Editorials & Other Articles

that he connects himself genetically to the Protestant Irish of Ulster? They were the descendants of Scots who were resettled by the British into Northern Ireland in the 17th century in order to confiscate the lands of the Irish Catholic nobility in Ulster and populate the area with Scottish Presbyterians. Many of them emigrated to the US before the Revolution to escape discrimination against Presbyterians by the Church of England, and settled in the Appalachians. In other words, Vance's claimed ancestors were Protestant settlers on confiscated Catholic lands who came to America so they could keep being Presbyterians.

But it's not accurate to question his "Irishness." Scots-Irish Americans are technically Scots, not Irish.