The Plantation of Ulster by Scots in the seventeenth century is a well established fact. Genealogists, however, require very specific reference material which is generally missing from the published accounts of the migration of up 100,000 Scottish Lowlanders to northern Ireland at that time.
Part Three of Scots Irish Links, 1575-1725 attempts to identify some of these Scots settlers and is based mainly on contemporary primary source material in Ireland, Scotland and England. Sometimes the individuals listed are described as 'Scots or of the Scotch nation' and on other occasions their identification is circumstantial and based on surnamed, place and time. Many of the early Scots listed have been granted, or have applied, for 'denization'. This was a direct result of the legal position that many of the original Scots found themselves in that it was illegal for them as 'aliens' to buy and eventually bequeath land in Ireland. Consequently, most of them applied to be declared denizens of Ireland, which in effect naturalised them and enabled them to grant or purchase land there. Between 1603 and 1634 a number of residents of Ireland, particularly Ulster, "all of the Scotch nation or descent" were recorded in the Irish Patent Rolls as having been granted denization. For example of November 22, 1605 there was recorded "the Grant of English liberty to Sir Hugh Montgomery, of Scotland, and his issue, to be of free state and condition, and from all yoke of servitude, Scotch, Irish, or otherwise, quit and free, to use and enjoy the English laws, preeminences, rights and customes, with permission to acquire lands and possessions".
While it is generally assumed that these settlers were Protestants, it should be noted that many of the initial wave of emigrants were more inclined to Episcopalianism; but from about 1640 the settlers were overwhelmingly Presbyterian, while a few seem to have converted to Catholicism.
Their descendants, within a few generations, emigrated in significant numbers across the Atlantic where, as the Scoth-Irish, they made a major contribution to the settlement and development of Colonial America.
Taken from: David Dobson, Introduction to Later Scots-Irish Links, 1575-1725 Part Three, (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2003).