The Ulster-Scots Agency promotes the Ulster-Scots language, culture and history and runs events, talks, exhibitions and festivals throughout the year. It works in close partnership with a wide range of organisations, from grassroots community-based Ulster-Scots cultural groups to government departments, to help develop a positive and mainstream profile for the Ulster-Scots heritage. Its adjoining Ulster-Scots Centre tells this fascinating story.

Its origins lie in the centuries-old links forged between Ulster and the USA. Most people know of the huge Irish Famine migration of the mid 1800s, but few are aware that the first attempted emigration from Ireland to the 'New World' was by Ulster-Scots. Today, it is estimated that 22 million people living in the USA can claim Ulster-Scots roots. Our countries' deep-rooted connections have been established over thousands of years of two-way migration, but it was just over 400 years ago, in May 1606, that the first large-scale migration took place.

The "Founding Fathers" 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 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, "I am proud to be of Ulster-Scots stock: I share these roots with millions and millions of Americans...".

Other prominent Americans of Ulster-Scots descent include Alamo legend Davy Crockett, writer Mark Twain, actor James Stewart and spine-chilling poet Edgar Allen Poe. Who would have thought such a tiny corner of Europe would have had such an influential role in the formation and development of the USA?