How Ulster Protestant radicals helped shaped America |
THERE has been much made of the monies being spent by the Department of Communities on the forthcoming 250th anniversary celebrations of the birth of the American nation.
It is much ado about nothing if properly spent on education and not on junkets.
Nor should it be some kind of reimagined narrative about the true nature of our links to individuals with Irish or Scots-Irish roots who reached the White House.
Historians cannot quite agree whether the American presidency has been occupied by 22 or 23 office-holders with roots in Ireland.
It matters little, but it does explain the close ties between the island of Ireland and the USA – particularly in the formation of the latter.
Nearly half of all presidential office holders had links to this small island.
The early American Presidents had strong associations with the north east of Ireland.
The founding fathers of the United States sign the Declaration of Independence in an engraving published in 1882 (Christine_Kohler/Getty Images)They were of the planter classes – though would have had strong political differences from their Irish relatives who remained within the hierarchical system of British government/administration, which saw these sons of Presbyterianism politically and socially disenfranchised alongside other nonconformists and the native Catholic population.
These men were radicals influenced by the French Revolution and the writings of Thomas Paine, author of the Rights of Man.
They were of similar political pedigree to the United Irishmen of Wolfe Tone, Henry........