Quotes About Scots-Irish

I've always been a fan of old-time hymns and Scots-Irish dirges, though I wouldn't necessarily consider myself an expert on the type of music that was performed in those days.

You ask people what their ethnicity is, and a lot of Scots-Irish people either don't know or if they know it they just don't acknowledge it. It's not something they really identify with. They're just plain old Americans, plain vanilla. I don't think they are a self-conscious voting bloc.

Until they became the British Empire's greatest voyagers, indeed its greatest export, settling in odd places all around the world. And for that splinter of them that became my people, the Scots-Irish, this meant the Appalachian Mountains, their first stop on their way to creating a way of life that many would come to call, if not American, certainly the defining fabric of the South and the Midwest as well as the core character of the nation's working class.

They fought the Indians and then they fought the British, comprising 40 percent of the Revolutionary War army. They were the great pioneers— Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, and Davy Crockett among them— blazing the westward trails into Kentucky , Ohio, Tennessee, and beyond, where other Scots-Irishmen like Kit Carson picked up the slack.

The blood feuds of today's Ulster— and their legacy in the journey of America's Scots-Irish— have their roots in a decision made in 1610 by King James I of England, who also reigned as James VI of Scotland, to form a Protestant plantation on Irish soil.

Bill, it was said, was a direct descendant of President James Monroe; he grew up in the mountains; he rose from hardscrabble poverty in a backward, backwoods culture; bluegrass music sprang from ancient Scots-Irish culture transplanted to the Appalachians, where it blossomed as a traditional folk art.

The traumatic experience of the Civil War and its aftermath in the 19th century was the incubator of Christian fundamentalism in 20th century America. The agony of the Civil War had a devastating impact on subsequent generations of Southerners, many of whom carried the burden and promise of their Scots-Irish heritage.

My father was a San Francisco firefighter. He also was an amateur artist. Art ran deep on his side of the family, which originated in Spain. He painted our portraits. My mom, Jacqueline, was Scots-Irish. They met in 1947 when dad played for the Houston Buffalos, a minor league baseball team affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals.

I was born in Northern Ireland, also known as Ulster, and I'm Scots-Irish, therefore.