting Ancestry - 2020 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]]|access-date=October 30, 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220713211542/https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?t=Ancestry&tid=ACSDT5Y2020.B04006|archive-date= July 13, 2022}}</ref>
!  style="text-align:center; background-color:#9dbec3;"|'''State'''
!  style="text-align:center; background-color:#9dbec3;"|'''Number'''
!  style="text-align:center; background-color:#9dbec3;"|'''Percentage'''
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Alabama}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|70,047}}
|align="right"|1.43%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Alaska}}
|align="right"|{{nts|9,509}}
|align="right"|1.29%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Arizona}}
|align="right"|{{nts|55,674}}
|align="right"|0.78%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Arkansas}}
|align="right"|{{nts|32,957}}
|align="right"|1.09%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|California}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|207,590}}
|align="right"|0.53%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Colorado}}
|align="right"|{{nts|64,292}}
|align="right"|1.13%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Connecticut}}
|align="right"|{{nts|18,614}}
|align="right"|0.52%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Delaware}}
|align="right"|{{nts|6,409}}
|align="right"|0.66%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|District of Columbia}}
|align="right"|{{nts|4,553}}
|align="right"|0.65%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Florida}}
|align="right"|{{nts|161,840}}
|align="right"|0.76%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flagcountry|Georgia (U.S. state)}}
|align="right"|{{nts|117,791}}
|align="right"|1.12%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Hawaii}}
|align="right"|{{nts|6,226}}
|align="right"|0.44%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Idaho}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|16,784}}
|align="right"|0.96%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Illinois}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|69,649}}
|align="right"|0.55%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Indiana}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|53,213}}
|align="right"|0.79%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Iowa}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|23,671}}
|align="right"|0.75%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Kansas}}
|align="right"|{{nts|29,839}}
|align="right"|1.02%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Kentucky}}
|align="right"|{{nts|60,155}}
|align="right"|1.35%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Louisiana}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|32,530}}
|align="right"|0.70%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Maine}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|20,261}}
|align="right"|1.51%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Maryland}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|40,362}}
|align="right"|0.67%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Massachusetts}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|43,520}}
|align="right"|0.63%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Michigan}}  
|align="right"|{{nts|69,227}}
|align="right"|0.69%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Minnesota}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|27,518}}
|align="right"|0.49%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Mississippi}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|42,127}}
|align="right"|1.41%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Missouri}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|66,127}}
|align="right"|1.08%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Montana}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|15,598}}
|align="right"|1.47%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Nebraska}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|14,782}}
|align="right"|0.77%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Nevada}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|18,756}}
|align="right"|0.62%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|New Hampshire}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|16,088}}
|align="right"|1.19%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|New Jersey}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|31,731}}
|align="right"|0.36%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|New Mexico}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|15,953}}
|align="right"|0.76%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flagcountry|New York (state)}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|67,664}}
|align="right"|0.35%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|North Carolina}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|242,897}}
|align="right"|2.34%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|North Dakota}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|4,002}}
|align="right"|0.53%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Ohio}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|107,534}}
|align="right"|0.92%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Oklahoma}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|40,409}}
|align="right"|1.02%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Oregon}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|50,957}}
|align="right"|1.22%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Pennsylvania}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|140,542}}
|align="right"|1.10%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Rhode Island}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|5,243}}
|align="right"|0.50%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|South Carolina}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|114,048}}
|align="right"|2.24%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|South Dakota}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|5,208}}
|align="right"|0.59%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Tennessee}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|140,265}}
|align="right"|2.07%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Texas}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|249,798}}
|align="right"|0.87%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Utah}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|26,440}}
|align="right"|0.84%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Vermont}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|7,402}}
|align="right"|1.19%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Virginia}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|122,569}}
|align="right"|1.44%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flagcountry|Washington (state)}}
|align="right"|{{nts|84,650}}
|align="right"|1.13%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|West Virginia}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|32,436}}
|align="right"|1.79%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Wisconsin}} 
|align="right"|{{nts|23,629}}
|align="right"|0.41%
|-
|border = "1"|{{flag|Wyoming}}
|align="right"|{{nts|8,070}}
|align="right"|1.39%
|- class="sortbottom" bgcolor="lightgrey"
|border = "1"|'''{{flag|United States}}'''
|align="right"|'''{{nts|2,937,156}}'''
|align="right"|'''0.90%'''
|}

==Religion==
The Scotch-Irish immigrants to North America in the 18th century were initially defined in part by their [[Presbyterianism]].<ref name=Leyburn273>Leyburn 1962, p. 273</ref>  Many of the settlers in the Plantation of Ulster had been from dissenting and non-conformist religious groups which professed [[Calvinism|Calvinist]] thought. These included mainly Lowland Scot Presbyterians, but also English [[Puritan]]s and [[Quaker]]s, French [[Huguenot]]s and [[German Palatines]]. These Calvinist groups mingled freely in church matters, and religious belief was more important than nationality, as these groups aligned themselves against both their [[Catholic]] Irish and [[Anglican]] English neighbors.<ref>Hanna, Charles A., ''The Scotch-Irish: or the Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America'', G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1902, p. 163</ref>

