Ireland, 1750s

Ireland, 1750s. . , An Ulster Tenant Farm , The stone house and long byre (barn) at this exhibit were built near the town of Drumquin in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. They are typical of small farms in the 18th-century province of Ulster. Most farmers in the 18th-century Ulster were tenants who rented their land from English and Scottish landowners., Ulster was an English colony. The land was confiscated from Irish Catholic lords and given to English and Scottish landowners, and Protestant tenants from Wales, England, and Scotland were recruited to settle on these estates. In the 18th century, many people left Ulster in response to food and economic crises and an overbearing Anglo-Irish ruling class. They were attracted to the American colonies by the promise of new opportunities., The Ulster Linen Industry , The most important export product from Ulster was linen. Beginning in the 1690s, England promoted flax cultivation and linen manufacture in Ireland on a larger scale. Parliament removed the tariff on Irish linen imported to England in 1696. In 1711, a Linen Board was established and charged with organizing and subsidizing flax cultivation and linen manufacture. Many Ulster tenant farmers took advantage of the opportunities created by the linen industry by planting flax and making linen thread and cloth. Spinning linen thread at the spinning wheel was the work of the women of the household, while men worked at the loom as weavers. Dependence on the linen industry made life hard for the tenant farmers during economic downturns. Farmers could not rely on a steady income during years of poor weather or fluctuations in the market., Influences on American Culture , Immigrants from Ulster, called "Scots-Irish" in America, were often found on the western edge of European settlement. They were the largest European cultural group on the 18th-century mid-Atlantic American frontier, and they shaped frontier culture through domestic architecture, language, education, religion, and food. Some of their strongest influences can still be seen in American Country and Appalachian music. Scots-Irish immigrants also introduced whiskey, a distilled liquor which became an important export product for settlers on the frontier.