Being that my mother's side of the family is Catholic, I have always known religious tolerance. Although, coming from a staunch Presbyterian background from my father and that was the only church we are affiliated with.  My father showed no bitterness towards my mother's side of the family.

So as an adult when my aunt who is Catholic and her husband bought a pub and bed and breakfast in the Republic of Ireland we were happy for them and thought it was a great financial move.  So when I went back home to Scotland for a holiday they invited me over to the Republic of Ireland to see their pub and bed and breakfast.  So I took the ferry from Scotland to Northern Ireland, stayed there for a couple of days.  Then I drove to the South.  When I arrived in the town were my aunt and uncle were (I will leave out the name to protect the innocent), I realized I was one of very few Protestants, which was okay, I can handle my own.  When I walked into the pub, there was Celtic Jersey's all over the walls and it was definitely a Catholic environment.  Like I said this was not a problem for me because I really went to visit my aunt.  I did not want to be involved in any kind of religious war.  So being it was a small town, it seemed like within a few hours of arriving the whole town knew I was there and people were nice enough but I could hear Protestant jabs which really hurt my feelings because I love Jesus and God and when people attack Protestants it offends me because I know what a positive impact my Presbyterian upbringing has had on me.

On my fourth evening there my uncle (by marriage he is married to my aunt) had too much to drink in his pub and started cutting down Masons.  He knew this would cut to the bone with me because my father is a Past Master Mason and so is my brother.  This man had been on holiday 26 times to my parent's home and they never cut down Catholics, so we had a couple of words about his bad intentions and he backed off a wee bit but I knew it was not going to be the end of it.

So the following night, my aunt said we were going to the next town to a dance.  That is right down my ally because I love to dance and banter with people. My aunt in her shoot from the hip type of way, warned that if any religious subjects or conversations came up at this dance not to say a peep about being a Protestant because it would start a huge war.  Well, that was the last thing I wanted to do in amongst people who were not Protestants so it was implanted on my brain not to banter about religion.  When we arrived at the dance it was held in a restaurant type of hall.  It kind of reminded me of the American barn dances because all the lads were lined up against the wall.  All the single women sat by themselves and with couples, and then the lads would come up and ask the women to dance.  Being that I am a single woman it seemed before to long I had about ten lads sitting around and close to me.  Well, the conversation turned to religion and once again I found that Protestants were under attack, I was biting my lip because I remember my aunt saying don't get into any religious banter because it would cause a war.  So every now and again I threw in a stinger when I felt like my religious freedom and values were being attacked but they still had not figured out I was not Catholic.  Then one of the lads turned to me as serious as could be and said I know you could never be a Protestant because their eyes are so close together and squinty.  Well, I just about fell off my seat because I was so shocked that he was such a bigot.  Still the warning of my aunt kept ringing in my ears, so I still did not say anything.  Scots are wise when it comes to fighting, I was too smart to know that being the only Protestant there I would not have made it out of the hall without either getting killed or seriously hurt and I had made a promise to my aunt.  Then my uncle who had drunk too much wanted to suddenly leave and left me in the care of a man who obviously hated Protestants and this was the fellow who was driving me home.  Just my luck and I felt that my uncle had set me up personally, I cannot help but feel that way.  So now with my aunt and uncle gone I am left by myself with what I later found out was the IRA.