After their arrival in the New World, the predominantly Presbyterian Scotch-Irish began to move further into the mountainous back-country of Virginia and the Carolinas. The establishment of many settlements in the remote back-country put a strain on the ability of the Presbyterian Church to meet the new demand for qualified, college-educated clergy. Religious groups such as the [[Baptists]] and [[Methodist]]s had no higher education requirement for their clergy to be ordained, and these groups readily provided ministers to meet the demand of the growing Scotch-Irish settlements.<ref>Griffin, Patrick, ''The People with No Name:  Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World'', Princeton University Press, 2001, pp. 164–165.</ref>  By about 1810, Baptist and Methodist churches were in the majority, and the descendants of the Scotch-Irish today remain predominantly Baptist or Methodist.<ref name=Leyburn295>Leyburn 1962, p. 295</ref>  Vann (2007) shows the Scotch-Irish played a major role in defining the [[Bible Belt]] in the Upper South in the 18th century. He emphasizes the high educational standards they sought, their "geotheological thought worlds" brought from the old country, and their political independence that was transferred to frontier religion.<ref>Barry Vann, "Irish Protestants and the Creation of the Bible Belt", ''Journal of Transatlantic Studies,'' 2007 5(1): 87–106</ref>

===Princeton===
In 1746, the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians created the College of New Jersey, later renamed [[Princeton University]]. The mission was training [[Old Side–New Side Controversy|New Light]] Presbyterian ministers. The college became the educational as well as religious capital of Scotch-Irish America. By 1808, loss of confidence in the college within the Presbyterian Church led to the establishment of the separate [[Princeton Theological Seminary]], but for many decades Presbyterian control over Princeton College continued. Meanwhile, Princeton Seminary, under the leadership of [[Charles Hodge]], originated a conservative theology that in large part shaped Fundamentalist Protestantism in the 20th century.<ref>Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker,  "The College of New Jersey and the Presbyterians", ''Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society,''  1958 36(4): 209–216</ref>

===Associate Reformed Church===
While the larger Presbyterian Church was a mix of Scotch-Irish and Yankees from New England, several smaller Presbyterian groups were composed almost entirely of Scotch-Irish, and they display the process of assimilation into the broader American religious culture. Fisk (1968) traces the history of the Associate Reformed Church in the Old Northwest from its formation by a union of Associate and Reformed Presbyterians in 1782 to the merger of this body with the Seceder Scotch-Irish bodies to form the [[United Presbyterian Church of North America|United Presbyterian Church]] in 1858. It became the Associate Reformed Synod of the West and remains centered in the Midwest. It withdrew from the parent body in 1820 because of the drift of the eastern churches toward assimilation into the larger Presbyterian Church with its Yankee traits. The Associate Reformed Synod of the West maintained the characteristics of an immigrant church with Scotch-Irish roots, emphasized the Westminster standards, used only the psalms in public worship, was Sabbatarian, and was strongly abolitionist and anti-Catholic. In the 1850s it exhibited many evidences of assimilation. It showed greater ecumenical interest, greater interest in evangelization of the West and of the cities, and a declining interest in maintaining the unique characteristics of its Scotch-Irish past.<ref>William L. Fisk, "The Associate Reformed Church in the Old Northwest: A Chapter in the Acculturation of the Immigrant", ''Journal of Presbyterian History,'' 1968 46(3): 157–174</ref>

==Notable people==
{{main list|List of Scotch-Irish Americans}}
{{more citations needed section|date=September 2020}}

===[[Presidents of the United States|U.S. presidents]]===

Many [[President of the United States|presidents of the United States]] have ancestral links to [[Ulster]], including three whose parents were born in Ulster.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Agency" /> Three presidents had at least one parent born in Ulster: [[Andrew Jackson]], [[James Buchanan]] and [[Chester Arthur]]. The Irish Protestant vote in the U.S. has not been studied as much as that of the Catholic Irish. In the 1820s and 1830s, Jackson supporters emphasized his Irish background, as did supporters of [[James Knox Polk]], but since the 1840s it has been uncommon for a Protestant politician in America to be identified as Irish, but rather as "Scotch-Irish".{{Original research inline|date=November 2010}} In Canada, by contrast, Irish Protestants remained a cohesive political force well into the 20th century, identified with the [[Conservative Party of Canada (historical)|then Conservative Party of Canada]] and especially with the [[Orange Institution]], although this is less evident in today's politics.

More than one-third of all U.S. presidents had substantial ancestral origins in the northern province of Ireland (Ulster). President Bill Clinton spoke proudly of that fact, and his own ancestral links with the province, during his two visits to Ulster. Like most U.S. citizens, most U.S. presidents are the result of a "[[melting pot]]" of ancestral origins.

Clinton is one of at least seventeen Chief Executives descended from emigrants to the United States from Ulster. While many of the presidents have typically Ulster-Scots surnames – Jackson, Johnson, McKinley, Wilson – others, such as Roosevelt and Cleveland, have links which are less obvious.

