Precis of Volume 1, Issue No. 1
(Update of an article in the Scotch-Irish Society Newsletter, Spring 2000 issue.)

The Journal for Scotch-Irish Studies provides a forum for scholarly writing on Scotch-Irish topics and, it is hoped, will encourage research on all aspects of Scotch-Irish culture. The first issue contains papers on emigration, language, material culture, and other aspects of the Scotch-Irish experience.

Members of the Society in good standing as of June 30, 2000, each received a complimentary copy of this first issue of the Journal. Members may purchase additional copies at a significant discount from the published price. Discounts are available also to educational and cultural institutions.

This first issue contains papers which, among other things, shed new light on Ulster emigration to the United States via Canada in the early 1800s, Scotch-Irish material culture in central Pennsylvania, the continuity of language patterns, and the use of recently accessible records of Ulster estates. There is also a comprehensive account, drawn from contemporary sources, of the earliest settlement projects.

In an important and original paper, Trevor Parkhill, Keeper of History at the Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland, shows that, in the early 1800s, many of those who became Scotch-Irish, left Ulster ports such as Derry, landed in Quebec, Canada, and made their way south to the United States. The reasons for this were both economic and political: the fare to Quebec was about half of that to American ports and, further, the United States and the United Kingdom were actually at war during part of this period. Parkhill shows that, after 1847, when the potato crop failed throughout Ireland, emigration from Ulster continued at about the same brisk rate as in pre-famine years. This is a new insight. Until now, emphasis on the numbers coming out of the southern part of the island has obscured Ulster emigration to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century.

Michael Montgomery, of the University of South Carolina, and Philip Robinson, of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Northern Ireland, have contributed a paper showing the importance of Ulster as a linguistic bridge between England and Scotland, and the USA. Montgomery contributed an additional paper on the persistence of Ulster-Scots language patterns among second and third generation Scotch-Irish, with illustrations from early poetry.

The Journal also includes a paper by Peter Seibert of the Heritage Center Museum, Lancaster, PA, dealing with the material culture of those Scotch-Irish who did not migrate to the south but who remained behind in areas of initial settlement such as central Pennsylvania. His photographic essay discusses the architecture, furniture making, and other business activities of these descendants of early settlers. (The cover of the Journal shows the Maclay Mansion, one of the illustrations in Seibert's paper.)

A paper by James Doan, of Nova Southeastern University, draws from contemporary sources to discuss the misfortunes of the 1636 Eagle Wing expedition, and the later success of the 1719 settlement in Londonderry, New Hampshire.

Other contributors include Brian Lambkin (Centre for Emigration Studies, Ulster-American Folk Park, Omagh, Northern Ireland), Richard MacMaster (Center for Scotch-Irish Studies), Lorraine Tennant (Emigration Database, Ulster-American Folk Park), and Jack Weaver (Winthrop University).

Dr. Joyce M. Alexander and Dr. Richard K. MacMaster are co-editors of the Journal of Scotch-Irish Studies; the publisher and business manager is Harold R. Alexander.