Scotland's Mark on America

Scottish emigration to America came in two streams—one direct from the motherland and the other through the province of Ulster in the north of Ireland. Those who came by this second route are usually known as 'Ulster Scots', or more commonly as 'Scotch-Irish', and they have been claimed as Irishmen by Irish writers in the United States. This is perhaps excusable but hardly just. Throughout their residence in Ireland the Scots settlers preserved their distinctive Scottish characteristics, and generally described themselves as 'the Scottish nation in the north of Ireland'. They, of course, like the early pioneers in this country, experienced certain changes through the influence of their new surroundings, but, as one writer has remarked, they 'remained as distinct from the native population as if they had never crossed the Channel. They were among the Irish but not of them'. Their sons, too, when they attended the classes in the University of Glasgow, signed the matriculation register as 'A Scot of Ireland'. They did not intermarry with the native Irish, though they did intermarry to some extent with the English Puritans and with the French Huguenots. (These Huguenots were colonies driven out of France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and induced to settle in the north of Ireland by William III. To this people Ireland is indebted for its lace industry, which they introduced into that country.)