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00:00I've long
00:29been a fan of history, trying to find ways of understanding ourselves and our place in
00:34the world, but not just in books. The story of our past is also written in stone, in the
00:41streets and buildings where people have lived, and in the markers of their final resting places,
00:47their Langham. Graveyards are great places for exploring the lives of people who have
00:56left their mark on Northern Ireland's fascinating history, and I'm in search of Ulster Scots
01:02who have made their mark on the North West. I'm starting in Londonderry, a plantation city,
01:11once a major emigration port, and a centre of industry whose name is forever associated
01:17with a famous military event. This is Glendermot Cemetery on the water side of the city. It
01:29dates to pre-Reformation times when there was a Catholic church here on the site. It's typical
01:38of countless graveyards all over Ulster, hidden up a windy road, largely unknown and almost
01:44forgotten. But in this unassuming place, there are two markers that speak of 105 days in 1689,
01:52when this city was at the centre of a power struggle between two kings. The citizens, many
01:57of them Ulster Scots, rose up against Catholic James II, and their actions had dramatic consequences.
02:04The Siege of Derry was not just pivotal in Irish history, it's pivotal also in British history and
02:11in the history of the entire continent of Europe. It actually has shaped the way Europe has been right
02:17down to this day. Why was it important on that level? It curbed the expansionist plans of the French
02:25King Louis XIV. It set up a double power block, if you like, a balance of forces in Europe. And that
02:34wouldn't have happened had the city not held out against the Jacobite forces, which bombarded the
02:41city, attacked the city. And those who were inside the walls suffered a tremendous amount of privation,
02:47they suffered hardship, they suffered death from starvation, from disease, which was rampant in those
02:53conditions. And came out at the end of it all, having held the city against the Jacobite army.
03:00So who were the main defenders?
03:01The main defenders are Henry Baker, who's governor of the city, Jonathan Mitchellbourne, both professional
03:08soldiers who had served in Tangier in Charles II's army. And a third one, very, very prominent local
03:15man, was Adam Murray. Tell me a bit more about Murray.
03:17We don't know very much about his origins. There's a belief that he might have been born
03:23in Scotland. Equally, there's a belief that he might have been born in Donegal. The strongest
03:28contention seems to be that he came from Ling, near Cloddy. So he's not very far away from
03:34the city. He doesn't appear to have been a professional soldier. He might have been in the militia. But
03:40what he certainly does have is an ability to lead and to inspire men.
03:45What sort of things did he do to prove himself?
03:48Well, he took part in 40s, using his cavalry against the Jacobite soldiers to the north of
03:55the city at Pennyburn. And there's two battles at Pennyburn, in one of which he actually is
04:01believed personally to have killed a French general called Montmont. And there is no doubt about it,
04:06in the first weeks of the siege, that this man really is the most inspiring leader among the
04:10defenders. So tell me about Mitchellburn. Mitchellburn was a professional soldier. He
04:15had served in Charles II's army. And towards the end of the siege, all the organisation of the defence
04:22is in Mitchellburn's hands. And it's he, in fact, who left the money to raise the crimson flag on the
04:29cathedral to commemorate the siege each year, which is done, in fact, to this day.
04:40Looking back to his own first-hand experience of what had really happened behind the walls during
04:45the siege, Colonel Mitchellburn also wrote a play. It's called Ireland Preserved, or The Siege of Londonderry.
04:53First spy. Wees bring all the news. Second spy. Come Johnny, this colonel is a brave man.
05:01First spy. God be with you, sir. Second spy. Wees be his soldiers when we gang back.
05:07That's from Mitchellburn's play, and it contains Ulster Scots. There's more to be learned about
05:12Mitchellburn and Murray on the other side of the city.
05:15Like Mitchellburn's play, Londonderry's Siege Museum and Visitor Centre tells the story of the
05:27dramatic, brutal events of 1689. The legacy of the young apprentices who shut the gates on King
05:35James's army, and the lives and stories of many other ordinary folk who survived the siege,
05:41the majority of them, Presbyterians with Scottish roots, are explored and commemorated here.
05:48The building is also home to the Apprentice Boys' Association, which honours the central role
05:52played by the Ulster Scots in this dramatic chapter of the city's history. Founded in 1814,
05:59it is a worldwide membership of over 10,000, with branches all over Ireland, as well as Scotland,
06:05England, Australia and Canada.
