Taken From http://www.frontiermuseum.org/ulster.htm part of the Fronier Culture Museum

The Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Farm

The Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Historical Background

Farming on the Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Farm

The Buildings on the Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Farm

Life in the Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Farmhouse

Textile Production on Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Farms

The Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Forge

The Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Farm

The Scotch-Irish or Ulster Farm at the Museum of American Frontier Culture formerly stood on the townland of Claraghmore in East Longfield Parish, near the town of Drumquin in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is typical of the solid tenant farms that were left behind by entire Ulster families from 1710-1830, or by the sons and daughters of "strong" farmers, who left Ireland for the New World.

The Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Historical Background

The island of Ireland is about the size of the state of Maine, and is divided into four provinces or regions: Leinster in the southeast, Munster in the southwest, Connacht in the far west, and Ulster in the north. Between 1200 and 1600, England had established its domination over Leinster, Munster, and Connacht, but control of the province of Ulster had eluded the English rulers.

At the beginning of the 17th century, following a nine-year war, Ulster's native Irish Gaelic lords finally gave up their control. This left Ulster open to colonization. Under King James I, the English government established the "Plantation of Ulster." This was a plan for distributing the lands confiscated from the Roman Catholic Gaelic lords to various Protestant English and Scottish lords, to developers called "undertakers," and to London merchant groups. These new owners recruited Protestant settlers from among tenant farmers, laborers, and craftsmen in England and Scotland to settle among displaced native Irish tenants in Ulster. This colonization coincided with the settlement of the English colonies in Virginia and Massachusetts.

Scots Presbyterians, French Protestants (called Huguenots), and English Protestants, of the established church and of dissenting sects, all moved to Ireland in the 17th century, especially to Ulster. The century was one of strife. English and Scottish armies put down an uprising of the native Irish in the 1640s. In 1690-91, Ireland was a theater of war in a European power struggle. Most Irish and Anglo-Irish Catholics sided with England's deposed James II, a Catholic, who was backed by France's Louis XIV The newer English, French, and Scottish Protestant settler families supported William of Orange, the Dutch Protestant ruler who had been invited by Parliament to become King of England. William's military victory fixed Protestant rule firmly in Ireland. As a result, the Anglican church, called the Church of Ireland, remained the established church, although the majority of Ireland's residents were not members of it.

Unfavorable economic conditions in Ireland by the early-18th century caused many Protestant families in Ulster to consider emigration. Trade legislation enacted by the English Parliament discriminated against Irish goods and produce, causing hardship. Bad harvests and crop failures discouraged farmers, as did high rents on farm land. The tithe (a tax on agricultural produce), which was paid to support the established Church of Ireland, was especially resented by the Presbyterians, who were termed dissenters in Ireland. In Scotland, the Presbyterian church was established and supported by tithes, so the Ulster Scots resented being treated as dissenters in Ireland. Furthermore, as dissenters, their educational opportunities and their political participation were severely limited. In the early-l8th century many of these dissenters, whose families had lived in Ulster for two or three generations, began to look to the American colonies as a more advantageous place to settle.

During the 18th century, the greatest numbers of settlers who immigrated to the colonies from Ireland came from the Protestant-dominated province of Ulster. In the 19th century, the other predominantly Catholic provinces would be the source of most Irish immigration to the United States and Canada. Immigrants from the north of Ireland and many Pennsylvania or Delaware-born children of Ulster immigrants were among the earliest settlers of the backcountry. The term "backcountry" refers to that region which extended from central Pennsylvania south through what is now western Maryland, eastern West Virginia, the great Valley of Virginia, and into western North Carolina and upper South Carolina. Most of these early settlers, who are called "Scotch-Irish" by Americans today, were of Scottish ancestry. Some of the "Scotch-Irish" were actually of English, Welsh, or native Irish background. The overwhelming majority of them were Protestants, and were usually members of the Presbyterian church.