;[[Andrew Jackson]]
:7th president, 1829–1837: He was born in the predominantly Ulster-Scots [[Waxhaws]] area of [[South Carolina]] two years after his parents left [[Boneybefore]], near [[Carrickfergus]] in [[County Antrim]]. A [[Andrew Jackson Centre|heritage centre in the village]] pays tribute to the legacy of "Old Hickory". Andrew Jackson then moved to [[Tennessee]], where he began a prominent political and military career.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Agency">{{cite web|url=http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/fs/doc/new_range_of_ulster-scots_booklets/US_and_USA_Presidents_BK3_AW_6.pdf|title=Ulster-Scots and the United States Presidents|publisher=[[Ulster-Scots Agency]]|access-date=12 July 2010}}</ref> ([[United States Senate|U.S. Senator]] from [[List of United States Senators from Tennessee|Tennessee]], 1797–1798 & 1823–1825; [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House Representative]] from [[Tennessee's at-large congressional district]], 1796–1797; [[Tennessee Supreme Court]] Judge, 1798–1804; [[List of Governors of Florida|Military Governor of Florida]], 1821; [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] [[Major general (United States)|Major General]], 1814–1821; [[United States Volunteers|U.S. Volunteers]] [[Major general (United States)|Major General]], 1812–1814; [[Tennessee Military Department|Tennessee State Militia]] [[Major general (United States)|Major General]], 1802–1812; Tennessee State Militia [[Colonel (United States)|Colonel]], 1801–1802)
;[[James K. Polk]]
:11th president, 1845–1849: His ancestors were among the first Ulster-Scots settlers, emigrating from [[Coleraine]] in 1680 to become a powerful political family in [[Mecklenburg County, North Carolina|Mecklenburg County]], [[North Carolina]]. He moved to [[Tennessee]] and became its governor before winning the presidency.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Agency" /> ([[List of Speakers of the United States House of Representatives|13th]] [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives]], 1835–1839; [[List of Governors of Tennessee|9th]] [[Governor of Tennessee]], 1839–1841; U.S. House Representative from [[Tennessee's 6th congressional district]], 1825–1833; U.S. House Representative from [[Tennessee's 9th congressional district]], 1833–1839; [[Tennessee House of Representatives|Tennessee State Representative]], 1823–1825)
;[[James Buchanan]]
:15th president, 1857–1861: Born in a log cabin (which has been relocated to his old school in [[Mercersburg, Pennsylvania]]), "Old Buck" cherished his origins: "My Ulster blood is a priceless heritage". His father was born in [[Ramelton]] in [[County Donegal]], Ireland. The Buchanans were originally from [[Stirlingshire]], [[Scotland]] where the ancestral home still stands.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Agency" /> ([[List of secretaries of state of the United States|17th]] [[United States Secretary of State|U.S. Secretary of State]], 1845–1849; U.S. Senator from [[List of United States Senators from Pennsylvania|Pennsylvania]], (1834–1845); U.S. House Representative from [[Pennsylvania's 3rd congressional district]], 1821–1823; U.S. House Representative from [[Pennsylvania's 4th congressional district]], 1823–1831; [[List of ambassadors of the United States to Russia|U.S. Minister to the Russian Empire]], 1832–1833; [[List of ambassadors of the United States to the United Kingdom|U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]], 1853–1856; [[Pennsylvania House of Representatives|Pennsylvania State Representative]], 1814–1816)
;[[Andrew Johnson]]
:17th president, 1865–1869: His grandfather left [[Mounthill]], near [[Larne]] in [[County Antrim]] around 1750 and settled in [[North Carolina]]. Andrew worked there as a tailor and ran a successful business in [[Greeneville, Tennessee|Greeneville]], [[Tennessee]], before being elected vice president. He became president following [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s assassination. ([[List of vice presidents of the United States|16th]] [[vice president of the United States]], 1865; U.S. Senator from Tennessee, 1857–1862 & 1875; 15th Governor of Tennessee, 1853–1857; U.S. House Representative from [[Tennessee's 1st congressional district]], 1843–1853; [[Tennessee Senate|Tennessee State Senator]], 1841–1843; Tennessee State Representative, 1835–1837 & 1839–1841; [[Greeneville, Tennessee]] [[Mayor]], 1834–1838; Greeneville, Tennessee [[Alderman#United States|Alderman]], 1828–1830; Military Governor of Tennessee, 1862–1865; [[Union Army]] [[Brigadier general (United States)|Brigadier General]], 1862–1865)
;[[Ulysses S. Grant]]<ref>Thompson, Joseph E., "American Policy and Northern Ireland: A Saga of Peacebuilding", Praeger (March 30, 2001), p. 2, and Howe, Stephen, "Ireland and Empire: Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Culture", Oxford University Press, USA (March 14, 2002), p. 273.</ref>
:18th president, 1869–1877: The home of his maternal great-grandfather, John Simpson, at [[Dergenagh]], [[County Tyrone]], is the location for an exhibition on the eventful life of the victorious [[American Civil War|Civil War]] commander who served two terms as president. Grant visited his ancestral homeland in 1878. The home of John Simpson still stands in County Tyrone.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/Grant-Ancestral-House-Dungannon-P2938 |title=Grant Ancestral House |publisher=Discovernorthernireland.com |access-date=2012-06-04}}</ref> (Acting [[United States Secretary of War|U.S. Secretary of War]], 1867–1868; [[Commanding General of the United States Army|Commanding General of the U.S. Army]], 1864–1869; U.S./Union Army [[Lieutenant general (United States)|Lieutenant General]], 1864–1866; Union Army [[Major general (United States)|Major General]], 1862–1864; Union Army [[Brigadier general (United States)|Brigadier General]], 1861–1862; Union Army [[Colonel (United States)|Colonel]], 1861; U.S. Army [[Captain (United States O-3)|Captain]], 1853–1854; U.S. Army [[Brevet (military)#United States|Brevet]] [[Captain (United States O-3)|Captain]], 1847–1848; U.S. Army [[Second lieutenant#United States|2nd Lieutenant]], 1843–1853)