Now, the discussions about Protestants became extremely violent.  The discussion was about how many they would shoot, how they wanted to hurt all these Protestants, and I wanted to cry with anger because I wanted to stand up and shout I am PROTESTANT.  Now, fearing for my life, I was subjected to men and women who were plotting and scheming how to kill Protestants.  I am in a strange country, with strangers and my only thought was how am I going to get out of here alive?  It did not dawn on me that this mob was connected to the IRA; I found this out on the drive home.  So the fellow my uncle instructed to drive me home cut down Protestants all the way home and I started to defend other religions and people.  He seemed shocked by my responses.  Then he told me that most of the mob we had just left was IRA affiliated.  So now I became frightened again and became silent again.  God was really watching out for me because I managed to get out of there with my life.  Those people would have killed me if they had found out I was Protestant. I am positive of that without a second thought.  So when we arrived back to my aunt and uncle's house they were sleeping because all of the lights were out.  So this fellow walked me up to the door, I was so angry that he wanted to kill people because they were Protestant I was shaken.  When I got the back door opened and bid my good bye to this fellow, he asked me out for the following day and I declined.  When he was walking back to his car with one foot in the door, I yelled out I am Protestant and you are mistaken about our beliefs and who we are.  He started heading back to the house, like he was going to kill me, I jumped inside the house and locked the door.  I made it home alive and could have been killed for being a Protestant.  Well, I confronted my uncle the next day about it and he denied that these people were dangerous.

The story gets better from here.  I did not talk to my uncle the rest of the time I was there in spite of him trying to get me into religious banters in his pub in front of all Catholic patrons.  My uncle was constantly on the phone and what appeared to be mobsters in and out of his pub every night.  Well, six months after I returned to America, my uncle got indicted by the British Government for money laundering.  He turned as a witness for the British Government; he was money laundering for people in the IRA and people from the Celtic Football Club.  They took his pub and he was put on probation for being a witness against the IRA.  So I was exposed to the IRA and could have been killed because my Catholic uncle hated Protestants.  God loves me and saw me through it because my heart is pure and I hate no one.  My uncle now lives in poverty, my aunt left him and he is dying from emphysema and other related diseases.  What goes around comes around and he wanted to kill me but God saw to it that he was the one who had to deal with his evil and bigoted religious ways.

So I experienced first hand how much the IRA wants to kill Protestants.  I was subjected to conversations about buying guns and which techniques they were going to use to kill people because they are Protestants…that is extremely sad and I saw and heard if first hand.  This story was in all the Irish papers and some Scottish papers as well but I am telling it from my heart because I want people to know what the IRA want to do to our people and how we must stand up for religious freedom here and in Britain.

My parents were home in Scotland on holiday.  My father fell three feet into a man hole while walking down the street in Glasgow.  He busted his lip, broke a tooth, hit his nose and was bruised from head to toe.  Still that evening, my cousin on my mother's side, was getting married.  So my father had to hurry and get to a dentist so he could make it to this wedding.  The doctor told him he really should not go because he was too beat up.  His face was swelling by the minute but my dad was determined to go.

His main objective for wanting to go was to show my mother's side of the family that he was not a bigot and was not bitter.  Her brother is Catholic and my cousin was having a Catholic wedding.  My dad felt like if he did not go it would have been blamed on him not wanting to go because he is Protestant.  So even though he was all beat up from this fall, he was going to show his support for my mother.  My mother is very close to her brother and my father would never let her down by not going.

The history of Ireland has been one of continual invasion and the displacement of one people by another.

The first recorded inhabitants of the British Isles (Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man) are referred to in 325 BC by the Greek historian/explorer Ptolemy as the Pretani.  The south of Ireland was inhabited by the Firbog and the north by the Cruithin (Picts). The proximity of the north of Ireland to Scotland meant Pictish kingdoms often encompassed parts of Scotland and the north of Ireland (Ulster). 

By 300 BC the Celts arrived in Britain pushing as far north as Strathclyde in Scotland and from there, into Ireland. These Britonic Celts were the ancesters of the modern day Welsh.  The Celtic tribe of the Ulaid (for whom Ulster is named) became the elite class in the north of Ireland living along side and sometimes ruling over the Cruithin. Around 100 BC the Gaels arrived in Ireland from the Iberian region of Spain and gradually pushed north. The Ulaid and Cruithin united as Ulaidians in the face of a common enemy and built the defensive structure called Black Pigs Dyke (the remains of which still stands today) along the southern border of Ulster to halt the advance of the Gaels.

