of the Ulster-Scots were James Hamilton and Hugh Montgomery whose pioneering, self-financed project brought 10,000 Lowland Presbyterian Scots across the North Channel to Counties Down and Antrim. This Settlement was so successful that these counties weren't included in King James I's renowned 1610 Plantation of Ulster.

Three decades later the ship Eagle Wing sailed from Groomsport, County Down carrying 140 Ulster-Scots settlers in search of religious freedom. Eagle Wing was commissioned by four Presbyterian clergymen who had come to Ulster with Hamilton and Montgomery. She set sail the morning after Montgomery's funeral in Newtownards, Co. Down but was forced back by violent storms.

After that, there was very little migration until May 1717, when the ship Friends Goodwill sailed from Larne, Co. Antrim, bound for Boston. A bronze monument depicting a young family of emigrants stands in the town's Curran Park. Its inscription reads, 'There is no other race in the United States that can produce a roll of honour so long and so shining with distinction. And who shall deny our claim to have done more, much more, than any others to make the United States.'

From these migrants there came a distinguished Ulster-Scots Presidential Roll of Honour including five consecutive Presidents of Ulster-Scots descent from 1885 - 1909 and, in more recent times, lineage linking Nixon, Carter, Bush Sr, Clinton and Bush Jr with our northern shores. On President Clinton's historic visit to Northern Ireland in November 1995 he declared,

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