This Module shows how people visiting Ulster during the 19th and early 20th centuries are struck by how different it is from the rest of Ireland. Consistently, they say that if the region “feels” so different, it is because it is so Scottish. Click on the Icons below to discover their story...
People have often seen Ulster as “a place apart,” one that is strikingly different from other parts of Ireland.
From the beginning of the 17th century, when large parts of Ulster were “planted” with English and Scottish settlers, one of the main differences people remarked was the Scottish influence on the region. This is interesting because, although Ulster had one of the strongest concentrations of English settlement in Ireland, it is often not the “Englishness” of the region that stands out, but its “Scottishness.”
It is almost as if people saw Ulster as being so different because it was so Scottish.
This first section contains a number of documents that show how the Scots have left an indelible mark on the region.
Some of the texts are personal accounts written by people who simply travel through the area as visitors. These texts will give you precious glimpses of what everyday life in the Ulster-Scots communities was like at the time.
Then, you’ll find other texts that are written from a specifically Scottish point of view. Here, the authors tell you how they are struck by the similarities between Ulster and Scotland.
Or again, there are the extracts from the very first Scotch-Irish Congress in Columbia, Tennessee, in 1889. These texts are written by the descendants of Ulster Scots who had been settling in America since the earliest large-scale migrations in the early 18th century. These people, who called themselves “Scotch-Irish,” decided to start looking into their own identity at exactly the same time as the Ulster-Scots community in Ireland.
You’ll probably not be surprised to see that many of the documents underline the strong link between Presbyterianism and the Scots community in Ulster.
This doesn’t mean, however, that “Ulster-Scottishness” is only for Presbyterians. Individuals and communities have always interacted in Ulster. This is the case for the Irish and Scots traditions, for example, especially in the rural areas which formed the backbone of Ulster society up until very recently. This aspect comes out strongly in some of the texts.
A lot of the authors make references to the way people use language. They frequently see the use of Scots as one of the most striking features of the community. They sometimes even quote the people they meet on their travels. This is really interesting because some of the texts therefore allow us to “hear” what ordinary people belonging to that community have to say “in their own words.”
If you pay attention to the place-names mentioned in the texts, it will give you a pretty good idea of where the Ulster-Scots communities lived in Ulster.
Some of the authors do not try to hide the fact that they are trying to promote the “Ulster Scot” and make him look as good as possible. Others are more neutral and just describe what they see. This means that, even those with no particular political or cultural agenda are sufficiently impressed by the Scottish feel of this part of Ireland to comment on it in detail in their writing.
In other words, it is not only the people of Scottish origin in Ulster who see themselves as making up a distinct community – outsiders see them as distinctly Scottish as well.
The characteristics highlighted in these texts will come into sharper focus when Ulster unionism begins to organise itself to resist Home Rule. One of the many facets of that resistance that was specific to Ulster was the “Ulster Scot” who emerges as a recognisable figure in the history and literature of the period.
However, at this stage, we are only interested in showing how these authors identify the cultural distinctiveness of this community. The way that distinctiveness is used for a specific political purpose – opposition to Home Rule – will be looked at later.
The well-known material in the Ordnance Survey (begun in 1824 and completed in 1846) provided evidence of the strong Scottish influence on parts of the North-East of Ulster at that particular period. The selection in this Module - which covers a much more extended period, over one hundred and twenty years from the end of the 18th century up to 1920 - leaves us in no doubt as to how deeply rooted this distinct Ulster-Scots community was and continues to be in the province of Ulster.