;[[Chester A. Arthur]]
:21st president, 1881–1885: His succession to the Presidency after the death of Garfield was the start of a quarter-century in which the White House was occupied by men of Ulster-Scots origins. His family left [[Dreen]], near [[Cullybackey]], [[County Antrim]], in 1815. There is now an interpretive centre, alongside the Arthur Ancestral Home, devoted to his life and times.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Agency" /> (20th vice president of the United States, 1881; [[Collector of the Port of New York|New York Port Collector]], 1871–1878; [[New York Guard]] [[Quartermaster general|Quartermaster General]], 1862–1863; New York Guard [[Office of Inspector General (United States)|Inspector General]], 1862; New York Guard [[Chief engineer|Engineer-in-Chief]], 1861–1863)
;[[Grover Cleveland]]
:22nd and 24th president, 1885–1889 and 1893–1897: Born in [[New Jersey]], he was the maternal grandson of merchant Abner Neal, who emigrated from [[County Antrim]] in the 1790s. He is the only president to have served non-consecutive terms.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Agency" /> ([[List of Governors of New York|28th]] [[Governor of New York]], 1883–1885; [[List of mayors of Buffalo, New York|34th Mayor of Buffalo, New York]], 1882; [[Erie County Sheriff's Office (New York)|Erie County, New York Sheriff]], 1871–1873)
;[[Benjamin Harrison]]
:23rd president, 1889–1893: His mother, Elizabeth Irwin, had Ulster-Scots roots through her two great-grandfathers, James Irwin and William McDowell. Harrison was born in [[Ohio]] and served as a brigadier general in the [[Union Army]] before embarking on a career in [[Indiana]] politics which led to the White House.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Agency" /> (U.S. Senator from [[List of United States Senators from Indiana|Indiana]], 1881–1887; Union Army Brevet [[Brigadier general (United States)|Brigadier General]], 1865; Union Army [[Colonel (United States)|Colonel]], 1862–1865; Union Army [[Captain (United States O-3)|Captain]], 1862)
;[[William McKinley]]
:25th president, 1897–1901: Born in [[Ohio]], the descendant of a farmer from Conagher, near [[Ballymoney]], [[County Antrim]], he was proud of his ancestry and addressed one of the national Scotch-Irish congresses held in the late 19th century. His second term as president was cut short by an assassin's bullet.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Agency" /> ([[List of Governors of Ohio|39th Governor of Ohio]], 1892–1896; U.S. House Representative from [[Ohio's 18th congressional district]], 1887–1891; U.S. House Representative from [[Ohio's 20th congressional district]], 1885–1887; U.S. House Representative from Ohio's 18th congressional district, 1883–1884; U.S. House Representative from [[Ohio's 17th congressional district]], 1881–1883; U.S. House Representative from [[Ohio's 16th congressional district]], 1879–1881; U.S. House Representative from Ohio's 17th congressional district, 1877–1879; Union Army Brevet [[Brigadier general (United States)|Brigadier General]], 1865; Union Army [[Colonel (United States)|Colonel]], 1862–1865; Union Army [[Captain (United States O-3)|Captain]], 1862)
;[[Theodore Roosevelt]]
:26th president, 1901–1909: His mother, [[Mittie Bulloch]], had Ulster Scots ancestors who emigrated from [[Glenoe]], [[County Antrim]], in May 1729. Roosevelt praised "Irish Presbyterians" as "a bold and hardy race".<ref>Theodore Roosevelt, ''The Winning Of The West'', Volume 1, Kessinger Publishing, 2004, p. 77</ref> However, he is also the man who said: "But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts "native"* before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://home.comcast.net/~nhprman/trhyphenated.htm |title=Theodore Roosevelt's "Hyphenated Americanism" Speech, 1915 |access-date=2010-07-12 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090125114220/http://home.comcast.net/~nhprman/trhyphenated.htm |archive-date=2009-01-25 }}</ref> (*Roosevelt was referring to "[[Nativism (politics)|nativists]]", not [[Native Americans in the United States|American Indians]], in this context) (25th vice president of the United States, 1901; 33rd Governor of New York, 1899–1900; [[Assistant Secretary of the Navy]], 1897–1898; [[New York City Police Commissioner|New York City Police Commissioners Board president]], 1895–1897; [[New York State Assembly]] [[Minority leader|Minority Leader]], 1883; New York State Assembly Member, 1882–1884)
;[[William Howard Taft]]
:27th president, 1909–1913: First known ancestor of the [[Taft family]] in the United States, [[Robert Taft Sr.]], was born in [[County Louth]] circa 1640 (where his father, Richard Robert Taft, also died in 1700), before migrating to [[Braintree, Massachusetts]] in 1675, and settling in [[Mendon, Massachusetts]] in 1680. ([[Chief Justice of the United States#List of Chief Justices|10th Chief Justice of the United States]], 1921–1930; [[United States Secretary of War|42nd U.S. Secretary of War]], 1904–1908; [[List of colonial governors of Cuba|1st Provisional Governor of Cuba]], 1906; [[Governor-General of the Philippines|1st Governor-General of the Philippines]], 1901–1903; [[United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit|U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals]] Judge, 1892–1900; [[Solicitor General of the United States|6th U.S. Solicitor General]], 1890–1892)
;[[Woodrow Wilson]]
:28th president, 1913–1921: Of Ulster-Scots descent on both sides of the family, his roots were very strong and dear to him. He was grandson of a printer from [[Dergalt]], near [[Strabane]], [[County Tyrone]], whose former home is open to visitors.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Agency" /> ([[List of Governors of New Jersey|34th]] [[Governor of New Jersey]], 1911–1913; [[President of Princeton University|Princeton University president]], 1902–1910)
