Scotch-Irish-L Archives

Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 2005-01 > 1106444424


From: "Linda Merle" <>
Subject: Re: [Sc-Ir] Re: New list for people emigrating from Ireland to Maine
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 17:40:32 -0800


Hi folks,

>> Linda's website has info on why we don't mix the Irish and Scottish
>> together with Scotch-Irish in genealogy research terms. snip

Generally speaking, it's good to know if you are looking
for a hen or a rooster. However they are all chickens.
In the same way people from Ireland are people from Ireland.
Esp. after about 1840 or so one researches them in the same
way.

As they all came from Ireland, to find any of them you need
to know the geography of Ireland, cultures of Ireland,
etc, etc, etc. A huge case can be made for researching
people in and from the island of Ireland. It would be done
more often if they didn't fight a lot and threaten violence
on one another. By the same token, cultural wars, when
various folk claim their culture is the only one or that
others don't have any tend to make gathering of people from
or in Ireland unpleasant.

For myself I recall largely with delight an evening I spent
in Portglenone some years ago in a pub listening to Irish
music. Unlike Irish music ceillies in the USA where one
must play orthodox instruments or be accused of defaming
the tradition, here folks were playing some very odd instruments
for "Irish music" and it was just grand. The place was packed.
We were all having fun. I asked, in a single lucid moment,
the local lady I was with "who was here": Catholics or
Protestants, because of course you can't tell. She said "both",
then realized it was a perfect place for a bomb as the
bombers don't like it when we all have fun together. Not
long after we left as the thought had really spoiled the night.
Thank heavens there was no bomb that night.

It made me keenly aware of what the people with the guns
on both sides really don't want: people together having a
good time.

So we do have our differences, but we all look alike and
we talk alike, we are all related and enjoy the same good
times. We just gotta respect cultural diversity and stop
shooting.

So let there be no doubt that I fully support (in case anyone
cares) integration and have ever since the 2nd day of first
grade, which is when we all discovered, under the teacher's
desk, that none of us had horns, tails or hooves. We all
100% of us thought the 'others' had them which says little
for our parents and our religious 'educations'.

There were plenty of Irish who emigrated early from Ireland
and since there were no Catholic churches (outside of Maryland)
because by default Protestants. Kirby Miller writes of this
in his definitive work on Irish emigration. At some point
the ethnic distinction, in other words, makes no sense.

Originally we started this list because all the other Irish
centric lists were dominated by not only Famine-era
research and discussions on Catholic records but often came
with a heavy dose of Irish Republicanism. As a minority
group on the Island of Ireland, we needed our own space
so we could focus on Protestant records and pre-Famine
research without being brainwashed by men of violence.
This still seems to still be one of the few places to
go to learn about that. But it doesn't mean everything has
to be ethnically segregated. Since my mother is half Irish
and half Scotch Irish, the mixing is fine with me as long
as we aren't oppressing one another which starts to remind
me too much of my childhood with some unevolved chickens.

Linda Merle




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