The tale of a ‘proud and feisty’ people

The Scots-Irish in the United States have an illustrious legacy, which should be the envy of other diasporas in North America. After all they were, as President William McKinley said, “the first to proclaim for liberty in the great United States”.

Their fearless contribution on the 18th century American frontier in creating a civilisation out of a bleak wilderness is the stuff of classic movies and countless novels, yet still in some quarters the Scots-...