;[[Harry S. Truman]]
:33rd president, 1945–1953: Of Ulster-Scots descent on both sides of the family.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Agency" /> (34th vice president of the United States, 1945; U.S. Senator from [[List of United States Senators from Missouri|Missouri]], 1935–1945; [[List of county executives of Jackson County, Missouri|Jackson County, Missouri Presiding Judge]], 1927–1935; [[United States Army Reserve|U.S. Army Reserve]] [[Colonel (United States)|Colonel]], 1932–1953; U.S. Army Reserve [[Lieutenant colonel (United States)|Lieutenant Colonel]], 1925–1932; U.S. Army Reserve [[Major (United States)|Major]], 1920–1925; U.S. Army Major, 1919; U.S. Army [[Captain (United States O-3)|Captain]], 1918–1919; U.S. Army [[First lieutenant#United States)|1st Lieutenant]], 1917–1918; [[Missouri National Guard]] [[Corporal#United States|Corporal]], 1905–1911)
;[[Lyndon B. Johnson]]
:36th president, 1963–1969: Of Ulster-Scots ancestry with patrilineal descent traced to [[Dumfriesshire]], [[Scotland]] in 1590.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://gw.geneanet.org/tdowling?lang=en&p=john&n=johnson&oc=35|title=John Johnson|website=Geneanet|access-date=1 July 2017}}</ref> (37th vice president of the United States, 1961–1963; [[Party leaders of the United States Senate|U.S. Senate Majority Leader]], 1955–1961; U.S. Senate Minority Leader, 1953–1955; U.S. Senate Majority Whip, 1951–1953; U.S. Senator from [[List of United States Senators from Texas|Texas]], 1949–1961; U.S. House Representative from [[Texas's 10th congressional district]], 1937–1949; [[United States Naval Reserve|U.S. Naval Reserve]] [[Commander (United States)|Commander]], 1940–1964)
;[[Richard Nixon]]
:37th president, 1969–1974: The Nixon ancestors left Ulster in the mid-18th century; the Quaker Milhous family ties were with [[County Antrim]] and [[County Kildare]].<ref name="Ulster-Scots Agency" /> (36th vice president of the United States, 1953–1961; U.S. Senator from [[List of United States Senators from California|California]], 1950–1953; U.S. House Representative from [[California's 12th congressional district]], 1947–1950; U.S. Naval Reserve [[Commander (United States)|Commander]], 1953–1966; U.S. Naval Reserve [[Lieutenant commander (United States)|Lieutenant Commander]], 1945–1953; U.S. Naval Reserve [[Lieutenant (navy)|Lieutenant]], 1943–1945; U.S. Naval Reserve [[Lieutenant (junior grade)|Lieutenant J.G.]], 1942–1943)
;[[Jimmy Carter]]
:39th president, 1977–1981: Some of Carter's paternal ancestors originated from County Antrim, County Londonderry and County Armagh and some of his maternal ancestors originated from County Londonderry, County Down, and County Donegal.<ref>{{cite book|title=Ancestors of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter|author=Jeff Carter|page=74}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Cultures of the world: selections from the ten-volume encyclopedia of world cultures|author=Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember|page=1129}}</ref> ([[List of Governors of Georgia|76th Governor of Georgia]], 1971–1975; [[Georgia State Senate|Georgia State Senator]], 1963–1967; U.S. Navy Reserve [[Lieutenant (junior grade)|Lieutenant J.G.]], 1953–1961; U.S. Navy [[Lieutenant (junior grade)|Lieutenant J.G.]], 1949–1953; U.S. Navy [[Ensign (rank)|Ensign]], 1946–1949)
;[[George H. W. Bush]]
:41st president, 1989–1993: Of Ulster-Scots ancestry.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Society of America">{{Cite web|title=About the Ulster-Scots|url=http://www.ulsterscotssociety.com/about_the-roots.html}}</ref> (43rd vice president of the United States, 1981–1989; [[Director of Central Intelligence]], 1976–1977; [[List of ambassadors of the United States to China#List of Chiefs of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing|2nd U.S. Beijing Liaison Office Chief]], 1974–1975; [[United States Ambassador to the United Nations|10th U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations]], 1971–1973; U.S. House Representative from [[Texas's 7th congressional district]], 1967–1971; U.S. Navy [[Lieutenant (junior grade)|Lieutenant J.G.]], 1942–1945)
;[[Bill Clinton]]
:42nd president, 1993–2001: Of Ulster-Scots ancestry.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Society of America"/> ([[List of Governors of Arkansas|40th & 42nd Governor of Arkansas]], 1979–1981 & 1983–1992; [[Arkansas Attorney General|50th Arkansas Attorney General]], 1977–1979)
;[[George W. Bush]]
:43rd president, 2001–2009: Of Ulster-Scots ancestry.<ref name="Ulster-Scots Society of America"/> ([[List of Governors of Texas|46th]] [[Governor of Texas]], 1995–2000); [[Texas Air National Guard]] [[First Lieutenant (United States)|First Lieutenant]], 1968–1974)
;[[Barack Obama]]
:44th president, 2009–2017: Of Scots-Irish ancestry on mother's side.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/28/our-first-black-president-just-played-up-his-scots-irish-heritage-and-it-has-everything-to-do-with-trump/?noredirect=on|title=Our first black president plays up his Scots-Irish heritage — and it has everything to do with Trump|last1=Stead Sellers|first1=Frances|date=July 28, 2016|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|access-date=July 1, 2018|last2=Blake|first2=Aaron}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Drabold|first1=Will|last2=Villa|first2=Lissandra|title=Read President Obama's Speech at the Democratic Convention|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|url=http://time.com/4426150/dnc-barack-obama-transcript/|date=July 27, 2016|access-date=July 1, 2018}}</ref> (U.S. Senator from [[List of United States Senators from Illinois|Illinois]], 2005–2008; [[Illinois Senate|Illinois State Senator]], 1997–2004)

