Flax Seed and Emigrants

Richard MacMaster's latest book 'Scotch-Irish Merchants in Colonial America' is a great read, and details how flax seed was imported from America (a trade which seems to have begun around 1705 when import laws were passed by government), and how people emigrated on the same ships. This was also something that Senator James Webb's recent two part tv series 'Born Fighting' touched on. My good friend Mark Anderson sent me the image below from one of his recent forays in a local library. It comes from the Newtownards Chronicle in 1916. A beautiful image! Interesting that even as World War 1 raged through continental Europe, Holland was still capable of growing and exporting goods.

• A previous post about the Ulster linen industry's impact upon the Argentinian sugar industry, through the hard work and vision of two Ballymena brothers, can be read here. One of the real paradoxes of Ulster-Scots heritage is how it can be both hyperlocal yet international.