Scotch-Irish American - Terminology

Terminology

The term Scotch-Irish is first known to have been used to refer to people living in north-eastern Ireland. In a letter of April 14, 1573 in reference to Ulster, Elizabeth I of England stated, "We are given to understand that a nobleman named 'Sorley Boy' and others, who be of the Scotch-Irish race”. This term continued in usage for over a century before the earliest known American reference appeared in a Maryland affidavit in 1689/90.

Today, Scotch-Irish is an Americanism almost unknown in England, Ireland or Scotland. The term is somewhat unclear because some of the Scotch-Irish have little or no Scottish ancestry at all, as a large number of dissenter families had also been transplanted to Ulster from northern England. Smaller numbers of migrants also came from Wales and the southeast of England, and others still from Flanders, the German Palatinate, and France (such as the French Huguenot ancestors of Davy Crockett). What united these different national groups was their common Calvinist beliefs, and their separation from the established church (Church of England and Church of Ireland in this case). Nevertheless, a large Scottish element in the Plantation of Ulster gave the settlements a Scottish character.

Upon arrival in America, the Scotch-Irish at first usually referred to themselves simply as Irish, without the qualifier Scotch. It was not until a century later, following the surge in Irish immigration after the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s, that the descendants of the earlier arrivals began to commonly call themselves Scotch-Irish to distinguish them from the newer, largely destitute and predominantly Roman Catholic immigrants. The two groups had little interaction in America, as the Scotch-Irish had become settled years earlier primarily in the Appalachian region, while the new wave of Irish American families settled primarily in northern and midwestern port cities such as Boston, New York, or Chicago. However, many Irish migrated to the interior in the 19th century to work on large-scale infrastructure projects such as canals and railroads.

The usage Scots-Irish is a relatively recent version of the term. Two early citations include: 1) "a grave, elderly man of the race known in America as " Scots-Irish" (1870); and 2) "Dr. Cochran was of stately presence, of fair and florid complexion, features which testified his Scots-Irish descent" (1884)

English author Kingsley Amis endorsed the traditional Scotch-Irish usage implicitly in noting that "nobody talks about butterscottish or hopscots,...or Scottish pine", and that while Scots or Scottish is how people of Scots origin refer to themselves in Scotland itself, the traditional English usage Scotch continues to be appropriate in "compounds and set phrases".

In Ulster-Scots (or "Ullans"), Scotch-Irish Americans are referred to as the Scotch Airish o' Amerikey.