Scotch-Irish (the historically common term in North America) or Scots-Irish refers to inhabitants of the United States and, by some, of Canada who are of Ulster Scottish descent. The term may be qualified with American (or Canadian) as in "Scotch-Irish American" or "American of Scots-Irish ancestry". Today, people in the British Isles of a similar ethnicity or ancestry usually call themselves "Ulster Scots", with the term "Scotch-Irish" seen as t...
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Scotch-Irish (the historically common term in North America) or Scots-Irish refers to inhabitants of the United States and, by some, of Canada who are of Ulster Scottish descent. The term may be qualified with American (or Canadian) as in "Scotch-Irish American" or "American of Scots-Irish ancestry". Today, people in the British Isles of a similar ethnicity or ancestry usually call themselves "Ulster Scots", with the term "Scotch-Irish" seen as terminology only used in North America.
The term "Scotch-Irish" is an Americanism, almost unknown in Britain and Ireland, and refers to Irish Protestant immigrants from Ulster to America during the 1700s. An estimated 200,000 or more Scotch-Irish migrated to America in the 18th century. The majority of these immigrants were descended from Scottish and English families who had been transplanted to Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster in the 1600s.
The term "Scotch-Irish" has led to confusion even among descendants of the Scotch-Irish...
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