THE CHAPTER XII WHO ARE THE SCOTCH-IRISH? HE North of Ireland is divided into the counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry (formerly Coleraine), Tyrone, Monaghan, Donegal, Fermanagh, and Cavan. These nine counties comprise the ancient province of Ulster, which includes a fourth part of the island, and contains 8567 square miles of territory, an area equal to nearly one-fifth that of Pennsylvania, or of about the same extent as the portion of that State lying south and east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. At the present time, one-third of the land in Ulster is under cultivation; somewhat more than a third is in pasturage; and a little less than one-fourth is classed as waste land-mountains and bogs: in all 5,321,580 acres. Such of this land as was not laid off into towns and roads was held, in 1881, by 22,000 owners-3,766,816 acres, or 72 per cent., belonging to 477 individuals, of whom 95 owned 2,088,170 acres, or 40 per cent. of the whole. In 1891, the population of the province was 1,619,814, of whom 45.98 per cent. are classified in the Census Report of Great Britain as Roman Catholics; 22.39 per cent. as Episcopalians; and 26.32 per cent. as Presbyterians. These proportions bear a close affinity to those of the various racial elements of which the population is composed. In this respect, the Roman Catholic Church represents approximately the ancient Irish element; the Episcopalian Church, the English or Anglo-Irish; and the Presbyterian, the Scotch or Scotch-Irish. In those districts where one element predominates over another, we find a majority of the people identified, to a greater or less extent, with the corresponding religious sect. This has been the case for nearly three hundred years, or ever since the foreign elements were first introduced, and is so generally recognized that it is perhaps not too much to say that in no other mixed population in the world has church affiliation been so characteristic of race and nationality as in the North of Ireland since the beginning of the seventeenth century.' This circumstance being kept in mind, does much to simplify the work of tracing the various elements of the population to their original sources. The Presbyterian Church of Ireland now numbers over 550 congregations, and there are, besides, several United Presbyterian and Reformed Presbyterian congregations. The Presbyterians number nearly half a millionabout one-tenth of the population of the country. The Episcopalian Church claims over 600,000 adherents. The Presbyterian Church doubtless includes more than four-fifths of the Scots of Ulster. The manner in which the membership of that church is distributed affords ample proof of this. Ulster claims fifteen-sixteenths of them, and they are found in those identical localities where we know that the Scots settled. In Antrim they constitute 38 per cent. of a total population of 428,000; in Down, 38 per cent. of a total population of 267,000; while in Londonderry they form 30 per cent., in Tyrone, 19, and in Armagh 15 per cent. of the population. But it is when we come to examine the details of the census of 1881 that the clearest traces of the Scottish emigration are to be found. Down has only 38 per cent. of Presbyterians, but that is because the south of the county was never colonized, and is still Roman Catholic. The old Scottish colony in Upper Clannaboye and the Great Ards is still nearly as Presbyterian as in 1630. James Hamilton, immediately after settling there in 1606, raised churches and placed "learned and pious ministers from Scotland" in the six parishes of his, estate Bangor, Killinchy, Holywood, Ballyhalbert, Dundonald, and Killyleagh. These parishes have gone on flourishing, so that when the census collector did his rounds through Hamilton's old estate in 1881, he found that it contained 29,678 inhabitants; and that although it was situated in what has been called the most Catholic country in Europe, only 3444 Roman Catholics were there to be found, as against 17,205 Presbyterians. For nearly three centuries these "Westlan' Whigs" have stood true to their Scottish Church. The record of Hugh Montgomery's settlement is quite as curious. His old headquarters, Newtown-Ards, has grown into a flourishing little manufacturing town; and Donaghadee is a big village well known as a ferry-port for Scotland. Still they remain "true blue" Presbyterian. Montgomery's estate is pretty well covered by the four parishes of NewtownArds, Grey Abbey, Comber, and Donaghadee. These have a united population of 26,559; the Presbyterians number 16,714, and the Roman Catholics only 1370- the balance being mainly Episcopalians and Methodists. In Armagh and in Fermanagh, on the other hand, the Episcopalians are more numerous than the Presbyterians. In the former there are 32 per cent. belonging to the Church of Ireland, and only 15 to the Presbyterian Church; while in the latter there are only 2 per cent. of Presbyterians, as against 36 of Episcopalians. The balance of nationalities and of religions remains to all appearance what the colonization of the seventeenth century made it, and that notwithstanding the great emigration from Ulster during the eighteenth century. The only strange change is, that Belfast, which was at its foundation an English town, should so soon have become in the main Scottish, and should remain such unto this day. There is another point that may be mentioned in this connection — one, indeed, on which the foregoing conditions may be said quite largely to depend. That is, the fact that intermarriages between the natives and the Scotch settlers of the seventeenth century, and their descendants in Ulster, have been so rare and uncommon as to be practically anomalous, and in consequence can hardly be said to enter into the general question of race. origin; or at most, only in an incidental way.' It is true, this cannot be said of the English colonists of Elizabeth's time, nor of Cromwell's soldiers, who settled in the southern provinces of Ireland after 1650. Concerning these two latter classes of settlers, as the most recent authoritative writer' on Ireland has said: "No feature of Irish history is more conspicuous than the rapidity with which intermarriages had altered the character of successive generations of English colonists. . The conquest of Ireland by the Puritan soldiers of Cromwell was hardly more signal than the conquest of these soldiers by the invincible Catholicism of the Irish women." But in the case of the Scotch colonists planted by James in Ulster, and of those who followed them, we find none of the results attributed by Lecky to the intermarriages of the English soldiers with the Irish. And while it is true that the influence of religion in keeping up the lines of race distinction has been at times overestimated, yet in the case of the Ulster Scots, it cannot be maintained that propinquity and the associations of daily life made it "absolutely certain that attachments would be formed, that connections would spring up, that passion, caprice, and daily association would. prove too strong for religious or social repugnance" to an extent sufficient to change or perceptibly influence the character of their descendants. These Scottish people in Ireland to-day exhibit all the distinctive racial characteristics of their Scottish forefathers; and have none of the peculiar qualities attributed by the two leading writers on the subject to the offspring of mixed marriages between Irish Protestants and Roman Catholics. Thus we are led to conclude that inasmuch as the Ulster Scots have not been overcome by the invincible Roman Catholicism of the Irish women, and since they remain Presbyterians, as their early Scotch ancestors were before them, they are likewise of unmixed Scottish blood. Concerning the correctness of this conclusion, we have the recent testimony of two distinguished Americans, one of them a native and the other for many years a resident of Ulster. And, considering the well-known prominence of these two gentlemen as clergymen, it cannot be supposed that their denominational proclivities would lead them to give any other than an accurate statement of facts so readily capable of verification. One of these witnesses, the late Dr. John Hall of New York, said: "I have sometimes noticed a little confusion of mind in relation to the phrase, 'Scotch-Irish,' as if it meant that Scotch people had come over and intermarried with the native Irish, and that thus a combination of two races, two places, two nationalities had taken place. That is by no means the state of the case. On the contrary, with kindly good feeling in various directions, the Scotch people kept to the Scotch people, and they are called Scotch-Irish from purely local, geographical reasons, and not from any union of the kind that I have alluded to. I have n't the least doubt that their being in Ireland and in close contact with the native people of that land, and their circumstances there, had some influence in the developing of the character, in the broadening of the sympathies, in the extending of the |