==See also==
{{Portal|United States|Scotland|Northern Ireland|Ireland|United Kingdom|England}}
*[[Lists of Americans]]
*[[Appalachia]]
*[[Battle of Kings Mountain]]
*[[English Americans]]
*[[Hatfield–McCoy feud]]
*[[Irish Americans]]
*[[List of Scotch-Irish Americans]]
*[[Scottish Americans]]
*[[Ulster American Folk Park]]
*[[Whiskey Rebellion]]
*[[Scotch-Irish Canadians]]

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book|last=Bageant|first=Joseph L.|author-link=Joe Bageant|title=Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War|isbn=978-1-921215-78-0|publisher=[[Broadway Books]]|year=2007|title-link=Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War}} Cultural discussion and commentary of Scots-Irish descendants in the US.
* {{cite book|editor-last1=Bailyn|editor-first1=Bernard|editor1-link=Bernard Bailyn|editor-last2=Morgan|editor-first2=Philip D.|editor2-link=Philip D. Morgan|title=Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire|year=2012|publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]]}} Scholars analyze colonial migrations. [https://books.google.com/books?id=TKXqCQAAQBAJ&dq=Strangers+Within+the+Realm&pg=PP1 online]
* Baxter, Nancy M. ''Movers: A Saga of the Scotch-Irish (The Heartland Chronicles)'' (1986; {{ISBN|0-9617367-1-2}}) Novelistic.
* Blethen, Tyler. ed. ''Ulster and North America: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Scotch-Irish'' (1997; {{ISBN|0-8173-0823-7}}), scholarly essays.
* {{cite book|author1=Byrne, James Patrick |author2=Philip Coleman|author3=Jason Francis King|title=Ireland and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History : a Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=agfvVQnBu9MC&pg=PA837|year=2008|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=9781851096145}}
* {{cite journal|last=Carroll|first=Michael P.|title=How the Irish Became Protestant in America|journal=[[Religion and American Culture]]|publisher=[[University of California Press]]|date=Winter 2006|volume=16|issue=1|pages=25–54|doi=10.1525/rac.2006.16.1.25|jstor=10.1525/rac.2006.16.1.25|s2cid=145240474}}
* {{cite book|last=Carroll|first=Michael P.|title=American Catholics in the Protestant Imagination: Rethinking the Academic Study of Religion|publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]]|year=2007|pages=1–26}}
* Chepesiuk, Ron.  ''The Scotch-Irish: From the North of Ireland to the Making of America'' ({{ISBN|0-7864-0614-3}})
* Drymon, M. M.''Scotch-Irish Foodways in America''(2009;{{ISBN|978-1-4495-8842-7}})
* Dunaway, Wayland F. ''The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania'' (1944; reprinted 1997; {{ISBN|0-8063-0850-8}}), solid older scholarly history.
* {{cite book|last=Dunbar-Ortiz|first=Roxanne|author-link=Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz|title=Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie|year=2006|isbn=978-0-8061-3775-9|publisher=[[University of Oklahoma Press]]|url=https://archive.org/details/reddirtgrowingup00dunb_0}} Literary/historical family memoir of Scotch-Irish Missouri/Oklahoma family.
* Esbenshade, Richard. "Scotch-Irish Americans." in ''Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America'', edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 4, Gale, 2014), pp.&nbsp;87–100. [https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3273300156/GPS?u=wikipedia&sid=GPS&xid=27347afb Online free]
* {{cite book|last=Fischer|first=David Hackett|author-link=David Hackett Fischer|title=Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America|isbn=978-0-19-506905-1|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=1989|title-link=Albion's Seed}} Major scholarly study tracing colonial roots of four groups of immigrants, Irish, English Puritans, English Cavaliers, and Quakers; see pp.&nbsp;605–778.
* Glasgow, Maude.  ''The Scotch-Irish in Northern Ireland and in the American Colonies'' (1998; {{ISBN|0-7884-0945-X}})
* Glazier, Michael, ed. ''The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America,'' (1999), the best place to start—the most authoritative source, with essays by over 200 experts, covering both Catholic and Protestants.
* Griffin, Patrick. ''The People with No Name: Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World: 1689-1764'' (2001; {{ISBN|0-691-07462-3}}) solid academic monograph.
*Hammock, Stephen A. ''Emigrants, Sails, and Scholars: A Comprehensive Review of Scots-Irish Historiography'', Scots Press. (2013, {{ISBN|978-1-55932-318-5}}).
* Johnson, James E. ''Scots and Scotch-Irish in America'' (1985, {{ISBN|0-8225-1022-7}}) short overview for middle schools
* {{cite news|last=Joseph|first=Cameron|title=The Scots-Irish Vote|work=[[The Atlantic]]|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/the-scots-irish-vote/27853/|date=October 6, 2009|access-date=October 19, 2018}}