The term "Scotch-Irish" is an American term adopted by descendants of this group in the 19th century to describe their ethnic origins, and to distinguish themselves from the Irish Catholic immigrants who came to America after the potato famine of the late 1840s. The British, Irish, and Canadians prefer the term "Ulster Scots" to describe this group. They numbered about 250,000 by 1775.

The Scotch-Irish or Ulster farm at the Museum offers visitors the opportunity to learn about the lifestyle and culture of those colonial immigrants from the north of Ireland. They played an important part in opening America's first western frontier in the valleys and foothills of the Appalachian mountain region. They took an active role in fighting the American Revolution and in supporting the new republic. They brought to the new nation their ideas of political rights and civil liberties, of religious independence and of the importance of education. Their children and grandchildren were prominent among the pioneers of Kentucky and Tennessee during the late-l8th century.

Farming on the Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Farm

With the exception of large landlords, who were sometimes aristocrats with estates of tens of thousands of acres, and members of the gentry who controlled 500 to perhaps 3,000 acres, few Irish farmers owned their land. The normal pattern in Ireland, for substantial farmers down to subsistence farmers, was to rent land. It was not necessarily a sign of poverty to be a tenant farmer, although many tenant farmers had a difficult time making ends meet. The real poor in Ireland were the laborers, those unskilled agricultural workers who were unable to lease a farm. They had to hire their labor out or become servants to "strong" tenant farm families or to farming gentry families.

Under English domination in the 15th and 16th centuries, the traditional four provinces of Ireland were divided into 32 counties. Ulster has nine counties: Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal. The first six of these make up the present Northern Ireland, while the last three are now a part of the Republic of Ireland. In addition to 32 counties, all of Ireland is divided into small areas called "townlands." These are not towns in a modern sense of the word, but go back to ancient Irish divisions of the land into grazing areas which had cluster settlements on them. It has been said of Ireland that "every stoney acre has a name." Most townland names come from the Irish Gaelic language, but are spelled phonetically in English. As a place of identification, the townland plays an important role in Irish culture, as does the county. The only address normally given for an Irish family in church records or at the post office, until the mid-2Oth century, was simply the name of the townland, the nearest post office town, and the county.

Most townlands in Ireland ranged in size from about 100 to about 300 acres. The estate of a large landowner might cover dozens of townlands. A single townland often had a number of small farms on it. The population of Ireland increased sharply in the late-l8th and early-l9th centuries, so that the countryside was densely settled. In 1845 on the eve of the great famine, there were nine million persons in Ireland (double the present population), and nearly all were rural.

The typical tenant farm was 10-20 acres, which seems quite small by American standards. Those were usually Irish (or plantation) acres, which are larger than statute acres used in England and the United States. A farm of 20 Irish acres is one of 30 American acres. Sometimes the Cunningham (or Scotch) acre was used, which fell in size between the statute and the Irish acre. Terms under which farmers leased their farms varied greatly, but the typical lease was for either 21 or 31 years. Rents varied with the quality of the land from 15 shillings per acre per year for poor land, to 25 shillings for better, and as much as two pounds (40 shillings) per acre per year for the most productive land.

The most common crops throughout Ulster, and especially in County Tyrone, were potatoes, oats, and flax. Some barley wheat, and rye were also grown, but only about one in three farmers planted soil-replenishing crops such as turnips or clover. On one statute acre of poor soil the yield in oats would be 18 bushels or in potatoes 80 bushels. The yield on moderately good soil would be nearly double that. A fairly crude system of crop rotation was used on Irish farms.

Oat seed was broadcast by hand, from a linen sheet hung around the farmer's neck, onto land that been tilled with a plow and lightly harrowed. The oats variety favored in Ulster grew six feet high, producing a long straw suitable for use as thatch, as well as a grain for food and feed.

The wooden, or Irish, plow was the most common type used in the 18th century, but the Scotch or swing plow was gaining in use, first among the gentry and strong farmers. Tillage methods were basic in Ireland, and depended mainly on the use of the spade, especially for potatoes. There was great variety in spade design from one region in Ireland to another. As cultivation became more intense after 1750 with Ireland's sharp population increase, spade mills sprang up around the country to meet the demand for this shovel-like tool.

