Presbyterian Church Tour: Overview
The church tour of Ireland and Scotland aims to give the US presbyterian the best possible introduction to the forces which formed their beliefs. This 10 day tour (3 nights in Scotland, six in Ireland) showcases those locations which are crucial to Presbyterian belief but also allows the traveller the chance to enjoy the most attractive features of both countries.
The history of the Presbyterian Church in the United States is inextricably linked to the Ulster Scots who brought their fierce Calvinistic beliefs and democratic form of church government from Scotland to the northern part of Ireland between the Flight of the Earls in 1607 and the Plantation of 1610-1620.
They formed the third side of the triangle between the Anglican (Episcopalian) gentry and the dispossessed Roman Catholics and were most definitely second class citizens until the eighteenth century. The founder of the Presbyterian Church in North America was Francis Makemie of Ramelton in Co Donegal and his dogged determination to preach—with or without licence from various English governors—is typical of the spirit of the Ulster Scots.
The Presbyterians of the northern part of Ireland began emigrating to north America in 1717 and brought this unquenching spirit with them, so much so that the British Prime Minister Lord North told King George III that "this American insurrection is a presbyterian revolt."
It is said that over half of the American army at the battle of Kings Mountain in Tennessee were second and third generation Scots Irish—and it is this same unyielding insistence on the supremacy of justice which still fuels many members of the Democratic Unionist Party to this very day.
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