By 450 AD the more numerous Gaels had managed to gain control of most of the north of Ireland, with Ulster shrunken to encompass only the present day counties of Antrim and Down (the enlarged modern day Ulster boundaries were put in place by the government of the Tudor Elizabeth 1^st for administrative purposes). The loss of territory led to the Ulaid/Cruithin looking for land elsewhere.

By 490 AD the Ulaid/Cruithin (named Scotti by the Romans) had established the kingdom of Dalriada in the Ayrshire and Galloway regions of Scotland. By this time the Gaels domination of Ireland had led to the Gaelic language becoming the spoken tongue of the now united Cruithin Picts and Ulaid Celts.

In 500 AD the Scotti king of Dalriada, Fergus Mac Ere ruled a kingdom that encompassed areas in both Scotland and Ulster. It is from Mac Ere that Scottish Royalty and therefore the British Monarchy are descended. 

Cuchulainn – the Hound of Ulster                                            

The oldest story in western European history is that of Cuchulainn, the hound of Ulster.  Legend has it that the young Cruithin warrior, Setanta killed the hound of the Ulaid lord Chulainn. Setanta took the name Cuchulainn and became his ’hound’.  Cuchulainn became the war leader of the Knights of the Red Branch, centered at Navan fort and was repeatedly successful in repealing attacks on Ulster by the Gaels of queen Maeve. 

The Red Hand of Ulster

The ancient symbol of Ulster is the red hand. There are several versions as to the true origins of this symbol.

The first version involves a race between two ships carrying one of the many peoples to invade Ireland. The captains of two ships had a wager that the first to set his hand on the land would own it. One of the captains, seeing he was going to lose cut off his right hand and threw it to the shore winning the wager.

The second version has a biblical reference (Genesis 38 v 28-30) to back the story up and involves Zareh and Pharez, the sons of Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. During their birthing, Zareh’s hand protruded first and the midwife tied a scarlet cord around the hand to identify the firstborn. But Zareh drew back his hand and his brother Pharez came out first. Zareh’s descendents were therefore disinherited and left the other tribes ending up eventually Ireland and legend tells they developed the first kingdom of Ulster in 1480 BC. The two heraldic symbols were the red hand with scarlet cord (Zareh) and the red lion rampant (Judah), one used by Ulster today, the other by Scotland.

By the start of the 16^th century, Ulster (Ireland comprises of 4 provinces, with the province of Ulster situated in the north) was sparsely populated after more than 50 years of war. Lowland Scotland at this time was unable to support its growing population, many of whom turned to cattle rustling, kidnapping and other thievery to support their families. The border with England proved particularly hazardous with Scottish 'Border Reevers' repeatedly raiding across the border and making life miserable for the local English population.

The first organized movement of Scots to the north of Ireland was started by two enterprising Scottish lairds, Hugh Montgomery and James Hamilton. In 1605 they had aided the Irish chieftain Conn O’Neill in escape from his imprisonment in Carrickfergus castle and arranged for him to obtain a Royal Pardon. In return, O’Neill granted Montgomery and Hamilton substantial tracts of his land in the north Irish counties of Antrim and Down. Montgomery and Hamilton immediately began settling the land with Scottish Presbyterians from the Ayrshire and Galloway regions of Scotland.

The success of this enterprise did not escape the notice of the King, James I of England (James IV of Scotland). English attempts to pacify the north of Ireland had so far proved unsuccessful. His solution to the problem was to settle Scots in the area. This had the effect of putting in place a tough Scottish population who were Protestant (mainly Presbyterian) to counter the troublesome Irish Catholics. Many of those Scots living along the Scottish border who had previously terrorized the English were now forcibly repatriated throughout Ulster. These Scots proved to be hardly frontiersmen and soon flourished where the English had previously failed. This second plantation saw the Scots assume the position of tenant farmer to English landowners.

An estimated 80% + of the Protestant settlers in Ulster were Scots, the rest being English along with smaller numbers of French Huguenot, Welsh, Manx, German, Dutch and Danish. These other planters were eventually absorbed into the Ulster-Scots ethnic mix. While the Scottish in general did not intermarry with the native Irish Catholics, there were certainly some Irish converts to Presbyterianism. Often for an Irish convert to become ‘Scottish’ it was a simple matter of dropping the ‘O’ prefix from his surname and replacing it with a ‘Mac’!

