Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Poe was Scotch-Irish

The nexus of Scotland, Edgar Allan Poe, and West Point has the underlying fact that the poet's paternal ancestors were Ulster-Scots (Scots living in Ulster, Ireland, but not Irish). A fact sheet in the Poe File in the Archives Division shows what only Hervey Allen has first reported in ISRAFEL:

"Edgar (Allan) Poe's ancestry, on his father's side, was Scotch-Irish [now well established by the Ulster-Scots, in Belfast, Ireland, and Ulster-Scots-American Society, Knoxville, Tenn.], and can be traced to the Parish of Fenwick in Ayrshire, Scotland, where there were intermarriages with some of the remote ancestors of the Allans and Galts. The Poes belonged to the Protestant Scotch [Presbyterians] who went to Ireland. ...."

These Scotch-Irish were Protestant Presbyterians (not Roman Catholic) whose descendants now call themselves Ulster-Americans, and are themselves descendants from the Ulster-Scots. These Scots, like Poe's ancestors, were from Ayrshire. Please see The Ulster-Scot Newspaper article mentioned elsewhere. The religious conflict between Charles I and the Scots Covenanters is the basis of the American First Amendment. The Ulster-Scots are largely responsible for the culture we know in America today.


--- PoeinScotland.com

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