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'''Scotch-Irish''' (or '''Scots-Irish''') '''Americans''' are American descendants of [[Ulster Scots people]] (predominantly [[Ulster Protestants]]) who emigrated from [[Ulster]] ([[Ireland|Ireland's]] northernmost province) to Americathe [[United States]] during the 18th and 19th centuries. Their ancestors had originally migrated to Ulster mainly from the [[Scottish Lowlands]] and [[Northern England]] in the 17th century during the [[Plantation of Ulster]].<ref name="Dolan p. x">{{cite book|last=Dolan|first=Jay P.|title=The Irish Americans: A History|page=x|year=2008|isbn=978-1596914193|publisher=[[Bloomsbury Press]]|quote=The term [Scotch-Irish] had been in use during the eighteenth century to designate Ulster Presbyterians who had emigrated to the United States. From the mid-1700s through the early 1800s, however, the term Irish was more widely used to identify both Catholic and Protestant Irish. As long as the Protestants comprised the majority of the emigrants, as they did until the 1830s, they were happy to be known simply as Irish. But as political and religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants both in Ireland and the United States became more frequent, and as Catholic emigrants began to outnumber Protestants, the term Irish became synonymous with Irish Catholics. As a result, Scotch-Irish became the customary term to describe Protestants of Irish descent. By adopting this new identity, Irish Protestants in America dissociated themselves from Irish Catholics... The famine migration of the 1840s and '50s that sent waves of poor Irish Catholics to the United States together with the rise in anti-Catholicism intensified this attitude. In no way did Irish Protestants want to be identified with these ragged newcomers.}}</ref><ref>Scholarly estimates vary, but here are a few: "more than a quarter-million", [[David Hackett Fischer|Fischer, David Hackett]], ''[[Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America]]'' [[Oxford University Press]], USA (March 14, 1989), p. 606; "200,000", Rouse, Parke Jr., ''The Great Wagon Road'', Dietz Press, 2004, p. 32; "...250,000 people left for America between 1717 and 1800...20,000 were Anglo-Irish, 20,000 were Gaelic Irish, and the remainder Ulster-Scots or Scotch-Irish...", Blethen, H.T. & Wood, C.W., ''From Ulster to Carolina'', North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 2005, p. 22; "more than 100,000", Griffin, Patrick, ''The People with No Name'', [[Princeton University Press]], 2001, p. 1; "200,000", Leyburn, James G., ''The Scotch-Irish: A Social History'', [[University of North Carolina Press]], 1962, p. 180; "225,000", Hansen, Marcus L., ''The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860'', Cambridge, Mass, 1940, p. 41; "250,000", Dunaway, Wayland F. ''The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania'', Genealogical Publishing Co (1944), p. 41; "300,000", Barck, O.T. & Lefler, H.T., ''Colonial America'', New York (1958), p. 285.</ref> In the 2017 [[American Community Survey]], 5.39 million (1.7% of the population) reported Scottish ancestry, an additional 3 million (0.9% of the population) identified more specifically with Scotch-Irish ancestry, and many people who claim "[[American ancestry]]" may actually be of Scotch-Irish ancestry.<ref>[https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/17_1YR/B04006 2017 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20200213004654/https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/17_1YR/B04006 |date=2020-02-13 }} - United States Census Bureau</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Leyburn|first=James G.|title=The Scotch-Irish: A Social History|url=https://archive.org/details/scotchirishsocia0000leyb|url-access=registration|publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]]|place=[[Chapel Hill, North Carolina|Chapel Hill, NC]]|year=1962|isbn=978-0807842591|quote=[The Scotch-Irish] were enthusiastic supporters of the American Revolution, and thus were soon thought of as Americans, not as Scotch-Irish; and so they regarded themselves.|page=xi}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Carroll|first=Michael P.|title=American Catholics in the Protestant Imagination: Rethinking the Academic Study of Religion|publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]]|place=[[Baltimore]]|year=2007|isbn=978-0-8018-8683-6|quote=...the character traits associated with "being Irish", in the minds of Protestant Americans, continue to resonate with the rhetoric of the American Revolution and with the emphases of evangelical Christianity. In all three contexts— Scotch-Irishness, the American Revolution, and evangelical Christianity— there is an emphasis on rugged individualism and autonomy, on having the courage to stand up for what you believe, and on opposition to hierarchical authority. The result is that...claiming an Irish identity is a way for contemporary Protestant Americans to associate themselves with the values of the American Revolution, or, if you will, a way of using ethnicity to 'be American.'|pages=25–26}}</ref>
The term ''Scotch-Irish'' is used primarily in the United States,<ref name=Leyburn327>Leyburn 1962, p. 327.</ref> with people in Great Britain or Ireland who are of a similar ancestry identifying as [[Ulster Scots people]]. Many left for North America, but over 100,000 Scottish Presbyterians still lived in Ulster in 1700.<ref>John Sherry, "Scottish Presbyterian networks in Ulster and the Irish House of Commons, 1692–1714." ''Parliaments, Estates and Representation'' 33.2 (2013): 120−139 at p. 121.</ref> Many English-born settlers of this period were also Presbyterians. When King [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] attempted to force these Presbyterians into the [[Church of England]] in the 1630s, many chose to re-emigrate to North America where religious liberty was greater. Later attempts to force the Church of England's control over dissident Protestants in Ireland led to further waves of emigration to the transatlantic colonies.<ref>[http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~varockbr/scotpres.htm ''Scotch-Irish Presbyterians: From Ulster to Rockbridge'', by Angela M. Ruley 3 October 1993. Rootsweb]</ref>
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