Potatoes were planted in raised beds, called "lazy beds," that were 2-3 feet wide and about 30 feet long. Several varieties were popular in Ireland in the late-l8th and early-l9th centuries, including the cluster, the Irish apple, the yam (not to be confused with a sweet potato), the lumper, and cups. Potato tubers were planted with a long spade called a dibbler or steeveen, harvested in late July or early August, and stored in pits.

Haymaking was less important in Ireland than in much of Europe and America. The production was also different. Hay was cut with a sythe and hook, or even pulled by hand. The farm women then formed the hay into small bundles, called lap-cocks, that were much like muffs, and laid them out in the field to dry. Once dry, they were stacked into larger tramp cocks in the field or brought to the farmyard and stored on a rick.

Slide cars without wheels were widespread in Ireland. Carts with log wheels and with spoke wheels were coming into greater use in the early 19th century. These were horse-drawn vehicles, typically drawn by the Irish draft horse, who also pulled the plow. Oxen were not used as draft animals in Ulster at this time. The donkey often associated with Ireland, was not commonly used there in the 18th and early-l9th centuries, and particularly not in Ulster.

Cattle were traditionally the most important livestock in Ireland. They were valued for their butter and milk, rather than for beef. Butter was a market product used to pay the rent. Buttermilk and potatoes were the staple everyday diet. The Kerry and the Irish moiled are two typical cattle breeds at the time. Cattle were usually kept in the barn and fed cabbage leaves, potato stalks, and straw.

Although cattle may have been the most important livestock, pigs were the most common. Nearly every family kept pigs, often of the old native Irish greyhound type, which was long legged, white, and bristly. English breeds, like Berkshire and Hampshire, were being introduced in the early-l9th century to improve the breed. Pigs were usually fed potatoes, and were kept near the house, often tethered. Chickens were commonly found on Ulster farms, with the hens sometimes kept in coops in the kitchen of the house.

Sheep were far less common in Ireland than in England or Scotland. Most farmers had a few of an unimproved breed which they kept tethered in the farmyard. Larger flocks were generally found only on gentry estates.

Several types of enclosure separated fields in Ulster. In areas where the soil was especially rocky, drywall stone fences were common. In other areas, the most common field divisions were made by ditches which were built up, not dug down as in America. There were occasional hedgerows, often of hawthorn, in the 18th century, but they were not the neat, dense, laid, and well-tended hedges typical of England.

Many farm houses had a garden plot, but the kitchen garden was not raised to a fine art on Irish tenant farms. Peas, cabbages, and root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, onions, turnips and mangel wurzel were the main garden crops.

The Buildings on the Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Farm

This farm complex consists of three buildings. The house, which has a byre (barn) addition, is the focal point. As the visitor faces the front door of the house, to the right front is a small pig craw and henhouse with a dovecote. To the left, at a right angle to the house, is a long four-bay outbuilding which contains the turf store, cart shed, horse stable, and cow byre. This farm was occupied by Denis McDaid and his family in the 1830s, and from the 1860s until the 1970s by the descendants of Patrick Goan. These buildings were constructed before 1830, but the loss of many Irish records has made it impossible to date how early the house and its outbuildings were standing. The architectural form is a traditional one that dates back to the most active period of emigration during the 18th century.

All three buildings are constructed of sandstone, the predominant building material in rural Ireland until the mid-2Oth century. The traditional Irish method of constructing stone buildings employs two separate stone walls, one interior and one exterior, with the cavity between them filled with small rubble stones. The stone walls are covered with a white limewash on the interior and exterior. This protects the stones and makes the interior of the house lighter.

