Irish Boston, Italian Philadelphia

[Docere]

Yes not all the settlers from Great Britain were Scots. But the name "Scotch-Irish" stuck.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Present for just 3-4 generations before moving on to America?

3-4 generations in Ireland.... that's culturally Irish.

Well it depends. The ethnic Germans who lived in Russia before for several generations before immigrating to the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies certainly were not "culturally Russian."

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Docere

Well it depends. The ethnic Germans who lived in Russia before for several generations before immigrating to the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies certainly were not "culturally Russian."

Well, I'm definitely not talking about Great Plains and Canadian Prairies Germans from Russia.


I'm talking about the Irish in America. In this particular case, a quarter to half million or so Ulster Scots who came (mainly to Philadelphia) in droves in the 1700s, fleeing English penal law tyranny of exorbitant rents, restrictions, and taxes on their land and products, religious persecution, and a few famines.

They were Irish, coming from Ireland after living there under those conditions for generations... they certainly did not identify as English for christalmightyssake.

And they named their new homes in Pennsylvania's hinterlands after the their north Ireland homelands and surnames... Armagh, Donegal, Carrick, Drumore, Antrim, Blair, Greencastle, Fermanagh, Holliday, Rostraver, Derry, Strabane, Tyrone, Sligo...it goes on and on... as they moved west from the Philadelphia area to escape English colonial rule.

[Docere]

I'd agree that it's not as sharp with Irish Protestants. There wasn't even really a strong British identity (as opposed to English, Scottish and Welsh) in Britain until WWI.

And since most people who declare Irish ancestry in the US are actually Protestant there must be some sense of a connection to Ireland however distant.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Well, I'm definitely not talking about Great Plains and Canadian Prairies Germans from Russia.


I'm talking about the Irish in America. In this particular case, a quarter million or so Ulster Scots who came (mainly to Philadelphia) in droves in the 1700s, fleeing English penal law tyranny of exorbitant rents, restrictions, and taxes on their land and products, religious persecution, and a few famines.

They were Irish, coming from Ireland after living there under those conditions for generations... they certainly did not identify as English for christalmightyssake.

And they named their new homes in southwestern Pennsylvania's hinterlands after the their north Ireland homelands... Armagh, Donegal, Antrim, Rostraver, Derry, Strabane, Tyrone, Sligo...

Pennsylvania is interesting in that it has both the "orange" and "green" Irish represented. Hence the different numbers in New England (where virtually all Irish are Catholic) and Mid-Atlantic (where sizeable numbers reporting Irish ancestry are Protestant).

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Docere

Yes not all the settlers from Great Britain were Scots. But the name "Scotch-Irish" stuck.

That term only began to be used a century-plus later by descendants way down the line from the Irish Protestant immigrants of the 1700s, in an effort to distinguish themselves from the dirty newcomer Irish Catholics who began flooding in in the mid-19th century on.

It's the age old situation of wanting to be seen as a "native" and established versus as the poor immigrant class.

[Docere]

Right. The association of Irishness with Catholicism only took hold during the famine wave.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Docere

Pennsylvania is interesting in that it has both the "orange" and "green" Irish represented. Hence the different numbers in New England (where virtually all Irish are Catholic) and Mid-Atlantic (where sizeable numbers reporting Irish ancestry are Protestant).

Yeah, well Pennsylvania is mainly where the Irish Protestants arrived and settled the frontier for generations and moved further afield down the Shenandoah and Ohio valleys. And then it's where a ton of Irish Catholics came to work in and on the mines, mills, docks, factories, barges, railroads, canals, forests, etc.

I'd bet that PA has more Irish place names than anywhere else in the US due to this. Just the Pittsburgh area itself is crazy Irish-named.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Present for just 3-4 generations before moving on to America?

3-4 generations in Ireland.... that's culturally Irish.

Not in this case - there was no integration. They lived siloed lives in exclusively Scottish enclaves. Absolutely no mixing, per religious dictates. We're talking about 1000 years of dire Catholic dogma vs. that shiny, new, and proudly fierce Presbyterian doctrine.

And please remember (or look up) what Cromwell did in Ireland at this time. The island was already a seething mass of resentment when the Ulster Plantation began. The Scots who came to Northern Ireland weren't even given the opportunity at integration, even if they had wanted to (which they didn't - many of them didn't want to move there in the first place but were forced to by both James I and later Cromwell).

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Shawn

Not in this case - there was no integration. They lived siloed lives in exclusively Scottish enclaves. Absolutely no mixing, per religious dictates. We're talking about 1000 years of dire Catholic dogma vs. that shiny, new, and proudly fierce Presbyterian doctrine.

And please remember (or look up) what Cromwell did in Ireland at this time. The island was already a seething mass of resentment when the Ulster Plantation began. The Scots who came to Northern Ireland weren't even given the opportunity at integration, even if they had wanted to (which they didn't - many of them didn't want to move there in the first place but were forced to by both James I and later Cromwell).

^ No inegration? Yeah, right... the only case over mulitple generations in human history.

I think that is completely naive and it is non-factual. Lowland Scots and English were moved 12 miles across the water to a region long inhabited by Irish Gaels... Catholics and other non-Anglicans, including Scots, for centuries.

You really think there was zero intermixing? That goes against all evidence throughout human civilization. No "other" fucking at all, for 3-4 GENERATIONS (as you claim), huh? Not to mention zero "cultural intermixing". Especially after Highland Scots started to stream in as well and readily intermixed with the native Irish... but nothing, right?

But of course, the Scots and Irish are so known for their restraint

You claimed that:

Originally Posted by Shawn

Scotch-Irish are English. They might have some Irish DNA (like most English do), but they never were culturally Irish, never wanted to be culturally Irish, and were present in Ireland for just 3-4 generations before moving on.

