1 week Ago
US vice-president JD Vance has described himself as “a Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart”. This is music to the ears of some unionist politicians and commentators in Northern Ireland who espy opportunities of access and influence in the Trump administration. And so Stormont’s communities minister Gordon Lyons presented Vance with a history of his “ancestral links” to Ireland at an event in Washington leading up to St Patrick’s Day.
For Lyons, the Scots-Irish story is an uplifting narrative about how this community was instrumental in the making of America during the revolutionary period. They did indeed play important roles as both pioneers and leading revolutionaries – five of the 38 who signed the Declaration of Independence had direct Ulster Protestant family connections. Lyons and colleagues are pressing for the Scots-Irish story to be told in the 250th anniversary celebrations of US independence in July next year.
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