06:07Stuart, where are we? And what happens here?
06:12We are in the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall. It's in this room where the eight main parent clubs of
06:17the Apprentice Boys hold their monthly meetings. It's also in this room where any new member of the
06:23Apprentice Boys won't be brought to join our association, because the only place in the world
06:28you can join the Apprentice Boys is inside the walls of Londonderry.
06:31Who were the Apprentice Boys and what did they do?
06:34The original 13 Apprentice Boys were the guys responsible for closing the gates of the city
06:41in defiance of King James II's army as part of the siege of Derry. These 13 young boys are still
06:46remembered today in the depiction of them closing the gates of the city in the stained glass window.
06:52We also have a stained glass window depicting Adam Murray slaying the French General Mamont.
06:58The other prominent theme in this room is that colour crimson. That colour crimson comes from Colonel
07:04Mitchellburn. Mitchellburn was the guy responsible for finding a white rag in the walls of the city,
07:09dipped it in a pool of blood and flew it as a sign of defiance to those armies on the outside.
07:15After the siege of Derry, many Ulster Scots Presbyterians who had suffered disease and famine for refusing to
07:28surrender to King James and his mostly Catholic forces in Ireland expected to be rewarded by the
07:33government for their loyalty to King William. This was not to be. Instead, rents got higher and the penal
07:41laws passed by an Irish parliament which favoured the Anglican Church now discriminated against
07:46Presbyterians and Catholics alike, excluding them from full access to political and civil power.
07:53Marriages conducted by Presbyterian ministers were no longer considered valid and because children
07:59born of such marriages were thought to be illegitimate, they could not inherit property.
08:04All over the North West, from the Ban Valley to Donegal, the lives of Ulster Scots, largely Presbyterian
08:11communities became increasingly difficult. These were desperate times and they provoked desperate measures.
08:18I'm heading to the Monray Ulster Scots Heritage Centre, St Johnson County Donegal. That's the place to
08:26discover what happened to the Ulster Scots community in the North West in the years after the siege.
08:31A fascinating document called the Shute Petition, which holds over 300 local signatures, provides part of the answer.
08:40The original survives in America today and is one of the most priceless written documents of the period.
08:46A copy here in Monray is part of a new display. Written by Ulster Scots community leaders in 1718,
08:53it was an appeal to Colonel Samuel Shute, the Governor of New England, a powerful man whom they hoped would
09:00help them find a new life in the new world. They assured him of their sincere and hearty inclination
09:07to transport themselves to that very excellent and renowned plantation upon our obtaining from
09:13His Excellency suitable encouragement. The Shute Petition was sent round a lot of the congregations in
09:21the north of Ireland in the early part of 1718 and it was signed by men who wanted to explore the
09:29possibility of taking their families and emigrating to New England. What did they think they would find
09:35when they got there? Well, a lot of the stories that came back were about the land that was available,
09:42they, there wasn't going to be any church dues, you weren't going to have to pay tithes. It was going
09:47to be a new beginning for them. What did they actually find when they got there? Well, it was not
09:55any Garden of Eden. The climate was much more extreme than they were used to and of course the French
10:00who were the big enemy at that time all through Europe, the French were just across the border in Canada.
10:06Why did they not just decide, well look this isn't going to work out, we'll come home?
10:11Well, to get away to America they had sold everything they owned. They probably brought some
10:18of their things with them like the looms for weaving linen. But they took with them their skills,
10:25the technology of the day. If you lose a third of the population and with them they take their capital
10:31and their education and their skills. At a time when it was just the beginning of the Industrial
10:37Revolution, if that skill and that enthusiasm and that knowledge had stayed here,
10:44we might have had a very different experience of life.
10:53The knowledge and talent of those settlers in New England would be Ulster's gift to America's future.
10:59And it began with the Shute Petition. The man charged with bringing it to New England was the
11:04Reverend William Boyd, who some years after he came back to Ulster became minister here in Monray
11:11Presbyterian Church. But he's not buried in his own graveyard. His laying hem is in an Anglican burying
11:18ground at Toboin Parish Church, which was built on a site once occupied by a Gaelic monastery.
11:24Here lieth the body of the late Reverend Mr William Boyd, who departed this life May the 2nd 1772.
11:34Aged 87, he had been Presbyterian minister in Toboin 47 years. Here also lies the body of his wife,
11:41who died June the 21st 1764, aged 68.
