“Our Most Priceless Heritage” • October 2005

About “Our Most Priceless Heritage”

From their earliest arrival in America 350 years ago, the Scots-Irish left a lasting legacy, a heritage that was firmly grounded in freedom and democracy.

The pioneering instinct of this proud race from Ulster and Scotland opened up America from the Atlantic coastline to the Pacific Shore ~ "Sea to Shining Sea." The history of the United States is interwoven with the outstanding personalities from the Scots-Irish diaspora and the distinctive characteristics of a people who pushed the frontiers to new horizons.

This comprehensive study of the Scots-Irish in North America by Northern Ireland author Billy Kennedy has created a much greater awareness of the accomplishments and durability of the hardy settlers and their families who moved to the 'New World' during the 18th century and created a civilization out of a wilderness.

President James Buchanan, son of a Co Tyrone man, said: "My Ulster blood is my most priceless heritage."

This is a sentiment echoed by many, many people in the United States today!

About “The Scots-Irish Chronicles”
In his books, Billy Kennedy charts the influences of the 18th-century Ulster Presbyterian immigrants in the creation of the Unites States of America. In the establishment of the Unites States, the Scots-Irish were a most influential group both in the drawing up and the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War.

Billy Kennedy’s other eight books in the “Scots-Irish Chronicles” are:
“Women of the Frontier”
“The Scots-Irish in the Hills of Tennessee”
“The Scots-Irish in the Shenandoah Valley”
“The Scots-Irish in the Carolina’s”
“The Scots-Irish in Pennsylvania and Kentucky”
“ Faith and Freedom: The Scots-Irish in America”
“Heroes of the Scots-Irish in America”
“The Making of America – How the Scots-Irish Shaped a Nation”

About Author – Journalist Billy Kennedy
Billy Kennedy is a journalist of wide recognition in Northern Ireland for over 30 years. With the Ulster/Belfast News Letter, a newspaper founded in 1737, he has been a news editor, assistant editor, and leader writer. He is also a public relations consultant, author, and lecturer. His abiding interest is in the Scots-Irish settlement on the American frontier, and through his authorship, Billy Kennedy has lectured in major cities and towns in the southeastern Appalachian region, on the eastern seaboard, and in Texas. He is an authority on American country music and culture. Billy Kennedy can be contacted at:
49 Knockaview Drive, Tandragee, Craigavon, Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland,
BT62 2BH ~ phone from USA: 011 28 38 840769
or via e-mail at billykennedy@fsmail.net.

Go back to the October 2005 Lecture Itinerary.