The religion of the Scots at this time was generally Presbyterian, while that of the English landowners was Episcopal (Church of England). The Episcopal Church of Ireland (the Church of England in Ireland) was the church of the establishment and the English administration persecuted the Scottish Presbyterians whom at times they regarded as more troublesome than the Irish Catholics. Dissenter Presbyterian ministers were only allowed to preach within certain limits and could be fined or imprisoned.  Marriages carried out by Presbyterian clergy were not legally binding and Presbyterians could not hold public office.

 In addition, in 1639 the ‘Black Oath’ was introduced and required all Protestants living in Ulster to bind them selves to obey all Royal commands. The ‘Black Oath’ was designed to prevent the Presbyterian Scots in Ulster from aiding their kin still in Scotland in any confrontation with England.

While a number of Scots converted to the Episcopal Church of Ireland and a number returned to Scotland, the vast majority remained in Ulster and maintained their Presbyterian faith.

In 1641 the Irish launched a rebellion against the Protestant population of Ireland. The Ulster-Scots were in a hopeless position, having been gradually disarmed by the English to prevent them from aiding their Covenanter kin in Scotland against England. The Catholic clergy declared all Protestants to be devils and should therefore be destroyed. The outnumbered Ulster-Scots Presbyterians, including women and children suffered all manner of cruelties as they were murdered by the Catholic Irish hordes. An estimated 200,000 Protestants were slaughtered in this uprising. While the horrific stories told of torture, mutilation and murder are no doubt exaggerated to a certain degree, so great was the impact of these atrocities that they are still part of Ulster Protestant folklore today.

The Irish were led by Phelim O’Neill.  P. O’Neill is the name still used by the IRA today to verify to the press when they are responsible for the murder of Ulster-Scots Protestants or members of the Security Forces.

General Monroe’s 10,000 strong Scottish Presbyterian army arrived in Ulster in 1642 to supplement the Ulster-Scots Protestants and tip the balance back in their favour. Monroe’s army introduced Highlanders to Ulster for the first time, many of whom chose to remain.

The 1680’s saw renewed migration of Scottish Presbyterians to the north of Ireland to escape the ‘Killing Times’ in the south west of Scotland.

The final large scale movement of Scots to Ulster happened in the 1690’s following King William’s victory in the Battle of the Boyne when whole new towns and villages sprang up as Scots moved across the Irish sea to avoid famine in Scotland.  There were no more wholesale plantations after this period as economic conditions in the north of Ireland were no better than Scotland, although there was still regular smaller scale movement between Ulster and Scotland.

Many Americans today wrongly believe themselves to be Irish Americans when they are in fact Scots-Irish Americans.  An easy way to help determine whether someone is of Scots-Irish (Ulster-Scots) ancestry, rather than Irish is by the following:

1. Religion
    

Those of Scots-Irish background are more likely to be of the Protestant faith (usually Presbyterian or Baptist).

Those of Irish ancestry are most likely to be Roman Catholic.

2. Surnames
    

Scots-Irish names include those with the Scottish prefix of ‘Mac’ or ‘Mc’ (e.g. MacDonald, MacDowell, McCloud) and names such as Campbell, Graham and Ferguson.
 

Irish names include those with the Irish prefix ‘O’ (e.g. O’Neill, O’Donnell, O’Rourke) and names such as Quinn, Fitzpatrick and Murphy.
 

3. Emigration period

The Scots-Irish left north of Ireland (Ulster) in the 1700’s and were the early frontiersmen who carved America out of the wilderness. The Scots-Irish are particularly numerous across the American Mid-West and the Southern States.

The Irish arrived on mass in America in the second half of the 19^th century following the potato famine. They tended to congregate in Irish Catholic communities in cities such as New York, Chicago and Boston.