11:46Why is the Reverend Mr William Boyd important?
11:51The reason why it is so important, I think, is because of the role that has been played by
11:57the Ulster Scots in American history. It's a role that is not really understood as well as it should
12:02be. 14 presidents out of 44 at least, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, all of those people, all of that
12:09happened because of the migration of Ulster Scots to America. They had been going in the 17th century
12:15in very small numbers, but this was the man who organised the beginning of the mass migration of
12:21those Ulster Scots Presbyterians. Long before the famine or anything else, they began to travel there
12:27in their hundreds, their thousands and their hundreds of thousands.
12:30What did he do?
12:31Well, there had already been some migration of Ulster Scots Presbyterians to America in the 17th
12:38century. So it had been going on for some time, but by 1718, there was an upswelling of migration to
12:46the land of Canaan, they called it, because they saw it as a promised land. It wasn't just about
12:51getting away from the persecution and the other problems that they had in Ireland. They were very
12:57much an enterprising people who believed that they could make a better life for themselves in America.
13:02So why is he a Presbyterian buried in a Church of Ireland church?
13:06Well, very good question. I think that actually highlights why those Ulster Scots Presbyterians
13:10migrated to America in the first place. One of the reasons was because, as Presbyterians,
13:16they weren't part of the establishment. So one of the things that they were not allowed to do was
13:22bury their own people in their own churches, in their own graveyards. So the Reverend William
13:27Boyd is buried here in Toboin, a parish church about a mile from his own church.
13:37This idyllic and peaceful setting gives no sense of the harsh reality of life which drove so many
13:44to migrate. But isn't it strange to think that the settlers who had gone to New England later told
13:49their children that Ireland was a paradise compared to the harsh environment in which they now found
13:55themselves? In the years after the Reverend William Boyd died, the Donegal countryside was far from
14:01idyllic and peaceful. Crop failures, rising rents, poverty and migration led to political unrest as the
14:0918th century drew to a close. And Ulster Scots communities here, even in rural Donegal, were sometimes
14:16caught up in gruesome events. The place I'm headed to now has a deadly tale to tell.
14:24The Sharon Rectory just outside Newton Cunningham was the scene of a particularly brutal murder
14:30involving the Society of United Irishmen. Founded in 1791, this revolutionary association brought together
14:39Catholics, Protestants and dissenters who wanted to transform the political system in Ireland.
14:45The 1790s was a period of considerable political turmoil in Ireland. It culminated in rebellion in 1798
14:51and in this part of Donegal there was considerable support for the United Irishmen among the local Ulster
14:57Scots Presbyterian community. And in 1797, a magistrate in County Donegal named the Reverend William
15:04Hamilton was particularly opposed to the United Irishmen and their political objectives.
15:11And he arrives here on the night of the 2nd of March 1797. This is the home of the Reverend Dr
15:18John Waller who was the rector of Raymogi Parish in County Donegal and he's invited in. When the local
15:25United Irishmen hear about this, they surround the house. A shot is fired into the house and it struck
15:30the unfortunate Mrs Waller who died almost immediately. Hamilton had taken refuge in the cellar and the
15:37United Irishmen outside the house said if he wasn't brought out to them they were going to burn the
15:41house down. So then the cook goes down into the cellar, drags the Reverend Hamilton out and then he is
15:47murdered by the people surrounding the house. So what were the repercussions of this? It was probably the most
15:53notorious of the incidents in this area and it inspired a famous gothic horror novel called Melmoth
15:59the Wanderer which was written by the Reverend Charles Maturin who was the cousin of the Reverend
16:05Henry Maturin who succeeded Hamilton in his parish in North County Donegal. And in his book Melmoth the
16:12Wanderer Maturin describes a grisly murder which he based on what he had heard about Hamilton's assassination
16:20here at Sharon. And there's a very interesting footnote to this grisly murder in which it says
16:27the circumstances occurred in Ireland 1797 after the murder of the unfortunate Dr Hamilton. The
16:35officer was answered on conquiring what was that heap of mud at his horse's feet, the man you came for.
16:42Now I happen to know another great literary figure was influenced by the book.
16:46Yes indeed Oscar Wilde who was related to the author of Melmoth the Wanderer and when Oscar Wilde was
16:53released from prison and when he was travelling to France he did so incognito and he used the name
16:58Sebastian Melmoth. So clearly he was aware of the story and very possibly identified with the hero of
17:05that story in his travails.
