Wednesday, March 07, 2012

"The Making of the Ulsterman" by Rev Dr J S MacIntosh

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'...What changed the Lowlander, and what gave us the Ulsterman? In this study I have drawn very largely upon the labors of two friends of former years Dr. William D. Killen of the Assembly's College, one of the most learned and accurate of historians, and the Rev. George Hill, once Librarian of Queen's College, Belfast, Ireland, than whom never was there more ardent student of old annals and reliable of antiquarians.

But more largely still have I drawn on my own personal watch and study of this Ulster folk in their homes, their markets and their churches. From Derry to Down I have lived with them. Every town, village and hamlet from the Causeway to Carlingford is familiar to me. Knowing the Lowlander and the Scotch-Irish of this land, I have studied the Ulsterman and his story of rights and wrongs, and that eagerly, for years. I speak that which I have seen, and testify what I have heard from their lips, read from old family books, church records and many a tombstone in kirk-yards...

...You can not measure aright his burning sense of wrong at a later day ; you can not understand his methodized madness till he shows his broken treaties and dishonored compacts. He had the right to expect the backing of England, the fullest enjoyment of his hard-won home, the co-equal privileges of citizenship, the largest possession of freedom in both church and state. This statement can be easily verified to the fullest from the family history of many old Ulster family histories, from the Montgomery and Hamilton MSS, from state papers, and from a proclamation inviting settlers for Ulster and dated at Edinburgh, 28th of March, 1609 (see here)...'

Short bio: John Samuel Macintosh was born in Philadelphia in 1839, but after the death of his father, he came 'home' to Ulster along with his mother. He became minister of Connor Presbyterian Church in 1862 - 1868, after which he succeeded the famous Henry Cooke at May Street, Belfast. MacIntosh returned to the USA in 1881 to become minister of Second Presbyterian in Philadelphia, and was a leading figure in the Scotch-Irish Society of the USA. He died in San Franscisco in 1906.

Here is a link to his 1884 book The Breakers of the Yoke - Sketches and Studies of the Men and Scenes of the Reformation.

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