The benefits of a blog

Every day I become more convinced of the benefits of a blog.  The information certainly goes far and wide!

A recent post about the omission of Henry McArdle from the Dictionary of Irish Biography led to a response from Will Howard, a retired librarian and historian in Texas, who directed me to the excellent Handbook of Texas Online.

Another post about the Ulster roots of the great American songwriter Stephen Collins Foster was picked up by the Londonderry Sentinel (7 January) and then from there it was picked by on the e-newsletter of the Ulster American Society (22 January).

The information on Foster was also picked up by Mark Anderson, who is a peripatetic music teacher with the Ulster-Scots Agency, and he put it on his own blog abalmoralperspective-hma.blogspot.com

I am delighted to see the information passed on in this way and I am also delighted to see the growth of interest in the Scotch-Irish story, which is an important part of the Ulster-Scots story.  From the 18th century onwards, Ulster-Scots emigrated to many other lands but especially America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.  Those who went to America are generally known as the Scotch-Irish and they contributed much to the making of modern America.