Scots-Irish American

Scots-Irish Americans are descendants of the Ulster-Scots immigrants who came to North America from Ireland in the late 17th and 18th centuries. The Scots-Irish, who had sufferred under the Penal Laws in Ireland, which discriminated against them because of their Presbyterian religion, brought with them a historical grievance against England. This grievance made the settlers and their descendants in North America more ready to join the patriotic cause. Moreover, it has been suggested that their experience in Ulster of being a colonial minority surrounded by a hostile native population, the native Ulster Catholics, prepared them for life on America's frontier. The "Scotch-Irish" celebrated their military victories over the Irish Catholics, which they believed had saved their community from annihilation. Of particular importance for them were the battle of the Boyne, the battle of Aughrim and the siege of Londonderry. James Webb's book, "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America", suggests that the character traits of the Scots Irish, loyalty to clan, mistrust of governmental authority, and military readiness, helped shape the "American Identity". Unlike later immigrant groups, the Scots Irish discarded their past identity and are most likely to put their ethnicity as "American" on census forms.

In literature

• A People Set Apart: The Scotch-Irish in Eastern Ohio (1999; ISBN 1887932755)
• Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America (2004; ISBN 0767916883)
• Faith & Freedom: The Scots-Irish in America (1999; ISBN 1840300612)
• Movers: A Saga of the Scotch-Irish (The Heartland Chronicles) (1986; ISBN 0961736712)
• Scotch-Irish: A Social History (1999; ISBN 0807842591)
• Scotch-Irish Pioneers in Ulster and America (1995; ISBN 1898787468)
• Scots-Irish in Pennsylvania & Kentucky (1998; ISBN 1840300329)
• Scots and Scotch-Irish in America (1985, ISBN 0822510227)
• The People with No Name: Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World: 1689-1764 (2001; ISBN 0691074623)
• The Scotch-Irish: From the North of Ireland to the Making of America (ISBN 0786406143)
• The Scotch-Irish in Northern Ireland and in the American Colonies (1998; ISBN 078840945X)
• The Scots-Irish in the Carolinas (1997; ISBN 1840300116)
• The Scots-Irish in the Shenandoah Valley (1996; ISBN 1898787794)
• The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania (1997; ISBN 0806308508)
• Ulster and North America: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Scotch-Irish (1997; ISBN 0817308237)
• West From Shenandoah: A Scotch-Irish Family Fights for America, 1729-1781, A Journal of Discovery (2003; ISBN 0471315788)