Irish Protestant migration and politics in the USA, Canada, and Australia: a debated legacy

Abstract

In the USA, the rediscovery and celebration of Irish Protestant ancestry has extended in recent years to arguments by some scholars, political journalists, and politicians that there exists today an identifiable Scots-Irish socio-political legacy. This essay explores the history and cultural context of Irish Protestant migration and assesses its contemporary ramifications at the national level and in a critical state-level case (Kentucky). To assist in identifying the factors that have fostered or mitigated Irish Protestant identity/ies, comparisons will be made between the American experience and the very different ones of two other major recipient countries: Canada (and the province of Ontario) and Australia (and the state of New South Wales). Source regions, religious affiliation, the timing and magnitude of mass migration, and settlement patterns have all mattered in determining the socio-political roles played by Irish Protestants in the three former British colonies since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even more important have been the local economic and political contexts, including prevailing political party structures and competition. These factors explain why none of the three case countries, the USA included, bears witness to a coherent, identifiable Irish Protestant socio-political legacy.

Keywords:

• Irish Protestantism
• Ulster Scots
• ethnic politics
• identity

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for the assistance provided by staff members at the City of Toronto Archives, Kiama Library, Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, State Library of New South Wales, Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History, and Toronto Public Library. Research support was provided by the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Notes

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 2. See Hatton and Williamson, ‘After the Famine’; Jones, ‘Scotch-Irish’; Brian McConnell, ‘Ulster-Scots in Canada’, The Scots Canadian, November 2001, 5, http://www.electricscotland.com/ssf/ScotNewsletters/Nov2001/Page5.pdf (accessed 13 May 2010); O'Farrell, The Irish in Australia.

 3. Lynn, ‘The Scots-Irish’, British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa, Classic Articles from Anglo-Celtic Roots, 2003, http://www.bifhsgo.ca/classics/classics_jlynn.htm (accessed 1 June 2010). See Hanna, The Scotch-Irish; Ford, The Scotch-Irish in America.

 4. A.C. Floyd, The Third Congress, The Scotch-Irish in America: Proceedings of the Third Congress at Louisville, Kentucky, May 14–17, 1891, http://www.electricscotland.com/history/scotsirish/congress3ndx.htm (accessed 14 July 2010).

 5. Revd Stuart Acheson, The Scotch-Irish in Canada, The Scotch-Irish in America: Proceedings of the Third Congress at Louisville, Kentucky, May 14–17, 1891, http://www.electricscotland.com/history/scotsirish/congress3-23.htm (accessed 14 July 2010).

 6. See MacRaild, ‘Wherever Orange is Worn’; cf. Gleeson, The Irish in the South, 1815–77.

 7. Walker, ‘The Lost Tribes of Ireland’, 268.

 8. Griffin, ‘The People with No Name’, 597.

 9. Fischer, Albion's Seed, 621.

10. Kennedy, The Making of America, 27.

11. Webb, Born Fighting. See Salena Zito, ‘Those Fighting Scots-Irish’, Real Clear Politics, 2 March 2008, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/those_fighting_scotsirish.html (accessed 28 June 2010).

12. McDonald and McDonald, ‘The Ethnic Origins’; McDonald and McWhiney, ‘The Celtic South’; and McWhiney, Cracker Culture, qtd in Berthoff, ‘Celtic Mist’, 524.

13. See Blethen, ‘Ethnicity without Identity’, 1004.

14. See Miller, Ireland and Irish America; Moloney, ‘Who's Irish?’.

15. John Shelton Reed, ‘Review: Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, by James Webb’, The Weekly Standard 10, no. 45 (15–22 August 2005), http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/929tcspm.asp (accessed 1 April 2012).

16. Arbour and Teigen. ‘Barack Obama's “American” Problem’; Miller, Ireland and Irish America.

17. http://www.census.gov/acs/www/guidance_for_data_users/3_year_comparison_guidance/ (accessed 31 March 2012).

18. Fischer, Albion's Seed.

19. Mead, Special Providence, 229.

20. Haglund and Kertzer. ‘From Geo to Neo’, 537.

21. Arbour and Teigen, ‘Barack Obama's “American” Problem’.

22. Ronald R. Stockton, ‘Are Evangelicals an Ethnic Group?’ (paper presented at the Symposium on Religion and Politics, Grand Rapids, MI: Paul B. Henry Institute, Calvin College, 24–26 April 2008), http://www.calvin.edu/henry/research/symposiumpapers/Symp08Stockton.pdf (accessed 18 December 2011), 5, 12. Recent scholarship in sociology and criminal justice traces the roots of violence and high homicide rates in the South to the Scots-Irish. See Berthelot, Blanchard, and Brown, ‘Scots-Irish Women’.

