History of immigration between Ulster and Caithness

[Blackrose87]

I was recently visiting my partner's parents at her house in Caithness. Whle talking to some of the locals I found it very strange as their accents sounded a lot like an Irish accent, specifically mid-Antrim (which I'm used to as my father is from Ballymena)

Now I was tryin to work out how both these quite isolated places ended up with accents so similar. The onl explanation I have is that maybe quite a few families moved from Caithness during the Ulster plantation.

Would anyone have any details about this? Or any other theories on the accents?

[ThistleDown]

It might help if you researched the Scots language as it is spoken in the coastal communities of the north east and the north. You might want to start here: http://www.scotslanguage.com/

Connect the accents by thinking in terms of the fishing, BlackRose. The drifting back and forth, up and down the coasts, making landings with folk like your own where and when you can.

[Macman]

Blackrose, my ex-mother-in-law is from Belfast, and I remember her remarking on what, to her, was the different accent of people from Ballymena. She referred to it as "Ballymena Scotch". That doesn't explain a similiarity to an Irish accent in Caithness, but maybe it has something to do with it.

[Blackrose87]

Blackrose, my ex-mother-in-law is from Belfast, and I remember her remarking on what, to her, was the different accent of people from Ballymena. She referred to it as "Ballymena Scotch". That doesn't explain a similiarity to an Irish accent in Caithness, but maybe it has something to do with it.

I've never heard the term Ballymena scots, but a large amount of the Ulster-Scots speaking population live in or around the town.
Of course Scots does heavily affect the accent of most areas in the north of Ireland, even my own. But I noticed quite a lot of scots words being used in Caithness, that I was familiar with from my fathers family.
So I was guessing that there must have been migration of Caithness farmers and crofters to the mid-Antrim area. And the most obvious time for this would have been during the Ulster plantation, but I can't find any evidence for this.
I can't think of any historical reason why a there would have been movement the other way, from Antrim to Caithness, but I could be wrong.

It just seems strange that two remote enough areas which would have had no real contact with each other would have such a similar accent. It would make sense if it was an area of the lowlands or the borders, but Caithness just seems too far away.

[cessna152towser]

Tracing my own Irish ancestry and my late wife's Caithness ancestry I found a common link with Girvan in Ayrshire.
My mother was a Mewhort which is a Northern Irish surname.
I was told that a Mewhort ancestor had been a supporter of the Williamite campaign and had been given land in 1691 at Toberhewny near Lurgan by the British Government on which he had built a cottage which had remained in the family until the early twentieth century when it was demolished for redevelopment. In my childhood years, I had been told that the original Mehwort settler was believed to have been a Dutch or Brandenburger follower of William of Orange. Fast forward to the new millenium and genealogy research and I found a MacWhirter family website which made reference to MacWhirts from Girvan in Ayrshire who had set sail for Ireland to support Prince William and had changed their name to Mewhort when they were granted land because the surname MacWhirt would have identified them to the native Irish as being settlers from Scotland. Every Mewhort I have traced in Canada and North America has told the same story of the patriarch who built a cottage at Toberhuney, so it seems probable that the Irish name Mewhort derives from one MacWhirt family from Girvan Scotland.
When I was researching my late wife's ancestry I found that she had branches of her family from Wick and Thurso in Caithness and also from Girvan and the surrounding area of Ayrshire. It appeared that around 1800 there were two fishermen called Robert Hay, one operating a boat from Wick Harbour and the other from Girvan Harbour. There was already some sort of connection between them, either through visiting each other's ports on the Scottish coast or through being already related, and there were inter-marriages between the Caithness family and people in Girvan during the 1800's.
Northern Ireland, Girvan, Caithness, all linked by sailing along the coast in an age when land transport would have been limited to the horse and cart. There was certainly travel on the water between Caithness and Ayrshire and between Ayrshire and Ireland so there could well be a common ancestry in the local accents of Northern Ireland and Caithness.

[MacSpadger]

Antrim has long has settlement from Scotland, even before the Bissets in the 13th Century or before the MacDonalds took over the title of Earl of Antrim in 1558.

As you will know yourself, there are plenty of obvious reasons why Scottish words would be used around Co Antrim, but this does not explain why you are hearing a similarity between the accents. How do the local phone books match in terms of surnames?

[davidlpope]

It might be best to start with a general overview of the history of the Plantations. The first half of Leyburn's The Scotch-Irish does a reasonable job of this, if I remember correctly. The majority of settlement was by Lowlanders and Borderers, with a much smaller amount by Highlanders.

I'd be surprised if there was significant immigration from Caithness to Antrim, so I'm a bit dubious that there is a genuine connection between what your ears are hearing. That being said, accents are funny things. Best of luck.

[Blackrose87]

How do the local phone books match in terms of surnames?

I'll look into this and see if I can get phone books from both areas. I know that Miller is a common name in Ballymena, and may also originate from Caithness. But it's common in quite a number of places in Britain, so there may not be much of a link there.

It might be best to start with a general overview of the history of the Plantations. The first half of Leyburn's The Scotch-Irish does a reasonable job of this, if I remember correctly. The majority of settlement was by Lowlanders and Borderers, with a much smaller amount by Highlanders.

I'd be surprised if there was significant immigration from Caithness to Antrim, so I'm a bit dubious that there is a genuine connection between what your ears are hearing. That being said, accents are funny things. Best of luck.

That's what I though really, I can't see how there could have been a large immigration between the two places.
I suppose to an outsider, a lot of north Ireland accented Scottish accents must sound very similar anyway.
But I grew up in Derry, and my father and his family are all from Ballymena, so I'm very used to the mid-Antrim accent. Thats why it struck me as very strange that I almost couldn't tell the difference in a Caithness accent.
Maybe it's just a coincidence!

[Pleater]

The sea has connected rather than divided for a long time.

The people each side of the North sea can sound very similar - a Yorkshireman and a Dutchman for instance, their accents can be very alike, even though they are not speaking the same language.

I used to visit Whitby on the East coast and in bad weather there would be boats of different nationalities in the harbour, and various languages being spoken - each spoke their own and the others understood most of what was said because it was not all that different and they had heard it before.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Oldhiker]

my Scottish family moved to Ballymena area in 1646 before coming to the US. I think a lot of migration has happened for a long time to that part of Ireland.