America and Ulster

Some poetry,Ulster speaks to America

REMEMBER ME

My sculptured glens where crystal rivers ran
My purple mountains misty in the sun
My coastline little changed since time began
I gave you birth

I watched you go,
You saw me fade into the distant sky,
You sailed away from me with your tear-filled eye
You said you'd ner forget though years passed by,
But time rolled on

Your young land grew,
And new sons fought to keep their country fair,
And at the Alamo and Shiloh they were there
And with pride they filled the Presidential chair,
My Ulstermen

Remember me
Though battle-scarred and weary I abide,
Though Americans their heritage denied,
When you speak of history say my name with pride
Iam Ulster.

HI UNCLE SAM

Hi Uncle Sam
When freedom was denied you
And imperial might defied you,
Who was it stood beside you?
At Quebec and Brandywine?
And dared retreats and dangers,
Redcoats and Hessian strangers,
In the new lean long rifiled Rangers
And the Pennsylvania line.

Hi Uncle Sam
Wherever there was fighting,
Or wrong that needed righting,
An Ulsterman was sighting
His Kentucky gun with care,
All the road to Yorktown.
From Lexington to Yorktown
From the Valley Forge to Yorktown
That Ulsterman was there

Hi Uncle Sam
Virginia sent her brave men,
The north paraded grave men,
That they might not be slave men
The first to face the Tory
And the first to lift Old Glory
Made your war an Ulster story
Think it over Uncle Sam

Boys To Step Out For Lundy Event

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/local/boys_to_step_out_for_lundy_event_1_3302519

Ulster & Dixie

As a Southerner with Ulster-Scots roots I found this video to be particularly inspiring! They begin playing "Dixie" about half way through the video.

Conference medal

A meeting of the Scotch-Irish Society was held in Columbia Tenneessee in 1889. This medal commemerates the event.

Early Ulster-Scots in America

The early Ulster-Scots on the frontier

James McCullough left Belfast in 1745 and landed at Newcastle on the Delaware. He was a weaver by trade but then....'I began to plow corn June ye 23'. Then the first clouds began to gather: 'July ye 12 was put to flight by a fals Alarm from ye Ingens'. The Indian raiding parties were now coming across the Appalachians into the Cumberland Valley. At first their attacks were by night,then they became bolder and struck even in the middle of the long summer days.Behind McCullough's terse entries lies a story of offical blundering and cowardice and of terrible suffering endured by the people of the Cumberland Valley. The British commander General Braddock had been killed and the headlong flight of his troops left the frontier settlers without protection,and for the next two years McCullough records with monotonous regularity the murder and kidnapping of friends and neighbours: 'Robert Clogston his son and Betty Ramsey her son was killed.....Nov ye 9th John Wood and his wife and mother in law and John Archer's wife was killed and 4 children carried off....Alexander Miller killed and 2 of his children taken.' The diarist leaves to the imagination the gruesome details of these events.
McCullough's intelligence,humour and his stocial acceptance of the situation comes though his laconic prose. But then on 26 July 1756 came McCullough's personal tragedy: 'John and James McCologh was taken Captive by ye ingens.' These were his two sons,aged eight and five. ( McCullough was inconsisent in the spelling of even his own name) The boys were snatched while playing in a ravine close to their home. Beside the date of the capture McCullough transcribed a quotation from the Book of Jeremiah: 'Weep not for the dead....but weep sore for him that goeth away,for he shall return no more,nor see his native country.'
In the case of the younger boy the words were prophetic; James disappeared comepletely. But,after years of agonizing search,the father found John at an Indian camp. The boy could no longer speak English and wept bitterly when he was taken from his Indian family. He had to be tied up for the journey home.

This happened with other families too, and as mentioned some were never seen again The movie The Light In The Forest is loosely based on James McCullough's son

My Most Priceless Heritage

From their earliest arrival in America 350 years ago the Scots-Irish left a lasting legacy, a heritage that was firmly grounded in freedom and democracy. The pioneering instinct of this proud race from Ulster and Scotland opened up America from the Atlantic coastline to the Pacific shore---"Sea to Shining Sea." The history of the United States is interwoven with the outstanding personalities from the Scots-Irish diaspora and the distinctive characteristics of a people who pushed the frontiers to new horizons. This comprehensive study of the Scots-Irish in America by Northern Ireland author Billy Kennedy has created a much greater awareness of the accomplishments and the durability of the hardy settlers and their families who moved to the 'New World' during the 18th century and created a civilization out of a wilderness. President James Buchanan, son of a Co. Tyrone man, said: "My Ulster blood is my most priceless heritage." This is a sentiment echoed by many, many people in the United States today!

'Stonewall' Plaque in Ulster