ABOUT THE PROJECT
LOGLINE
This public television documentary will blend narrative and music performance to explore how the people who came to be known as the Scotch-Irish or Scots-Irish have influenced democracy in America.
SYNOPSIS
THE SCOTS-IRISH: A MUSICAL JOURNEY, a two-hour documentary for PBS with related material for digital media, will explore how the Scotch-Irish have influenced America’s democratic traditions, conflicts and values in ways that remain relevant today, with the same spirit reflected in their traditional music. The format will blend narrative with music performance to unfold the story. Although ours is at heart an American story, we will devote significant attention to the history of this group’s forebears in Scotland and Ireland to provide context.
Our film will not be ancestor-worship, but rather an objective, exhaustively researched history based on solid scholarship. We have enlisted as consultants some of the world’s most eminent scholars in Ulster-Scots/Scotch-Irish history, music, and culture.
For a 100-year period beginning in 1717, more than a half-million people left Ireland’s northern province of Ulster in quest of a better life in America. They were largely the Protestant descendants of Scottish settlers who had colonized the north of Ireland for the British Crown in the 1600s. The people commonly referred to in America as the “Scotch-Irish" (the term used by the majority of Americans claiming this ancestry) or "Scots-Irish" became one of the dominant European groups populating the American colonies. They are among the ancestors of probably most white and many nonwhite Americans in the South and West today.
Liberal democracy is under threat in the United States and around the world. Autocratic movements are aggressively trying to subvert enlightened representative democracy in favor of fascist authoritarianism. By exploring the important place of one ethnic immigrant group in America’s democratic history, our media project will enhance the public’s understanding and appreciation of the principles of freedom and equality underlying the constitutional republic our Founding Fathers created in the U.S. as a model for all freedom-loving nations.
PROJECT TYPE Documentary Feature
DIRECTOR David Hughes Duke
SCREENWRITER Chris Moser
PRODUCER Chris Moser, David Hughes Duke
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Carol Moser
WEBSITE americasotherirish.com
The Film Collaborative (TFC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing programs and services for independent filmmakers. TFC’s federal tax ID number is 32-0295081. All donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
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