The Home of the Scots-Irish in Ulster Northern Ireland (I've a great curiosity about my Scots-Irish ancestors and the homes they left many years ago in Ulster Province, Northern Ireland. My favorite daydream is a trip back in time to visit with them. ) J. Earl Henderson A time traveler dumped suddenly in the middle of a barley field in Ulster, Ireland circa 1779, would gaze in awe on an ancient Celtic landscape accompanied by the peaceful sounds of the afternoon – insects humming, a stirring breeze holding faintly the smell of humidity and salt. In the distance, the sound of human activity coming from a village. As he collects his thoughts, the stranger begins to understand. This is not a dream. This is a real place, and these villagers are real people who lived far in his past. This is Ulster Province in the 18th century where, according to family lore, his Scots-Irish ancestors had lived and worked and died. The light begins to dim on the landscape as darkened clouds sail past, casting a shadow on fields below. An experienced eye would make the season to be early autumn with the fields and foliage just beginning to turn. A light steady rain starts to fall, as do the afternoon temperatures. The moisture is welcomed. The year has been especially dry. At the center of this changing drama the traveler sees a dozen or so mud and stone houses, weathered and daubed in whitewash. A feeling of well being passes through his body and mind as he scans the landscape, as though he is looking at his own home, long abandoned. There's a barn half buried in the hillside surrounded by smaller houses, each with toppings of flax-straw thatch. The adjacent houses have stout exterior walls, maybe two feet thick with low ceilings and mud or clay floors. Through the center of the village runs a simple dirt road and on the road are carts and horses and sheep and people moving with no undue concern for the changing weather. They begin to cover themselves with woolen felt or whatever they have to repel the rain. Stone peat fires emit lazy columns of white smoke from every hearth and house in the village. Most houses have animal yards enclosed by sod and stone fences. Mice and insects and other vermin are common here. In the houses, there are two rooms or more for living quarters. There's a water pump at the door. In the kitchen there are cooking pots and kettles hanging and a tiny out shot of a bed, close to the cobbled hearth. Upstairs is a loft, reached only by a ladder. If this were a market village, astride some major road or waterway, the traveler would see a central market where local craftsmen move their goods along cobbled streets and farmers bring their cash crops to sell. There's little concern for artistic landscaping here, but even so, ye can see a simple charm in the way the streets, the houses and the fields are arranged, as in an artist's composition with stone fences separating one rig of farmland from another. Most Ulstermen in these times carry walking sticks and smoke a pipe whether indoors or out. Many of the older men have whiskered, weathered faces with brushy moustaches. They wear linen shirts buttoned to the collar. The Presbyterian clergy of the town preach against excessiveness, but even so they'd be a fair lot of drinking beginning late afternoon and lasting into the evening especially among the younger men off from their work. Music might be heard in the streets near some tavern, played by an idle fiddler. Whether sunny or cloudy, townspeople dressed in dark woolen or flax linen, loosely layered to ward off the chill of the cool humid climate. The town would have a kirk (church), or possibly two. One would be Presbyterian and the other Episcopal or possibly Catholic indicating a strong, native Irish population in the community. The language of Ulster in the 18th century was a version of lowland Scots English known as 'Lallans' (which means 'Lowlands'). The Ulster-Scots immigrated to Ulster from the western counties of Scotland and a great many came from the midlands and border counties between Scotland and England. Collectively, these were known as the Lowlands. As time passed, Lullans diluted with Elizabethan English, the language of commerce, and with the native Gaelic, spoken by the older Irish folk. When the Ulster- Scots migrated to the American frontier, they brought with them words we know in the U.S. today as Appalachian English, giving us the likes of you'uns, we'uns, ye, and y'all plus many more. Taverns in the towns and villages of Ulster were gathering places for locals and travelers alike. They were warm, agreeable places though dim and smoky, frequented by men mostly where good conversation, good jokes, good drink, good friends and passable food were plentiful. Some of these places served double duty - respectable social hall by day and quiet brothel by night. The serving girls of the house would come from distant towns and desperate circumstances, usually from broken families where there was no father, husband or other male kin willing to support them. Some were orphans. A few came from less severe circumstances. Prostitution was not condoned but still commonplace in Ulster. To an Ulster male in his unvarnished understanding of the order of things, the status of women who worked this trade was the result of circumstances, their character, their lot in life, so few questioned the arrangement. Presentable