* Jones, Maldwyn A. "Scotch-Irish." ''Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups'' (1980): 895–908. [https://archive.org/details/harvardencyclope0000unse_z1f1 online]
* Keller, Kenneth W. "The Origins of Ulster Scots Emigration to America: A Survey of Recent Research." ''American Presbyterians'' 70.2 (1992): 71–80. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23332623 online]
* Kennedy, Billy. ''Faith & Freedom: The Scots-Irish in America'' (1999; {{ISBN|1-84030-061-2}}) Short, popular chronicle; he has several similar books on geographical regions
* Kennedy, Billy. ''The Scots-Irish in the Carolinas'' (1997; {{ISBN|1-84030-011-6}})
* Kennedy, Billy. ''The Scots-Irish in the Shenandoah Valley'' (1996; {{ISBN|1-898787-79-4}})
* Lewis, Thomas A. ''West From Shenandoah: A Scotch-Irish Family Fights for America, 1729–1781, A Journal of Discovery'' (2003; {{ISBN|0-471-31578-8}})
* Leyburn, James G. ''Scotch-Irish: A Social History'' (1999; {{ISBN|0-8078-4259-1}}) written by academic but out of touch with scholarly literature after 1940
* {{cite news|last=Leyburn|first=James G.|title=The Scotch-Irish|work=[[American Heritage (magazine)|American Heritage]]|volume=22|issue=1|url=https://www.americanheritage.com/content/scotch-irish|date=December 1970|access-date=October 19, 2018}}
* {{cite journal|last1=McDonald|first1=Forrest|author-link1=Forrest McDonald|last2=McWhiney|first2=Grady|author-link2=Grady McWhiney|title=The Antebellum Southern Herdsman: A Reinterpretation|journal=[[Journal of Southern History]]|volume=41|issue=2|date=May 1975|pages=147–66|doi=10.2307/2206011|jstor=2206011}} Highly influential economic interpretation; online at JSTOR through most academic libraries. Their Celtic interpretation says Scots-Irish resembled all other Celtic groups; they were warlike herders (as opposed to peaceful farmers in England), and brought this tradition to America. James Webb has popularized this thesis.
* {{cite book|last1=McWhiney|first1=Grady|first2=Perry D.|last2=Jamieson|author-link1=Grady McWhiney|title=Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage|publisher=[[University of Alabama Press]]|isbn=978-0817302290|year=1984}}
* {{cite book|last=McWhiney|first=Grady|author-link=Grady McWhiney|title=Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South|year=1989|isbn=978-0817304584|publisher=[[University of Alabama Press]]}} Major exploration of cultural folkways.
* Meagher, Timothy J. ''The Columbia Guide to Irish American History.'' (2005), overview and bibliographies; includes the Catholics.
* {{cite book|editor-last=Miller|editor-first=Kerby|editor-link=Kerby A. Miller|title=Journey of Hope: The Story of Irish Immigration to America|publisher=[[Chronicle Books]]|isbn=978-0811827836|year=2001}} Major source of primary documents.
* {{cite book|last=Miller|first=Kerby|author-link=Kerby A. Miller|title=Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0195051872|year=1988|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/emigrantsexiles00kerb_0}} Highly influential study.
* Porter, Lorle. ''A People Set Apart: The Scotch-Irish in Eastern Ohio'' (1999; {{ISBN|1-887932-75-5}}) highly detailed chronicle.
* Quinlan, Kieran. ''Strange Kin: Ireland and the American South'' (2004), critical analysis of Celtic thesis.
* Sherling, Rankin. ''The Invisible Irish: Finding Protestants in the Nineteenth-Century Migrations to America'' (McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2015).
* Sletcher, Michael, "Scotch-Irish", in Stanley I. Kutler, ed., ''Dictionary of American History'', (10 vols., New York, 2002).0
* {{cite book|last=Vann|first=Barry|author-link=Barry A. Vann|title=In Search of Ulster Scots Land: The Birth and Geotheological Imagings of a Transatlantic People|publisher=[[University of South Carolina Press]]|year=2008|isbn=978-1-57003-708-5}}
* {{cite book|last=Vann|first=Barry|author-link=Barry A. Vann|title=Rediscovering the South's Celtic Heritage|publisher=Overmountain Press|year=2004|isbn=978-1-57072-269-1}}
* {{cite journal|last=Vann|first=Barry|author-link=Barry A. Vann|year=2007|title=Irish protestants and the creation of the Bible belt|journal=[[Journal of Transatlantic Studies]]|publisher=[[Routledge]]|volume=5|issue=1|pages=87–106|doi=10.1080/14794010708656856|s2cid=143386272}}
* {{cite book|last=Webb|first=James|author-link=Jim Webb|title=Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America|publisher=[[Broadway Books]]|year=2004|isbn=978-0-7679-1688-2|title-link=Born Fighting}} Novelistic approach; special attention to his people's war with English in America.
** [[Rowland Berthoff|Berthoff, Rowland]].  "Celtic Mist over the South", ''Journal of Southern History'' 52 (1986): 523–46 is a strong attack; rejoinder on 547−50