17:07The Reverend William Hamilton is not buried in Donegal. His Langham is in the mother church of the
17:16Church of Ireland Diocese of Derry and Raffoe, St Colm's Cathedral in Derry.
17:23The cathedral was completed in 1634 and registers record burials as early as 1642.
17:29For those seeking the stories of Ulster Scots who contributed so much to the history of the
17:36Maiden City, this cemetery holds many interesting clues.
17:42There are coats of arms dating back to the 17th century and a mound dedicated to heroes from the siege.
17:50There are also memorials to some of the city's visionary Ulster Scots businessmen.
17:56One man in particular, born into a Presbyterian family in County Londonderry, started his working
18:01life as a weaver, as so many Ulster Scots did, but his vision and business acumen were to have a huge
18:08impact on industry in the city. William Scott, 1765 to 1858. This is the man credited with bringing the
18:19shirt industry to the city. Scott, who had built a small family business,
18:25responded to the new demand for ready-made shirts and set off to Scotland to sell his wares. These
18:31were an immediate success, generating orders from Glasgow, London and Australia, and so was born an
18:38industry that would go on to become a legend in this city. It's hard to exaggerate how important that
18:45industry once was here. It reached its peak in the 1920s when over 40 factories, together with outworkers
18:52in Counties Londonderry, Tyrone and Donegal, employed 18,000 people.
18:57It seems just right for a maiden city that 90% of those who worked in the shirt industry were women.
19:05They kept the city going during its heyday.
19:07I worked in Welch Markesons for 42 years. I enjoyed every minute of it. It was hard work, yes, and I had to
19:18get up after six in the morning because I left out in the country and go on a bike for two and a half miles
19:25to get a bus and got the bus then into the town. We didn't start to half eight but we would have been in
19:33around about eight o'clock. The shirt factory horn went. The people come from everywhere out of all the
19:39streets and they all went over the bridge. Most, a lot of people from the water side all went over to
19:45the dairy side. The bridge was packed and then the same at six o'clock at night when the factories closed.
19:49Would you say that the women working in the shirt factories kept the place going?
19:54Of course they did. They were the breadwinners and at that time there was not much work for men,
20:00I can remember, because there was very few men in the shirt factory anyway. But I remember men were
20:05left to keep children and more or less do nothing. At one time we had 40 shirt factories in this city
20:12and I think we're down to one now. But the shirt factories were the life and soul of our city. Forget
20:22about these office jobs and all the rest. The shirt factory was the one that paid the money. The shirt
20:27factory was the one that provided all the good community relations. Now you wouldn't get better
20:33community relations than working on a shirt factory. We all socialised and shopped together on a Saturday
20:38evening and we went socialising and it was maybe Saturday night to Borderland or somewhere like that.
20:45And I still see some of the meat to this day about the town.
20:50One of the best known shirt factories in the city, Tilly and Henderson, used to sit at the corner of
20:56Sackville Street and Little James' Street. It was founded in 1851 and only 30 years later had a workforce of over 4,000.
21:04The factory was founded. The factory was here on an acre of land and was famously referred to by Karl
21:12Marx in Das Kapital. In his critique of capitalism, the German philosopher and socialist revolutionary
21:22cited it as an example of the army of workers in the domestic industries. Inspired by the success
21:30of an industry founded on the entrepreneurial spirit of William Scott. It was a Scottish businessman,
21:36William Tilly, who first thought of bringing this army together into one building. He, with his fellow
21:43Scott, John Henderson, also introduced the first sewing machine to the North West, making their shirt
21:49factory so successful that it grew to be the largest in the world. William Tilly is testament to the strong
21:57ties that bind Ulster to Scotland, commercially, industrially, culturally, through families and
22:03migrations. He died in 1904 and his Langhen is in Derry City Cemetery.
