Diaspora, defeatism, and dignity: Ulster Protestant reimaginations of the self through Ulster-Scots Americanism

ABSTRACT

The notion of an American diaspora has become increasingly salient among the minority of Ulster Protestants who ascribe to the “Ulster-Scots” ethnic identity in Northern Ireland. Especially in light of the well-established conception of an Irish-American diaspora, the effort Ulster’s “Protestant community” to construct and delineate a separate, non-Irish genealogical diaspora reveals much about their collective self-conceptions and aspirations. In this paper, I argue that the descriptions of Ulster-Scots-American diaspora represent both means of recasting “their” actions and ideologies as ethnically predestined, and an attempt to regain a sense of collective dignity in light of palpable postbellum defeatism.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnicity
• Northern Ireland
• unionism
• loyalism
• diaspora
• dignity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 I use “promoters of Ulster-Scots” to refer to those engaged in promoting the idea of Ulster-Scots as an ethnic identity, culture, and language.

2 Available on the Ulster-Scots Agency’s website (www.ulsterscotsagency.com).

3 See, for example, Ulster-Scots Agency (2012f, 2012h, 2012i, 2012j, 2012l, 2012n).

4 Such (frequently anachronistic) identity ascriptions usually involve the inclusion of all whose genealogy includes at least one member who resided for any length of time in Ulster.

5 Where interviewees considered themselves to be speaking in Ulster-Scots, I transcribed using common Ulster-Scots spelling forms. This was done in order to permit the interviewee to be recorded in their own terms, rather as a means of legitimising Ulster-Scots as a language.