23. Cameron Joseph, ‘The Scots-Irish Vote’, Atlantic Monthly, 6 October 2009, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/the-scots-irish-vote/27853/ (accessed 7 July 2010); Jonathan Tilove, ‘Obama's Appalachian Problem’, Seattle Times, 15 May 2008, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004415452whitevoter15.html (accessed 6 July 2010). See Phillips, The Cousins' Wars.

24. Tom Wolfe, ‘The Human Beast’ (Jefferson Lecture, National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, DC, 2006), http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/wolfe/lecture.html (accessed 20 August 2010).

25. Sean Scallon, ‘Is the Future of the GOP Scots-Irish or Indian-American?’, The American Conservative, 15 December 2008, http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/dec/15/00020/ (accessed 15 June 2010).

26. Reese, ‘Patriots and Elections’.

27. Michael Barone, ‘The Scotch-Irish and Other Election Factors’, New York Sun, 11 August 2008, http://www.nysun.com/opinion/the-scotch-irish-and-other-election-factors/83612/ (accessed 15 June 2010).

28. Charles Oliver, ‘The Fighting Scots-Irish’, Reason, July 2005, http://reason.com/archives/2005/07/01/the-fighting-scots-irish (accessed 1 July 2010); Joe Bageant, ‘How the Scots Irish Screwed Up America’, Daily Paul Liberty Forum, 29 April 2010, http://www.dailypaul.com/node/133101 (accessed 20 June 2010).

29. See, among others, Houston and Smyth, The Sash Canada Wore and ‘Transferred Loyalties’; Kaufmann, ‘The Orange Order in Ontario, Newfoundland, Scotland and Northern Ireland’; Laffan, How Orange was my Valley?; Ryan O'Connor, ‘… you can beat us in the House of Assembly’; See, Riots in New Brunswick.

30. Pastana, Protestant Empire; Rohrer, Wandering Souls.

31. Akenson, The Irish in Ontario; Houston and Smyth, The Sash Canada Wore; O'Connor, ‘… you can beat us’.

32. Fitzpatrick, Oceans of Consolation; Kerry Edwards, ‘Attitudes towards Irish Immigration’, http://www.eganfamily.id.au/Clan/Rally2002/Attitudes.html (accessed 13 July 2010).

33. Prentis, The Scots in Australia.

34. Lynn, ‘The Scots-Irish’, http://www.bifhsgo.ca/upload/files/Articles/TheScots-Irish.pdf

35. Parkhill, ‘That infant colony’.

36. Carroll, ‘How the Irish Became Protestant in America’, 47.

37. Walker, ‘The Lost Tribes’, 269.

38. Griffin, The People with No Name. See Blethen, ‘Ethnicity without Identity’.

39. Quoted in Joseph, ‘The Scots-Irish Vote’, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/the-scots-irish-vote/27853/

40. Judge William Lindsay, The Scotch-Irish of Kentucky. The Scotch-Irish in America: Proceedings of the Third Congress at Louisville, Kentucky, May 14–17, 1891, http://www.electricscotland.com/history/scotsirish/congress3-22.htm (accessed 14 July 2010).

41. Jupp, The Australian People; MacRaild, ‘Wherever Orange is Worn’.

42. Walker, ‘The Lost Tribes’, 273.

43. O'Farrell, The Irish in Australia, 93, 74–102.

44. See Beynon, ‘The Southern White Laborer’; Kirby, ‘The Southern Exodus’.

45. Lipset, Continental Divide.

46. Stockton, ‘Are Evangelicals an Ethnic Group?’, 3.

47. Higham, Strangers in the Land, 61.

48. Houston and Smyth, ‘Transferred Loyalties’, 194–205.

49. Gordon, The Orange Riots; Kaufmann, ‘The Decline of the WASP’ and ‘The Orange Order in Ontario’.

50. Kaufmann, ‘Condemned to Rootlessness’, http://www.sneps.net/OO/images/Loyalists_NEP2.pdf (accessed 10 June 2010); and ‘The Decline of the WASP’. See Craig, Upper Canada.