The house is built without digging a cellar or basement, as the damp and boggy Irish soil makes a cellar impractical. The floor of the house, in typical Irish fashion, is a hard-packed blue clay, with some flagstone used around heavy wear areas such as the hearth and doorway. The stone flag floor from the door to the rear wall of the main room of the house is also reminiscent of a simpler form of Irish peasant housing in which the animals and the people lived under the same roof-the family in one room and the animals in the other. The animals were led in the kitchen door, along the stone flagging, to their room. Surviving records make occasional references to board floors in the houses of more prosperous farmers, similar to the English yeomanry, but it was an exceptionally rare ordinary farmhouse that had a wooden floor supported on joists prior to 1860.

Doors on Ulster farmhouses are difficult to document. Panelled doors, transoms, and sidelights were usually not introduced until the latter 19th century. Many simpler farmhouses had hurdle doors, made of sticks bound together with straw ropes, and placed into the doorway at night. The half-door on the Museum's farmhouse is a feature that has been found in all parts of Ireland. It probably evolved from the stable doors that large landlords introduced on their estates in the late 18th century.

All three buildings of the Ulster farm are covered with thatched roofs. To make an Irish thatch roof typical of those in Ulster, the purlins and rafters are covered with smaller sticks called battens, lattice, or wattles, over which is placed a thick layer of sod strips called "scraws." The sod is covered with a long-stem rye straw, which is laid in overlapping layers and held in place by "scollops." The scollops (not to be confused with the shellfish scallops pronounced the same way) are hazel rods about 24 inches long, which are cut to sharp points and bent in a U-shape that enables them to hold the straw in place against the sod. This Irish thatching differs in material, technique, and appearance from the typical English thatch roof made with Norfolk water reeds.

Thatchers from Ulster came to the Museum to place the roof on the house. This ancient craft has few practitioners remaining in Ireland, and even fewer in the United States.

Life in the Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Farmhouse

This one-story two-room house seems small, cramped, and crude by modern standards. However, it was considered a comfortable home for a farm family of two parents, three or four children, and possibly a hired hand in the north of Ireland in the late-l8th and early-l9th centuries.

The hearth was traditionally the center of the home in Ireland. In 1600, most ordinary Irish houses still had a free-standing fire in the center of the room, with a hole in the roof for smoke to escape. Although the use of chimneys was introduced at the time of the Ulster Plantation, the houses of tenant farmers were not typically built with chimneys until the 18th century. Early chimneys and chimney canopies were made of wattle and clay, a form that survived into the 19th century. The better-off English settlers in the north of Ireland introduced brick or stone chimneys in their houses in the 17th century To prevent destructive fires, many landlords began to insist upon stone

chimneys in leases. The stone canopy over the hearth and the stone chimney at the Museum's Ulster farm exemplify this trend. By the early-l9th century, most tenant farmers and many cottiers, but not poor laborers, had brick or stone chimneys in their houses. However, as late as 1791, some 70 percent of all houses in Ulster had only one hearth.

This hearth heated the house, cooked the food, warmed the family and served as the location for most eating, household work, and socializing in an Ulster house. It was important to shield the fire from drafts, and to allow easy access to it. Consequently in an Irish house, the hearth is either at the opposite end of the room from the entrance door, or, if the door is near the hearth, a jamb wall is erected to screen the fireplace from the door. Because easy access to the hearth was important, the furniture in the kitchen of the typical Irish house, including the table, is placed against the wall, leaving the center of the room as an open space.

The visitor who enters this farmhouse often notices the bed in the kitchen first. It was typical of many Ulster farmhouses to have an "outshot" bed in this nook by the fireplace constructed for that purpose. It was reserved for the parents or the elderly. The massive fireplace lintel and furniture arrangement are typically Irish. Ulster Farm grandparent who needed the warmth. Other family members slept in the adjacent room, which was usually not so warm and cozy.

The most prominent piece of furniture in the kitchen was the dresser, customarily placed on the wall opposite the hearth. Not to be confused with the modern American dresser for storing clothing in a bedroom, the Irish dresser was kitchen furniture for storage of cooking and eating wares. On its tall open shelves the Irish housewife stored her crockery ceramic dishes of delph (delft) or creamware, wooden dishes called "treenware," and some pewter that a farm family used for its meals in the late-l8th and early-l9th centuries. The base of a dresser could be used in various ways. In some households, the base stored large stoneware or redware pieces that were used in dairying. In others the base was a coop for hens to roost in the warmth of the kitchen.

