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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 1999-04 > 0925185653


From: linda Merle <>
Subject: Re: assuredly stupid question
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 21:00:53 -0700


Dear John,

Thanks for helping out! However a couple of y our points are not
quite accurate. They are "the myth" instead of the reality. To learn
the truth we just have to invest $75 in Hanna "The Scotch Irish" and
then read the thing.....It's a lot to ask.

I would disagree here:.
>The plantation of Ulster was
>predominately Low Land Scots who had been Anglicized early on in the
>16th and 17th century.

The lowlander was not Anglicized then. The lowlander is himself largely
a blend of Brithonic peoples (P Celts, like the Welsh -- in fact King Lot's
kingdom was The Lothians) and Angles and Norsemen. If you read a
few books on Scottish placenames (Scotland's Place-names" by
David Dorward is one) you will discover there is no evidence that Gaelic
was ever spoken in the eastern lowlands. These people were settled by
the Romans (welll....kinda) and never lived in the clan groups that the
highlanders did. At least since Roman times.

>During the time of the clearances in Highland
>Scotland (1700,s) there was a large influx of Highlanders into Ireland
>and the Americas.

No, not so much into Ulster. There were massive influxes of highlanders
into Ireland in the 16th century. Read "The Twilight Lords" (for one very
fascinating account) by Richard Berleth. In 1550 the McDonalds invaded
Antrim and brought a large army with them. In 1550 of course they
spoke Gaelic -- and Ulster Gaelic and Scots Gaelic were dialects of
on another.

>(4)As Ulster was settled by the English the local Irish population
>(read that one who was not politically correct, and religion was a
>dominant factor) was pushed further into the hinterlands of NW and West
>Ireland.

No, not really. You've been brainwashed by the English like the rest of
us. This is what they wanted to do. They also wanted, sometime later,
to send all the Irish to Connaught. They did neither for the same reason:
no one left to harvest the crops. SOME Irish were displaced. Cromwell
displaced the landed classes but not the peasantry. Especially in
Ulster, the Irish peasantry and the Scots lived side by side. In Antrim
the landlord (the Earl of Antrim) was Roman Catholic, as were many of
his highlanders. He got to keep Antrim for agreeing to allow lowlanders to
settle in Antrim. Today it is impossible to tell who is Irish and who is
Scots in Antrim because the same Gaelic surnames were anglicized
(and sometimes re-gaelicized) to the same English surnames. Besides
reading and noticing that never has Antrim, the most Scots of all the
counties, been less than a third Irish (which is a lot of Irish if they were
all displaced) but also the surnames in Antrim and Donegal are quite
different. The majority of the Irish of Antrim are still living in the baronies
that their ancestors inhabited. Their surnames do not occur in the
west.

>(5)If one looks at the reformation of Ulster in an objective way, I
>think you will see a group of self centered people (english speculators)
>attempting to profit from the degradation of others with little thought
>to the social mores.

Well many of the speculaters were Scots. Some were Irish too.

Linda Merle

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