This is preposterous (for one thing, the DNA part results in all of them being pretty much exactly the same... but that's another topic) to claim that a group of people unwillingly moved there by the English, and who existed there for MULTIPLE generations with the native Irish Gaels, and who were persecuted by the English ruling class so much so that they decided to move en masse and intentionally establish themselves as Scots-Irish immigrants (along with Irish Catholic immigrants, mind you) in a city (Philadelphia) whose founder was half-Irish and open to settlers who were not Anglican (William Penn)... and then spread throughout the state naming nearly every place they settled between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh after their Irish homelands.

The historical truth is, that by the mid 18th century, the "Scots Irish" were largely considered Irish, with a significant portion Catholic. These were not the same Ulster Scots who left in the earlier part of the century. The main difference was religion; Protestant vs. Catholic... two sides of the same Irish coin... and it was a big mix of both sides by that time.

So why did all of these "Englishmen" continue to name their new settlements after their Irish homelands, rather than their supposed original English ancestral homelands? Because after 3-4 generations (as you stated), they became Irish and those English homelands were distant memories or forgotten names, whether they liked it (or admitted it) or not. This is what happens with closely-regional populations. And in light of what you mentioned earlier, this region was populated by both Scots and Gaels centuries prior, i.e., historical longevity of intermixing in the area of Ulster and SW Scotland.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by pj3000

^ No inegration? Yeah, right... the only case over mulitple generations in human history.

I think that is completely naive and it is non-factual. Lowland Scots and English were moved 12 miles across the water to a region long inhabited by Irish Gaels... Catholics and other non-Anglicans, including Scots, for centuries.

You really think there was zero intermixing? That goes against all evidence throughout human civilization. No "other" fucking at all, for 3-4 GENERATIONS (as you claim), huh? Not to mention zero "cultural intermixing". Especially after Highland Scots started to stream in as well and readily intermixed with the native Irish... but nothing, right?

But of course, the Scots and Irish are so known for their restraint

You claimed that:

This is preposterous (for one thing, the DNA part results in all of them being pretty much exactly the same... but that's another topic) to claim that a group of people unwillingly moved there by the English, and who existed there for MULTIPLE generations with the native Irish Gaels, and who were persecuted by the English ruling class so much so that they decided to move en masse and intentionally establish themselves as Scots-Irish immigrants (along with Irish Catholic immigrants, mind you) in a city (Philadelphia) whose founder was half-Irish and open to settlers who were not Anglican (William Penn)... and then spread throughout the state naming nearly every place they settled between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh after their Irish homelands.

The historical truth is, that by the mid 18th century, the "Scots Irish" were largely considered Irish, with a significant portion Catholic. These were not the same Ulster Scots who left in the earlier part of the century. The main difference was religion; Protestant vs. Catholic... two sides of the same Irish coin... and it was a big mix of both sides by that time.

So why did all of these "Englishmen" continue to name their new settlements after their Irish homelands, rather than their supposed original English ancestral homelands? Because after 3-4 generations (as you stated), they became Irish and those English homelands were distant memories or forgotten names, whether they liked it (or admitted it) or not. This is what happens with closely-regional populations. And in light of what you mentioned earlier, this region was populated by both Scots and Gaels centuries prior, i.e., historical longevity of intermixing in the area of Ulster and SW Scotland.

Probably all true. I'm sure there was plenty of mixing. Tends to happen in colonial arrangements. But that mixing generally happened only when a woman converted to her betrothed's faith. You did not have mixed Catholic/Presbyterian households in 17th century Ireland.

And it doesn't change the perception among Catholic Irish back then and to an extent today that real Irish are Catholic natives while the Presbyterian Scots were both cultural and literal colonizers. Do you think that moving to the United States made Irish from Cork just forget about the Plantation? Ulster Presbyterian land-lords held a lot of responsibility for the Famine - the very reason many Irish left for America in the first place.

I'm word-for-word repeating what my uncles, aunts, and cousins living in Ireland today say. To be clear, they're talking about present-day NI, not American census self-identification. But that othering, that parochial perception of difference is still alive and well. I'll be the first to admit that it's probably biasing my opinions here.

EDIT: For what it's worth, here's a contemporary Irish semi-public resource's description of the Ulster Plantation:

Although the new settlers were mostly farmers, the plantation resulted in the growth of towns and the urban network. The newcomers brought with them their own traditions, culture and religion and formed their own community. The native Irish, although reduced in number, were not entirely removed or anglicised, creating a religious and social divide between the two groups, which has survived to the present day.

The Flight of the Earls and the subsequent plantation had a lasting effect on politics in Ulster. It led to the separation of the community along Protestant and Catholic divides. Discrimination against Catholics caused huge resentment, which increased with the later introduction of the Penal Laws discriminating against anyone not belonging to the established Church of Ireland. The two communities were unable to integrate.

.

[Shawn]

I'm aware that I'm making a No True Scotsman argument

[Docere]

I guess whether Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants are really one ancestry or ethnic group is subject to debate. But it's gotten to mixed up to really separate the differences at this point. In the colonial era a lot of Irish Catholics ended up becoming Protestant as there few of them and few Catholic churches.

There's also a lot of Protestants with roots in Catholic Ireland as outside the eastern seaboard conversion was common. Mike Pence for example is an Irish American evangelical. An earlier example is Ronald Reagan. He grew up Protestant in small-town Illinois, son of a father of Irish Catholic descent but raised in his mother's Protestant faith. His father's family emigrated from England (where most Catholics are of Irish descent) and Reagan himself apparently grew up believing his father's side was English.