22:13Well, this graveyard, Dan, opened in 1853,
22:17essentially because the graveyards attached to the churches in Colm's Cathedral, St Augustine's
22:21Long Tower were filling up and they needed a new burial ground and were standing at the minute in,
22:27I suppose, what you would consider prime real estate in the graveyard. This is where,
22:32if you like, the wealthy merchants and industrialists of Derry were buried through
22:37the 19th century. And as you can see from the architecture, they very much displayed their wealth
22:42and status and death. Who all is here? Well, we've got, for example, Watts as in the Watt family of
22:49Thornhill, who were at one time owned the biggest distillery in Ireland and I believe was producing
22:54one and a half million gallons of green whiskey. We have the Cooks as one of the big shipping companies
23:00and I know from 20 years after the famine, they carried 20,000 people to America. We have the Crescaddon
23:06Vault here, again another family that got involved in the immigration and trade across the Atlantic.
23:11And then we've got this fantastic obelisk behind you as a memorial to Patrick Gilmore. That memorial
23:20can be seen literally from anywhere within the Wall City. What did Gilmore do? Well, Gilmore was very
23:25much one of the early men behind the Scotch boat. He invested in the London Derry and Glasgow Steamship
23:31Company. And I mean, the Scotch boat was very much a part of the scene from the 1820s right through to
23:36the last passenger sailing in 1966. So these were the people who built Derry?
23:41Very much so. It started off in the 18th century at a group of very entrepreneurial Ulster Scots who
23:49developed trading connections between Derry and North America, particularly Philadelphia. The ships were
23:57also for immigrants. So today I would estimate maybe 6 million people living in the United States today
24:03can trace an ancestor back to somebody from Derry, Donegal and Tyrone that got on board a ship here and
24:08headed for Philadelphia and further afield. Many of those passengers would have travelled on the famous
24:16McCorkle shipping line, which was started in 1778 by the Ulster Scots businessman William McCorkle,
24:23who ran it with his son, Bartholomew. Shrewd entrepreneurs, they saw the pros of two-way trade,
24:29taking passengers out to America and bringing cargo back. And they were innovators too, adapting their
24:36ships for this purpose. Every ship was cabined and all cabins were then put into the hold rather like a
24:47flat pack. And they brought back cargo, they returned to Derry, the cargo was discharged,
24:53the cabins were rebuilt and the ships then sailed back out to America. It meant everything was covered
25:01because you had income out and an income back. Tell me a little bit about the conditions on the ships.
25:06The conditions on the ships, dependent on where you went, were very important. To travel to America cost
25:13you five pounds. To travel to Canada, which was part of the British Empire, only cost you two pounds,
25:20two shillings. And if you were ill on the way over, you were discharged in Newfoundland. Because if the
25:28ship arrived in America with somebody ill, it was their responsibility to bring them back again.
25:35So they dropped off all ill people. But that's why the ships were cabined as well,
25:39so that people had the best conditions to go over. What happened at the end?
25:46Bartholomew, as he got older, did not convert from sail to steam. And then as he died in 1887,
25:56his second son, Bartholomew, took on the business. But he died in 1895. And there was no one at that
26:05stage to take on the business. And after that, the last ship was sold. There were several impressive
26:12women in the family who contributed a lot to the city. Tell me about them. Well, the first was Fanny
26:17McCorkle, who married a Coscadden, who of course is one of the shipping families as well. But she had no
26:26children. And her first philanthropic act was to actually pay for the chapter house
26:32in the cathedral here in Derry. And her portrait stands in the chapter house. And she was known
26:38in our family as Great Aunt Fan. And she's great in stature and great in her looks on the portrait.
26:45It is a full life portrait. The other is, of course, my mother, Eileen, who here founded the Red Cross.
26:53And she was probably most famous for her actions in 1969, going into the bog side where she would treat
27:04anyone and everyone. And she did an enormous amount here. And I remember going with her,
27:11with the Red Cross, into the bog side in about 1970 to do Meals on Wheels. And we were confronted.
27:21And when they saw who it was, everyone disappeared. The McCorkle Monument points us to a family whose
27:29story is so much a part of this city's complex and fascinating past. Like so many markers commemorating
27:37the Ulster Scots who are buried here, it creates a sense of the people who lie beneath. Architecture,
27:43size, shape, inscriptions, even the material with which they are built, combine to create impressions of lives once lived.
27:54Every Lang Haem has a story to tell. And each is a signpost pointing to the past,
28:00not only of people, but their lives and their communities.
28:04So, I've seen commemorations of so many facets of the history here in the maiden city. I have seen the graves
28:14of those who created the maritime and the industrial heritage, of heroes and plucky immigrants,
28:19the rich and the poor, all of whom came together to provide the building blocks of the city that we know today.
28:56You
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