Quote Originally Posted by ThistleDown View Post
Sorry, Mark, but I don't think that any Highland Scots can be included, in numbers, in your last. That is, that by the 18C there was little or no connection between Highland and Irish Scots. I cannot speak to your D of I point with any certainlty, as I cannot speak to other things related to the D of I (US) that has -- strangely (?) -- become such an important part of this thread. I can confirm, however, that within the Clanchattan the majority of folk in the 18C were Episcopalian. I don't know of any basis for your assertion that those who lived near Fort George after 1745 chose to emigrate (presumably because of their religion, or why otherwise would these facts be related?) and to become in the process Ulster Scots.

From Petty, Strathdearn, Strathnairn and the Upper Reaches of the Strathspey -- in the decades before 1776 -- many did leave, but in the main they left for the industrial sites of the south of Scotland and England or as relatively wealthy emigrees to the Americas and elsewhere. It is not recorded that they left in numbers for Ireland. In plainer words, there were no forced clearances in Clanchattan.

Are we confusing Highland Scots with Ulster Scots here?. I assure you, they are far from being the same beings in Scotland.
Sorry, I can see why I was misunderstood. I should only have spoken of my family, not of a general historical fact. I can say with fair certainty that my own family left Croy and Dalcross for Ulster, where they may have abided for a number of years before emigrating to South Carolina. Did that make them Ulster Scots, Highlanders, or Americans? They would have thought of themselves as Highlanders, while Americans called them Irish. My comment re. Ft. George is only a guess based on stories of what it was like near there, post '45; Croy is in Ft.George's backyard. Sorry if I was overly general.