The Bishop Stboy’s Hawaiianprincess and the Strabane woman’s lunar crater

Or the second-generation Lifford woman whose story inspired James Fenimore Cooper to write ‘The Last of the Mohicans?’

What about the woman from Strabane who has a crater of the moon named in her honour? The Ramelton native who founded the Seaboard National Bank? It’s now part of JP Morgan Chase.

If not, you likely missed a fascinating lecture on ‘Notable Ulster-Scots Women and Men’ and their legacy, which was recently delivered by Frank Carey in the Tower Museum, as part of Derry City Council’s Autumn Lecture series.

All of the above were bolshie Ulster Scots who made their mark on the world after their characters were cast in Londonderry or the Laggan.

Teddy Roosevelt - quoted by Mr Carey during his informative presentation - perhaps summed this quality up best: “A grim, stern people, strong and powerful for good and evil, swayed by gusts of stormy passion, the love of freedom rooted in their very hearts’ core. They suffered terrible injuries at the hands of the red men, and on their foes they waged terrible warfare in return.

“They were also upright, resolute, fearless, and loyal to their friends, devoted to their country. In spite of their many failings, they were of all men the best fitted to conquer the wilderness and hold it against all comers.”

Mr Carey took us right up to the now in terms of the huge and continuing influence of the ‘Scotch Irish’ on North America but he started at the start with that unique Irish Sea world of Dalriada, which significantly blurs the distinction between Ireland and Scotland.

Contemplating the medieval kingdom he asked: “So when did these people become Irish and when did they become Scottish? It’s all woven in together. That whole kingdom stretched up as far as the isles. And there was an awful lot of movement. Of course, if you go up to Ballycastle you can see across to Scotland straight away.”

He went on to discuss how the Scottish/Irish dualism and exchange became complicated when the Welsh Tudors, who had ascended to the throne of England and the Lordship of Ireland in the 15th century, and later the Scottish Stuarts, became increasingly interested in Ulster.

Whilst the Tudors had impinged heavily on the southern provinces of Ireland the Scots and Gaelic Irish had pretty much been given a free rein in Ulster until the reign of the last Tudor, Elizabeth I.

By the time James I ascended to the throne the Plantation of Ulster had begun in earnest.

Said Mr Carey: “He produced the Bible, he wrote the Common Prayer in Irish, he made new coins for Ireland with the crown and harp on it.

“He already had plantations in Scotland where he moved people about in Scotland. And this now became the start of the British Empire more or less out of accident. It wasn’t really designed but it sort of evolved.”

He explained that the Londonderry area was actually supposed to be a largely English settlement but became a largely Scottish one.

“The arrival of these Scots, the best laid plans of men and mice sometimes go wrong. This city was to be an English settlement. The English didn’t arrive for a variety of reasons. The Scots came in.”

By the time of the English Civil War the Scots were - as Mr Carey described it - beginning to “flex their muscles.”

In 1649 - not for the last time - they let the English parliament know their feelings. The Belfast Presbytery wrote to Oliver Cromwell’s friends complaining about the execution of Charles I.

No less than the author of ‘Paradise Lost,’ John Milton, commented: “’We must know who the Belfast Presbytery is that they take upon themselves the magistral to examine and condemn the proceedings of England.”

Mr Carey raced on to speak of the shallow roots of many of the settlers here - specifically those of more recent Scottish origin.

Many were no more than 100 to 150 years here but with pressures on rents, the volatility of the linen industry and religious persecution at the hands of the Anglican ascendancy they were on their way again.

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries they became the new colonists of white settler colonies across the globe.

And a colourful and eclectic bunch they were. Rev James McCrea emigrated from near Lifford in the 18th century.

His daughter Jane became a heroine in Pennsylvania as a result of her martyrdom during the Seven Years War - a conflict involving the indigenous Algonquian peoples and the French and British colonists.

Mr Carey said: “She was moved with the British forces going from one fort to another and the Army was ambushed by a Native American tribe. In the conflict of that battle she was killed...a horrible thing was done to her. She was scalped.”

Her story was later immortalised by James Fenimore Cooper in his classic novel ‘The Last of the Mohicans,’ which has been adapted for film many times.

Most recently Michael Mann cast Madeleine Stowe as the character corresponding most closely to Jane even though she survives in the film.

Mr Carey also enlightened the lecture audience about how the Presbytery of Stewartstown - in an apparent affront to the crown - wrote to George Washington congratulating him on a successful revolution. And he wrote back.

He also described how another Ulster Scot came up with the model for the American High School system; how the first ever state registered nurse in the world came from Londonderry; how the man who managed the final stages of the construction of the New York Underground was from Strabane; how a Castledawson man was amongst the first white settlers over the Rockies into California; and how Sam Gamble Bayne - from Ramelton - emigrated to New York before setting up the Seaboard National Bank (its now part of JP Morgan Chase).