==External links==
*[http://www.ulsterscotssociety.com/ The Ulster-Scots Society of America]
*[http://www.scotch-irishsocietyusa.org/ Scotch-Irish Society of the USA]
*[http://www.ulsterscotslanguage.com/ Ulster-Scots Language Society]
*[http://www.ulsterscotslanguage.com/en/texts/scotch-irish/scotch-irish-or-scots-irish/ Scotch-Irish or Scots-Irish: What's in a Name?]
*[http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/ Ulster-Scots Agency]
*[http://www.ulster-scots.co.uk/ Ulster-Scots Online]
*[http://www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/ulsterscots/ Institute of Ulster-Scots]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060421051609/http://www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/theodore-roosevelt/index.html Theodore Roosevelt's genealogy]
*[http://www.libraryireland.com/ScotchIrishAmerica/Contents.php/ The Scotch-Irish in America (by Henry Jones Ford)]
*[http://www.booksulster.com/texts/history/scotch-irish-america/index.php/ The Scotch-Irish in America (by Samuel Swett Green)]
*[http://www.roanetnhistory.org/footenorthcarolina.php?loc=FooteSketchesNorthCarolina&pgid=79 ''Origin of the Scotch-Irish,'' Ch. 5] in [http://www.roanetnhistory.org/footenorthcarolina.html ''Sketches of North Carolina'' by William Henry Foote (1846)] - full-text history
*[http://www.roanetnhistory.org/waddellsannals.html Waddell's ''Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871'', Second Ed. (1902)] - full-text history with many mentions of Scotch-Irish
*[https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/26/weekinreview/ideas-trends-southern-curse-why-america-s-murder-rate-is-so-high.html?pagewanted=all "Ideas & Trends: Southern Curse; Why America's Murder Rate Is So High", New York Times, July 26, 1998]
*[https://www.rootsandrecall.com/york-county-sc/buildings/4858-mcconnells-highway/ Bethesda Presbyterian Church - York County, S.C.]

{{European Americans}}

{{British diaspora}}

[[Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent| ]]
[[Category:European diaspora in the United States]]
[[Category:English diaspora]]
[[Category:Scotch-Irish diaspora in the United States| ]]
[[Category:Scotch-Irish American history| ]]
[[Category:Scottish diaspora]]
[[Category:British diaspora by country]]
[[Category:Irish diaspora]]