They left Ireland by the boatload to head for America before the Revolution, and settled on the rugged western frontiers of the colonies.
They founded communities in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and the Yadkin River valley of western North Carolina, eventually crossing the Cumberland Gap for the Kentucky.
The descendants of Scotsmen who had colonized the Irish Kingdom of Ulster, they lived for several generations on Irish soil before heading across the Atlantic and the backwoods of America.
They left Ireland by the boatload to head for America before the Revolution, and settled on the rugged western frontiers of the colonies