03/15/2019
With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner, I wanted to take a moment to look at West Virginia’s Scots-Irish heritage, which is one tied to Ireland, but also very separate.
West Virginia is the only state in the union that is located 100% within the Appalachian region. As such, West Virginia’s earliest settlers were almost entirely of Scots-Irish descent (roughly 90% according to some sources). These Scots-Irish are known as “Ulster Scots” in Europe and the United Kingdom.
The Scots-Irish can trace our common lineage back to the Ulster region of northern Ireland, and our Scottish ancestors who settled that region. Ulster had for centuries been inhabited by Ireland’s most troublesome Gaelic tribes, but was finally brought under English rule in the 1590s following the Nine Years War. King James I then opened the land up for “civilized” settlement by the Scottish in 1606.
Due primarily to the poor soil and not being accepted by their new countrymen, within a few generations of arriving in Ulster, considerable numbers of Ulster Scots began to emigrate to the British colonies in North America with approximately 250,000 arriving here between 1717 and 1775.
Given that they were already used to a hard scrabble living, and property along the coasts was spoken for or very expensive, the Scots-Irish headed for the Appalachian backcountry in large numbers.
The origin of the term “Scots-Irish” dates to the 1850s when hundreds of thousands fled the Great Potato Famine in Ireland. The Ulster Scots in America, who had previously been known as “Northern Irish,” began calling themselves “Scots-Irish” to distinguish themselves from the new, predominately poor and unwelcome, southern Irish.
As of the latest Census, 5.4 million Americans claimed Scots-Irish ancestry; however, some believe the number may be as high as 27 million. As of 2019, fourteen American presidents have come from Scots-Irish lineage.
Author Jim Webb put forth a thesis in his book “Born Fighting” to suggest that the character traits he ascribes to the Scots-Irish such as loyalty to kin, extreme mistrust of governmental authority, and a propensity to bear arms (and to use them), played a major role in shaping the American identity.