51. Gleeson, The Irish in the South, 137–8.

52. Kaufmann, ‘The Decline of the WASP’.

53. Houston and Smyth, ‘Transferred Loyalties’, 197.

54. Harris, Roulson, and De Freitas, ‘The Settlement of Mono Township’. Cf. Wilson, A New Lease on Life.

55. Kealey, Toronto Workers Respond to Industrial Capitalism. See See, Riots in New Brunswick.

56. Kaufmann, ‘The Orange Order in Ontario’, 21.

57. Putnam, Bowling Alone; Kaufmann, ‘The Decline of the WASP’.

58. O'Farrell, The Irish in Australia. See Blackton, ‘Australian Nationality and Nativism’.

59. MacRaild, ‘Wherever Orange is Worn’.

60. Laffan, How Orange was my Valley?

61. Kiama Local History's Weblog, ‘Kiama and the Orange Lodges and Fraternal Societies’, 20 June 2009, http://kiamalocalhistory.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/kiama-and-the-orange-lodges-and-fraternal-societies/ (accessed 13 July 2010); O'Farrell, The Irish in Australia, 103.

62. Laffan, How Orange was my Valley?, 23, 121.

63. Laffan, How Orange was my Valley?, 23, 121, 25, 74–9, 146; Hilliard, ‘Church, Family and Sexuality in Australia’.

64. Lynn, ‘The Scots-Irish’.

65. Griffin, The People with No Name, 6.

66. Hutchinson, Bluegrass and Mountain Laurel.

67. Rolston, ‘Bringing it All Back Home’, 42–3.

68. Webb, Born Fighting; Joyce Shaw Peterson, American Auto Workers.

69. Blethen and Wood, From Ulster to Carolina; Kleber, The Kentucky Encyclopedia.

70. Quoted in Konrad Yakabuski, ‘In Kentucky, Senate Hopeful Rand Paul Redefines “conservative”’, Globe and Mail, 1 May 2010, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/in-kentucky-a-senate-hopeful-redefines-conservative/article1572210/ (accessed 18 July 2010).

71. Interestingly, in terms of alcohol sales, Clay and Elliott Counties are both ‘dry’. Floyd County is ‘wet’, while Harlan County is ‘moist’ (a dry county with a wet city, Cumberland). Kentucky Alcohol Beverage Control, ‘Wet and Dry Counties in Kentucky as of 07/12/2010’, Commonwealth of Kentucky, Frankfort, 2010, http://abc.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/51D2E894-D5A3-4396-B29C-9C3D05F0A995/0/WetDryList07122010.pdf (accessed 1 August 2010). Unlike in Canada and Australia, where Irish Protestants became associated with temperance, that relationship has been less straightforward in Kentucky, the land of Bourbon whiskey and moonshine.

72. Sean Quinn, ‘Road to 270: Kentucky’, FiveThirtyEight, 24 October 2008, http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/kentucky (accessed 3 June 2010).

73. Cable News Network, ‘Election Center: Past Elections’, http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/election.2010/the.basics/ (accessed 15 July 2010).

74. ‘Kentucky Senate’, Real Clear Politics, 2010, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/senate/ky/kentucky_senate_paul_vs_conway-1148.html (accessed 10 August 2010).

75. Kaufmann, ‘The Orange Order in Ontario’, 23–4.

76. See, Riots in New Brunswick, 76; Hill, Canadian Politics.

77. Kaufmann, ‘The Orange Order in Ontario’; Dufferin County (Ont.) Forest, Our Forest, Our Future, 9, http://www.dufferincounty.on.ca/documents/backgroundreport.pdf (accessed 12 July 2010), 9. See Donald E. Blake, ‘Canadian Census and Election Data, 1908–1968’, Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) 0039, ICPSR, Ann Arbor, January 1999, http://prod.library.utoronto.ca/datalib/codebooks/icpsr/0039/cb0039.all.pdf (accessed 30 June 2010).

78. Jupp, The Australian People, 478; Edwards, ‘Attitudes towards Irish Immigration’, http://www.eganfamily.id.au/Clan/Rally2002/Attitudes.html

79. Hagan, People and Politics in Regional New South Wales; Richardson, ‘Fusion’.

80. Jupp, The Australian People, 478.

81. Clifford, Green, and Clune, The Electoral Atlas of New South Wales.

82. Clifford, Green, and Clune, The Electoral Atlas of New South Wales.

83. Blethen, ‘Ethnicity without Identity’, 1003.

84. Joseph, ‘The Scots-Irish Vote’.