women, on the other hand, were protected in patriarchal homes where they were allowed no financial or political power. Women could not own property or hold office. While having total responsibility for hearth and children, they were expected to remain in the background and be submissive to their husbands. This being said, there was none more wily nor strong-willed than an Ulsterwoman. Marriages, more often than not, were arranged between families or orchestrated by a matron in the village who had a knack for friendly meddling in the lives of others. Intermarriage within the Scots community was common. A successful union between two Scottish families would encourage other marriages within the same families. This resulted in brothers of one family marrying sisters of another. Within the Scots and English community, intermarriage was less common, and between the Scots and Irish hardly ever. The Catholic Irish were the enemy of the Ulster Scots, even though Scottish farmers would sometimes sublet a portion of their land to Irish tenants when a good Protestant farmer could not be found. As time passed and new generations grew up, animosity between Scots and Irish became less intense; yet bigotry, tribalism and family feuds simmered just under the surface, flaring up over the slightest insult, causing fights and even murder. This hatred would remain a part of the Ulster landscape well into the 21st century. Ulstermen of the 18th century had simple expectations. They were accustomed to the injustices of the wealthy Scottish and English landowners and the corrupt English government, mirrored in their own Irish government. The majority of farmers rented their land on 31-year leases and when the leases ended, rents would skyrocket. This resulted in tenant rebellions by farmers who refused to pay the higher rent. They felt they had worked the land for a generation or more and were being over-charged or unjustly dispossessed of all their improvements. The tenant rebellions of the 18th century were followed by bloody retribution ordered by the landowners and carried out by the government's soldiers who would come to reinstate the peace. More often than not, the English landowners or landlords did not live in the province and had little empathy for their Scottish tenants. In every village and town in Ulster, there were classes of families, some more educated and more refined than others. The upper class families were distinguished by a bit more farmland under plow. Middle and upper class women didn't work in the fields so much. Men from the more prominent families constituted the leadership of the town, though all were subject to the whims of the absentee landlords. Even as classes existed, there was no feeling of superiority of one Ulsterman over another. In Church and in Sabbath School, a rich man's family and a poor man's family sat and worshiped together. In a typical Ulster home there was little attention given table manners or other formalities for that matter, and they had little use for soap nor water. A full bath would be rare, coming perhaps once every three or four months. They were not filthy people, though some Englishmen would argue the point. Certainly those who worked in the fields cleaned up a bit before mealtime; it's just that cleanliness had no special place in their routine or at their dinner table as bits of meat and bread were handled and passed from one family member to another. Common practice was for the hostess wife to butter bread with her thumb before passing round the table to guests and family members; afterward she would suck her thumb and wiped it dry on her apron. The ingredients in the family stewpot could only be surmised and best not investigated. Other than a heart- felt prayer in blessing of the food, meals were informal affairs. Even though not refined, these people offered no offense within the company of their own kind. Any gathering of folk in the streets or in one of the larger houses was accompanied by a distinct smell, radiating a mixture of fresh air, animal scents, body odors, fireplace smoke and pungent herbal vegetation. While the typical Ulster Scot was crude by English standards, they were nonetheless educated people who knew how to read and write, and it was the Bible they were reading in their schools. Education to the Ulster Scots meant religious education. They also were politically astute and aware of the world around them. They loved their music and poetry. They kept abreast of political events in Scotland and England. Many families had kinsmen still living in the western islands off the coast of Scotland and the Scottish lowland counties. Numerous natural and manmade disasters created the universe of ill luck and persecution that the Ulster Scots faced during the 18th century, which is why more than 300,000 migrated from the nine counties of Ulster to the American colonies by the beginning of the 19th century. On a personal note, this number included a young, red haired boy who, with other family members, left his village in Ulster in 1792, entered the New World through the port of Philadelphia, sailed up the Delaware River and by horse and cart traveled the Philadelphia Wagon Trail into Pennsylvania and western Virginia where he was received by family members who had immigrated earlier. The boy's name was Thomas Henderson, and he was my great great grandfather.