Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 125 



The Presbyterian Irish were themselves already 

 a mixed people. Though mainly descended from 

 Scotch ancestors who came originally from both 

 lowlands and highlands, from among both the Scotch 

 Saxons and the Scotch Celts, 3 many of them were 

 of English, a few of French Huguenot, 4 and quite 

 a number of true old Milesian Irish 5 extraction. 

 They were the Protestants of the Protestants ; they 

 detested and despised the Catholics, whom their an- 

 cestors had conquered, and regarded the Episcopa- 

 lians, by whom they themselves had been oppressed, 

 with a more sullen, but scarcely less intense, hatred. 6 

 They were a truculent and obstinate people, and 



3 Of course, generations before they ever came to America, 

 the McAfees, McClungs, Campbells, McCoches, etc., had be- 

 come indistinguishable from the Todds, Armstrongs, Elliotts, 

 and the like. 



4 A notable instance being that of the Lewis family, of 

 Great Kanawha fame. 



5 The Blount MSS. contain many muster-rolls and pay-rolls 

 of the frontier forces of North Carolina during the year 1788. 

 In these, and in the lists of names of settlers preserved in the 

 Am. State Papers, Public Lands, II., etc., we find numerous 

 names such as Shea, Drennan, O'Neil, O'Brien, Mahoney, 

 Sullivan, O'Connell, Maguire, O'Donohue in fact hardly a 

 single Irish name is unrepresented. Of course, many of 

 these were the descendants of imported Irish bondservants ; 

 but many also were free immigrants, belonging to the Pres- 

 byterian Congregations, and sometimes appearing as pastors 

 thereof. For the numerous Irish names of prominent pio- 

 neers (such as Donelly, Hogan, etc.) see McClung's "West- 

 ern Adventures" (Louisville, 1879), 52, 167, 207, 308, etc. ; also 

 De Haas, 236, 289, etc.; Doddridge, 16, 288, 301, etc., etc. 



6 "Sketches of North Carolina," William Henry Foote, 

 New York, 1846. An excellent book, written after much 

 research. 



