The ScotsIrish are a unique group of people that have their roots in Lowland Scotland, who emigrated to Northern Ireland, often mixing with the native Irish, and then around a quarter million of them emigrated to the United States, usually to the back country of Appalachia. This video is a lecture given by Judge John David Preston to the 2022 Jenny Wiley Descendants Gathering. Jenny Wiley is a renowned pioneer heroine with an epic story. For the sake of the audience, the lecture has an emphasis on Jenny’s husband Thomas Wiley, and her father Hezekiah Sellards, but mostly covers the history of the ScotsIrish in general.

The story of the ScotsIrish begins about 1595 when two Irish Lords named Tyrone and Tyrconnell launched a rebellion against the crown of England. It went on until 1603 and was not settled with the defeat of the Irish until just about the time that Queen Elizabeth I died and King James VI of Scotland upon the death of Queen Elizabeth I, became King James I of England. You may recall that name because the King James Version of the Bible was written at his request. Tyrone and Tyrconnell had committed treason and their about 500,000 acres in Northern Ireland, was escheated to the Crown. The king distributed it to his friends, various business groups in London, various Scottish nobles. These folks began to convince Scottish folks to come across and to become farmers on their land.

By 1620, 50,000 settlers, by 1640, 100,000 settlers crossed the water. By 1650 Protestants, the Presbyterians, were the numerical majority in the six counties in Northern Ireland. There was periodic persecution by the Church of England, the Anglican Church.

The King of England required in 1639, what was called the Black Oath that required the Ulsterman to swear that they would not support any religious uprising that was taking place in Scotland. About 1650 Oliver Cromwell came across the Irish Sea and put down the rebellion.

The ScotsIrish, Ulster Scots made a good show of it in Northern Ireland. They learned and they used good agricultural techniques. In 1663 laws were passed that prevented Irish ships from transporting goods to any part of the British Empire. In 1698 they passed what was called the Woolens Act, which prohibited the export of Irish wool, except to England and Wales.

Later there was the reign of James II in 1685, who was Catholic, and he again began to persecute the Ulster Scots. That ended in 1690, in what was known as the Glorious Revolution, when William and Mary of Orange came from the Netherlands and defeated James II in June 1690, at what is called the Battle of the Boyne.

That brings us to the migration from Northern Ireland to the United States. It started in the 1700s and there were five periods of migration, 1717, 1725, 1740, 1754 and in 1771. Migration ended completely in 1775 and the American Revolution started and all the migration stopped.

In 1703, Queen Anne had passed by Parliament what is called the Test Act. That required all officers of whatever kind in Ulster, to take an oath, and take the sacraments of the Anglican Church. In 1717 there was a fouryear drought that caused a lot of people to come and there was also a process called rent racking. Many ScotsIrish were forced to migrate.

The migration was enormous. It's estimated that at least 250,000 Ulster Scots migrated to the U.S. during the 1700s. Most of them came to Philadelphia, where the ScotsIrish were welcomed, they were quite frankly not welcomed in other places because they had a reputation that they were a little bit rough. They were welcomed in Pennsylvania and other places, because they provided a buffer against the Indians. Pennsylvania was run by Quakers and the Quakers were pacifists, they wouldn't fight, but they put the ScotsIrish out there on the frontier and the ScotsIrish had no qualms about taking up the cause against the Indians.

About 75% of the ScotsIrish were indentured servants. After they came to Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania got pretty full. They headed down the Shenandoah Valley along what is now Interstate 81, into Virginia and then the Piedmont of North Carolina and South Carolina. They migrated to this country because it presented to them economic opportunities that were unavailable to them in Ulster and the opportunity to own land.

Judge John David Preston is the chief circuit court judge for the 24th Judicial Circuit, which presides over Johnson, Lawrence, and Martin counties of Kentucky. He was elected to the court on November 7, 2006, and reelected without opposition in 2014. Preston's current eightyear term expires on January 1, 2023. He is a graduate of Harvard University and The University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law. Judge Preston is also a noted historian and has authored several books about local history.

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