Did you know?

Some facts about Ulster-Scots emigration & influence:

  • George Washington, the founding father of the United States, is alleged to have remarked: ‘If defeated everywhere else I will make my last stand for liberty among the Scotch-Irish [or Ulster-Scots] of my native Virginia’.

  • In May 1653 Oliver Cromwell gave orders that Ulster Presbyterians be deported to Kilkenny, Tipperary and Waterford.

  • Founded in 1613, Ballycarry is the oldest congregation in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and is situated in Templecoran parish six miles north of Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim. It remains an area of strong Ulster-Scots settlement.

  • The first regularly constituted Presbytery in Ireland, composed of chaplains drawn from Robert Monro’s Scottish army, met in Carrickfergus on 10 June 1642.

  • Revd Francis Makemie (1658 – 1708) is usually regarded as the Father of American Presbyterianism.

  • The Presbyterian Historical Society was founded in 1907 with the remit of promoting interest in, knowledge of and understanding of the history of the three Presbyterian traditions which exist in Ireland: the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland.

  • In the course of the eighteenth century 250,000 or more Ulster Scots left Ulster in search of a better life for themselves and their children in the New World. They left as a result of a complex mixture of economic and religious reasons which are difficult to disentangle satisfactorily.

  • The great Ulster-Scot exodus to the New World began in earnest when the Friends’ Goodwill sailed from Larne, County Antrim, for Boston, Massachusetts, in April 1717.

  • Francis Allison, another Donegal born Presbyterian minister, was a student of Francis Hutcheson and as a teacher played a crucial key role in transmitting Hutcheson’s political thought to the American colonies and in shaping opinion on American independence.

  • Contrary to popular opinion, not all Ulster Scots supported the American Revolution. For example: Alexander Chesney from Dunclug, near Ballymena, emigrated with his parents and seven brothers and sisters to South Carolina. Although his younger brother was a rebel, during the Revolutionary War Alexander served as an officer in the loyalist militia. After the war he returned to Ireland and in 1798 he helped to suppress the United Irish rebellion.