During my travels this summer I made my way across Ireland and Scotland and fell in love with the beauty and the rich history of these countries. During my stay, by far my favorite evenings were the ones where we were treated to nights of songs, dance, and stories. While every nation in the world has its traditional culture that is worthy of celebration, there is something special about this region that stands above the rest for me. Part of the reason is that there is a familiarity with this culture, and historically speaking it comes from a good reason.
There is something enchanting, almost romantic, about these nations. I’m sure that for Americans’ part, some songs are in Gaelic, while most today are in English. Other nation’s folk songs and stories can lose something in translation. Ireland and Scotland’s difficult histories play a part of their culture as their people have had to endure struggles including occupation from the Vikings, the Normans and most recently the British. Possibly Ireland’s greatest struggles came in the 1840s and ’50s with the Potato Famine. During the Great Hunger, more than a million Irish died and dropped the population by 25% as another million fled the island for greener pastures.
Our tour guide commented that the Irish population has only recently reached pre-famine numbers. Whatever the reasons, the Irish have produced some of the world’s greatest poets and authors, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Beckett just to name a few. They have folk songs that can soothe even the most savage of beasts and a dance style that has captivated Americans since Lords of the Dance burst on the scene in 1997.
In Dublin, we were entertained at Taylors Three Rock Inn and had a wonderful evening. The lead singer of the show we watched had just come off a stint on the West End playing Jean Valjean and had an amazing voice. He sang many traditional Irish songs like “Molly Malone” and “I’ll Tell Me Ma” and I am even manly enough to admit I became a bit misty eyed when he sang “Danny Boy.” It was my late grandma’s favorite song, and she loved it so much that she named my father Dan.
While the Irish songs are better known than the Scottish ones, attending the Military Tattoo in Edinburgh Castle and hearing 100 bagpipes, including pipers from the U.S. Navy and the Citadel, come out the main gate playing “Scotland the Brave” still gives me chills just remembering it. We also attended the Spirit of Scotland where I tried my first haggis while listening to the many Scottish folk songs including “Amazing Grace.” Yes, it’s an English song but best heard when played on the bagpipes. You could really hear the pain and sadness of the Scots with the haunting melody of songs like “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.”
As I said I think the reason we are so drawn to the folk songs from Ireland and Scotland are because they are so rich and old, but also because they are in English. But there is also something familiar about them—something that feels like home. There is an important part of American history that I think will help in our understanding.
During America’s Colonial period and in the years after the revolution, there were several important immigrant groups that populated our shores. Obviously, the English were the largest group, but there were also large groups of Germans and Dutch, not to mention the forced immigration of Africans. Yet the group I have always found most interesting are the Scots-Irish, mostly Presbyterian Lowland Scotts who fled to Ireland in the 18th century to escape British persecution, especially because of their religion.
Eventually this group left Ireland and came to the British North American Colonies bringing with them their music, stories, and clan lifestyles. Where most immigrants at the time settled as close to the coast as possible and integrated, Scots-Irish immigrants mostly arrived at the Middle Colonies but moved west until they hit the Appalachian Mountains. Once in the mountains they spread north and south settling the region now known as Appalachia.
In these back country hollers of Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and down into Georgia, they kept to themselves. They are the backbone of America, fiercely loyal to family, distrustful of authority, and gun-toting patriots. Their exploits became famous, though exaggerated some, in the late 19th century with the Hatfields and McCoys and later in the 1976 documentary “Harlan County, U.S.A.” which showed the people as backwards and violent during a coal mining strike. More recently two politicians have written books about the Scots-Irish, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance with “Hillbilly Elegy,” and “Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America” by former Virginian Senator Jim Webb. For my purposes, however, it’s the 1920s that are most important.
From the 18th century until the 1920s, the Scots-Irish had some of the best-preserved traditional culture in America. The outside world had not been able to infiltrate the back country hollers. In 1927 Ralph Peer, a music scout from Victor Records believed there could be a market for what was called mountain music. He came to Bristol, Virginia, and put out a call for talent. A.P. Carter heard the call and gathered his wife, Sara Carter, and sister-in-law Maybelle Carter and made the trek over the hills to Bristol. A.P.’s brother, Ezra, and Maybelle were June Carter Cash’s parents. On Aug. 1, 1927, A.P., Sara and Maybelle recorded two songs that became huge hits. Carter did not write original music. Instead, he traveled the Appalachian region collecting songs that had been passed down and recorded them as hillbilly music. Eventually the label changed the name to country music.
While country music today has mostly abandoned its roots, when I hear the poetry of a song like Zach Bryan’s “Something in the Orange,” I am reminded of old Irish ballads, or the capitating melody of “Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show (They did it first) or a haunting tune like “Down to the River to Pray” by Alison Krauss, I know the old world sound is not completely gone. Scottish and Irish music is still alive here in the new world, and it connects me to the old. Hopefully it stays that way for a long time.
James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at HistoricallySpeaking1776@gmail.com.