A settle bed was a typically Irish piece of furniture. It served as seating by day, and folded out to a four-sided box-like bed by night. This box protected the sleeper from the damp and draft of the dirt floor. Children, servants, and guests were likely occupants of a settle bed.

The table was a workspace, not a place to gather for meals. It was typically placed against the wall under the window to gain the advantage of the daylight. Some Irish tables, called "falling tables," folded up against the wall except when in use for food preparation, thus saving precious floor space. The meal chest (also called a meal ark or a corn bin) was a large piece of furniture often placed near the fire. This served as storage for oats, or "oatmeal," the principal grain consumed by the Ulster Scots in their porridge or stirabout (American oatmeal) or in the oatcakes, their staple bread until wheaten soda bread replaced it in the 19th century. The Ulster farmwife cooked oatcakes on a griddle, much like pancakes. She placed oatcakes before the fire on a decorative "hamen iron" to harden or dry out. A cupboard and a mug rack were often hung on the wall for additional storage of everyday drinking vessels and utensils.

Seating furniture in an Ulster house was simple. Several types of chairs might be found in a typical Irish farmhouse. The sugan chair, a traditional form with a straw rope seat, was found all over Ireland. Another typical chair was called a hedge chair, because it was made by a "hedge carpenter," who had minimal training and apprenticeship experience. Hedge chairs, made from scrap lumber, had slab seats and cigar-shaped spindles. Some families had a panel back armchair or greatchair for the father or grandfather-possibly a survival of their emigration from Scotland in the 17th century Three or four-legged creepie

stools were simple, low seating forms that could be pulled up around the hearth at mealtime. Creepie stools served as seating for adults as well as children, for they were a handy way to avoid the smoke rising in the room.

Ulster families, like those all over Ireland, ate simple meals of porridge, or of potatoes that were taken from the boiling pot, placed in a basket, called a skib, to drain, and speared from there and eaten. They were typically washed down with a mug of fresh buttermilk, providing a highly nourishing, if monotonous, diet. An Ulster farm family consumed a large amount of butter, made in the distinctive large wooden Ulster churn. Home-churned butter also brought cash at market in the local town. Ulster families ate little meat, as they usually raised their pig or calf for sale at market to obtain cash toward the rent payment.

Textile Production on Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Farms

In the 18th and early-19th centuries, it was commonplace to find an Ulster farm family engaged in some phases of textile production. Most farms grew flax. Flax cultivation was labor-intensive, often requiring the work of hired hands as well as family members. The tall stalks had to be pulled by hand. Seeds were pulled or beaten off on a spiked rippling board, then bundled in "stooks" to dry. Next, the stalks were "retted." This rotting or fermentation process in a stream or pond produced a disgusting stench but enabled the fibers to be separated. Fibers were separated by "scutching" or beating the stalks on a wooden board with a wooden blade, and then pulling them through a "hackle" with its sharp metal teeth. The fiber was then ready to be placed on the distaff, a stick inserted in the spinning wheel, from which the spinner could pull the fibers to spin into linen thread. Several types of spinning wheels were used in the north of Ireland. Increasingly, from about 1725, spinning took place in mills.

The Ulster farmer was often a weaver as well, and had a loom in the extra room in the farmhouse. Although spinning was a woman's work, weaving was a craft for men. The Irish linen industry had spread quickly in Ulster in the early-l8th century, with the encouragement of French Huguenot immigrants. Before the advent of large weaving mills in the mid-19th century linen production was carried out as a cottage industry in individual farmhouses. The farmer-weaver wove the linen thread which may have been provided by a jobber. He could sell his finished cloth as brown linen, or take it to the local bleach green to be spread out on the grass and bleached in the sun before sale in the local market to travelling buyers.

