Scotch-Irish or Scots-Irish: What's in a Name (Page 4)
An Essay by Michael Montgomery, University of South Carolina
Perhaps no consideration matters more than a final one. This concerns the privilege, granted routinely to groups in modern society, to name themselves. Descendants of Ulster immigrants in America call themselves as well as their ancestors Scotch-Irish. However much historians might favor a specific name, their views would seem to be inadequate, even misguided, if they do not defer to the members of the group in question themselves. Few would argue that Americans of African descent do not have the right to call themselves African Americans, as they have increasingly chosen to do, and that choice is now recognized in common discourse. Though they do not form an analogous group in some ways, why should Americans of Ulster ancestry be treated any differently? In my experience and in an unscientific but long-running personal survey, I have yet to find any American who grew up using Scots-Irish rather than Scotch-Irish, though no doubt there are some.
Some readers will have realized long ago that the choice between Scotch-Irish and Scots-Irish involves in one sense a minuscule issue, the pronunciation of a single consonant, and concluded that I am blowing the issue far out of proportion. But names are birthrights that are not granted to others to choose or judge, and for those of Scotch-Irish hertitage, the issue is no trivial one. Americans do not look abroad for the authority on how to speak English, so why should they do so regarding what to label themselves? Scotch-Irish has been the dominant usage in American circles for a long time, especially by people of Presbyterian heritage with Ulster foreparents, and for this reason if no other, it should be considered the proper and correct term.
The granting of respect by accepting a group's name for itself is one thing. Beyond this, if history matters, as it certainly should for those concerned with the settlement of America, the importance of the eighteenth century for Ulster immigration can hardly be overstated. An understanding of Scotch-Irish from only its usage in the nineteenth century is myopic at best. Today it remains the more familiar, preferred term for countless Americans, and Scotch-Irish has formed part of family lore for many who, if they know nothing else about their ancestry, have learned from older relatives that they are Scotch-Irish. Documenting the nomenclature surrounding them is part of the larger project of reconstructing who their ancestors were and, indeed, who they are.
END OF ESSAY
Copyright Michael Montgomery. Do not reprint in whole or in part without written permission of the author.