Quote Originally Posted by cajunscot View Post
Interesting...I have friends who are recent immigrants from NI to the US, and they way they talk, there still is a fairly large divide between the two communities in terms of intermarriage and interaction. Granted, there are exceptions to every rule, and I would daresay that your family is more typical today than when the large migrations from Ulster began in the early 1700s.
That is my understanding, as well. I lived in Ireland (Kilkenny, so not NI) for 5 years in the early 60s. That was prior to the deep next round of troubles up there, but we knew of the cultural separation between the native folk and those who were still considered as incomers centuries after they became residents.

In an earlier post, Todd, I did not mean to imply that the plantation folk thought of themselves as "Irish" as in natives, but that they had no connection or communication with their former homeland and, if they did think of themselves as Scots, they did not think of themselves as Highland Scots. The Gaelic was quickly lost, even among those who came in from the Southern Isles.