The Ulster-Scots / Scots-Irish

Ulster-Scots / Scots-Irish are the people descended from the mainly Lowland Scots who settled Ulster (the northern most province of Ireland) in the 17th century and today make up the majority Protestant population of Northern Ireland.

Ulster-Scots, whether born in Northern Ireland or the descendants of those who left the north of Ireland for Britain's former colonies are closer ethnically to Scots (a mixture of Pict, Celt, Gael, Norse and Saxon) as opposed to Gaelic Irish.

Over three quarters of those Protestant peoples who settled Ulster in the 1600's were Presbyterians from Scotland. Inter-marriage with the other smaller numbers of settlers from the North of England, Wales, French Huguenot, Manx, German, Dutch and Danish as well as a substantial number of Irish converts produced the people today known as Ulster-Scots or Scotch-Irish.

The term Scots-Irish (or Scotch-Irish) is an American term used by those descended from the Presbyterian Ulster-Scots who settled America in the 1700's, to differentiate themselves from the later influx of Gaelic Catholic Irish following the potato famine.

Ulster is the most northern of Ireland's four provinces and consists of 9 counties, six of which make up the state of Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. The term Ulster and Northern Ireland are used inter-changeably.

Northern Ireland has a population of approximately 1.65 million, 900,000 Ulster-Scots Protestants and 750,000 Irish Catholics.

The Ulster-Scots Protestants wish to remain part of the United Kingdom in partnership with Scotland, England and Wales. The Ulster Protestants generally feel they have more in common with their ancestral homeland of Scotland than they do with the Irish.

Ulster-Scots are variously referred to as Scots-Irish (or Scotch-Irish), Orange Irish, Protestant Irish (Presbyterian, Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal), Northern Irish, Unionists, Loyalists and Ulstermen.

The Irish Catholics generally wish to see Northern Ireland removed from the UK and united with Catholic Southern Ireland. They are variously referred to as Catholic Irish, Green Irish, Nationalist or Republican.

These two peoples have been in a state of perpetual conflict for 400 years.