" They, of course, like the early
pioneers in this country, experienced certain changes through the
influence of their new surroundings, but, as one writer has remarked,
they "remained as distinct from the native population as if they had
never crossed the Channel. They were among the Irish but not of them."
Their sons, too, when they attended the classes in the University of
Glasgow, signed the matriculation register as "A Scot of Ireland."
They did not intermarry with the native Irish, though they did
intermarry to some extent with the English Puritans and with the
French Huguenots. (These Huguenots were colonies driven out of France
by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and induced to
settle in the north of Ireland by William III. To this people Ireland
is indebted for its lace industry, which they introduced into that
country.)
Again many Irish-American writers on the Scots Plantation of Ulster
have assumed that the Scots settlers were entirely or almost of Gaelic
origin, ignoring the fact, if they were aware of it, that the people
of the Scottish lowlands were "almost as English in racial derivation
as if they had come from the North of England." Parker, the historian
of Londonderry, New Hampshire, speaking of the early Scots settlers in
New England, has well said: "Although they came to this land from
Ireland, where their ancestors had a century before planted
themselves, yet they retained unmixed the national Scotch character.
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