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been Roman Catholic. However, neither have they been Presbyterian, the traditional religion for a Scotch-Irishman. Most of Peter's descendants were Evangelical Lutheran or Brethren. In other words, they went to church with their northeast Lancaster County neighbors, the Pennsylvania Germans. Roman Catholic was not a viable choice in early northeast Lancaster County; the closest Catholic mission was in Lancaster City, which was not within church-going distance of West Cocalico Township.
My next step was to research the name McQuaid and, as discussed on The Name page, I found out that McQuaid is an old Irish name, which originated in County Monaghan, Ireland. Although, Monaghan is in Ulster Province, it has always been a predominately Roman Catholic county and was not heavily "planted" with Scotch and English settlers. I have not been able to find any reliable source (which excludes those organizations that are trying to sell tartan, coats of arms, subscriptions to clan newsletters, etc.) that identifies McQuaid as a Scottish name.
So, after arriving at the tentative conclusion that my ancestors were old-Irish, and probably Roman Catholic, my next research project was to determine whether anyone could prove that I was wrong. Several McQuaids informed me that I was wrong, but they were long on bluster (which can be abbreviated by using the first and fourth letters) and short on proof. In order to be sure that I was standing on stable ground, I spent much time researching the Scotch-Irish. Some of my significant findings follow:
The definition of "Scotch-Irish" has been extremely nebulous, phantasmagoric, and variable through the years.
Many people who say they have Scotch-Irish ancestors really do not have Scotch-Irish ancestors.
Much mythology (translation: baloney) has been built up around the Scotch-Irish.
It would be very difficult for anyone to prove that the McQuaid name and family originated in Scotland rather than Ireland. (However, if someone wants to give it a shot, I'm willing to listen.)
Definitions of "Scotch-Irish":
The term "Scotch-Irish" was not in common usage during the 17th and 18th centuries. During the colonial period in America, anyone who had emigrated from Ireland was simply called "Irish". (Kind of a strange concept, isn't it.) The "Scotch-Irish" designation gained momentum during the Great Famine years (1846 - 1851), when hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken Irish folks arrived in North America. It was then that the earlier Irish immigrants decided to call themselves Scotch-Irish in order to distance themselves from the "potato famine Irish."
Following are definitions given by a number of Scotch-Irish writers. These definitions are arranged in chronological order and it is very obvious that the earlier definitions are racist in nature. Many of the writers blatantly cited class or racial distinctions between the Scotch-Irish and old-Irish. As we approach the end of 20th century, the racist quality of these definitions has been concealed fairly well, but we cannot help wondering why these writers are still flogging the dead horse.
ä Hanna, The Scotch Irish, 1902: "The appellation 'Scotch-Irish' is not, as many people suppose, an indication of mixed Hiberno-Scottish descent; although it could be properly so used in many cases. It was first appropriated as a distinctive race-name by, and is now generally applied to, the descendants of the early Scotch Presbyterian emigrants from Ireland."
ä Fisher, The Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society, The Scotch-Irish of Northampton County, Pennsylvania, 1926: "The Scotch-Irish were Scotch-English people who had gone to Ireland to take up the estates of Irish rebels confiscated under Queen Elizabeth and James I. . . . These people, English and Scotch, who occupied Ireland in this way, have usually been known in England as Ulstermen, and with us as Scotch-Irish, and are, of course, totally different in character from the native Irish. Even
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