Irish-American History

Lesson 2: Seeds of discontent

American War of Independence

John Dunlap , who was born in Strabane in 1746 , joined his uncle in Philadelphia at the age of 8 or 9 and entered the printing trade. He printed the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 and founded the first daily newspaper in America in 1784 , ‘The Pennsylvania Packet’ In a letter to his brother-in –law , Robert Rutherford on May 12th 1785 ‘The young men of Ireland who wish to be free and happy should leave it and come here as quick as possible. There is no place in the world where a man meets so rich a reward for good conduct and industry as in America.’(10)

By the time of the War of Independence , Benjamin Franklin reckoned that a third of all of the people in Pennsylvania were Ulster –Scots and their descendants , over350,000. The Ulster-Scots settled into the frontier very quickly. Theodore Roosevelt said of them , ‘In this land of hills , covered by unbroken forest , they took root and flourished , stretching in a broad belt from North to South , a shield of sinewy men thrust in between the people of the sea board and the red warriors of the wilderness.' (11) Emigration dwindled during the War and although a few Ulster-Scots continued to enter both American and Canadian ports , the main exodus of Ulster-Scots to the New World was over. The importance of this group in the development of the United States can be gauged by the number of American leaders , thinkers , entrepreneurs , Military men and American Presidents who could draw their blood-lines back to the hills and glens of Ulster.

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