The Scotch-Irish (Ulster) Forge

The Ulster Forge comes from the townland of Keenaghan in the Parish of Kinawley in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. The two large parts of the lake called Lough Erne bisect this inland county where so many English and Scots settled in the 17th century.

Forges were indispensable features of the Irish countryside in the 18th and 19th centuries. Each forge served the inhabitants of about ten surrounding townlands. Townlands, units of land measure unique to Ireland, usually ranged in size from 100 to 500 acres, though some were larger or smaller. Most townlands contained many small tenant farms. A blacksmith might provide his services for a population of one or two hundred families living near his forge.

The Earl of Enniskillen owned much of the land near this forge in the early-l9th century, but not Keenaghan townland. As part of an endowment, Keenaghan rents were a source of income for church-affiliated "royal" secondary schools in the north of Ireland. One such school was at Enniskillen, the nearby county seat of Fermanagh. This blacksmith paid his rent to the agent for a charitable board that managed the schools. Tenants, such as this blacksmith or the small farmers he served, usually held their land on thirty-one year leases.

This forge building probably dates to the late-l8th century. At least four generations of blacksmiths in one family operated this forge for more than a century, from the early-l9th century until after the Second World War. The first of these blacksmiths for whom documentation is available, was Thomas Elliott. The Elliotts were a Protestant family. They may have come from England or the Borders of Scotland to County Fermanagh during the plantation (or colonization) of Ulster by Protestants in the 17th century.

Thomas Elliott, a representative example of the rural blacksmith in Ulster, was a jack-of-all-trades. He made implements for house and farm, both functional and decorative. The "harnen" iron or cooking stand is an excellent example of the kind of objects made by local blacksmiths.

The blacksmith also repaired tools and household objects for the farmers in his area. Hecould also make spades and frequently repaired them. Small farmers often used spades to break the land, rather than plows. Water-driven spade mills appeared to meet that demand for spades. However, it was to the local blacksmith that the tenant farmer or day laborer took his spade when it needed repair.

The typical Ulster smith was a farrier as well as a blacksmith. He made and fitted shoes for the horses in his area. The smith trimmed the hooves of hunting horses for the local gentry, of coach horses working on the nearby macadamized post road, and plow horses for the tenant farmers. His repair jobs also included work on the wheels, hubs, and axles of the two-wheel carts that were the most common farm vehicles at the time.

Some blacksmiths worked alone. Most had the help of their sons or nephews, who were training for the work. Sometimes blacksmiths took on apprentices from outside the family to train for the work as well. One of the main jobs of new apprentices was to work the huge bellows, with its wooden frame and leather gusset, by pulling on the long handle. This ensured a steady flow of air to the fire, so that it would reach the right temperature for the smith to work the iron. A metal pipe called a "tuyere" or tue-iron connected the bellows to the hearth.

The smith worked at a raised hearth made of stone. At the side or end of the hearth was a built-in water trough, called a "fizz trough," for cooling the hot metal. The fizz trough on the Museum's Ulster forge is made of stone. The fuel for the hearth was usually either crushed coal or coke. Blacksmiths who lived in remote areas of the north of Ireland, far from ports or canals that were a source of imported coal, burned low-quality charcoal in their hearths. Smiths made their own charcoal out of turf or peat, the principal fuel for Irish farmhouses. To make charcoal, the smith piled small pieces of peat, set fire to them, covered the pile over with soil, and allowed it to burn slowly for several days.

The blacksmith did most of his work on an anvil, made of iron or steel and set on a block near the hearth. Here the smith held the heated piece of iron with his tongs and struck it with a hammer to shape it. The anvil had a punch hole over which the smith could hold the metal, insert a punch, pound it with the hammer, and make a hole in the metal. In another, larger square hole in the anvil, called a "hardie" or tool hole, the smith could place a tool that enabled him to change the shape of the hot metal.

The iron stock for blacksmiths usually came to Ireland by ship from England, Scotland, or Wales. Irleand had limited coal and iron ore deposits suitable for the large-scale production of iron to supply local smiths.