An Ulster Line
The Ulster-American Presidents
Twenty presidents of the United States — from the seventh to the forty-third — whose ancestral roots reach back to the hills, ports and parishes of Ulster.
7
7th President
Andrew Jackson
Boneybefore, Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim
Both parents emigrated from Ulster
One of three U.S. presidents who had at least one parent born in Ireland.
11
11th President
James Knox Polk
Lifford, Co. Donegal
Great-great grandfather from Donegal and Londonderry
15
15th President
James Buchanan
Omagh, Co. Tyrone
Parents from Donegal and Tyrone
Buchanan’s parents arrived in Pennsylvania in 1783, four years before his birth. One of three presidents with an Irish-born parent.
17
17th President
Andrew Johnson
Mounthill, Larne, Co. Antrim
Grandfather emigrated c. 1760
Johnson succeeded Lincoln after the assassination of April 1865 and led Reconstruction.
18
18th President
Ulysses S. Grant
Ballygawley, Co. Tyrone
Grant's great-grandfather, John Simpson, left Ballygawley for America in 1760.
The Grant ancestral homestead outside Ballygawley still stands today and is open to visitors throughout the year. Grant later became the first sitting President of the United States to visit Ireland, returning to that Ulster homestead from which his family had emigrated.
21
21st President
Chester Alan Arthur
Cullybackey, Co. Antrim
Father emigrated from Antrim in 1815
Succeeded to the presidency after the assassination of James A. Garfield in 1881.
22
22nd President
Grover Cleveland
Co. Antrim
Grandfather from Antrim
23
23rd President
Benjamin Harrison
Co. Antrim
Great-grandfather from Antrim
25
25th President
William McKinley
Ballymoney, Co. Antrim
Grandfather from Ballymoney
Led the U.S. to victory in the Spanish-American War. Assassinated in Buffalo, NY, in 1901.
26
26th President
Theodore Roosevelt
Larne, Co. Antrim
Maternal ancestors believed to hail from Larne
28
28th President
Woodrow Wilson
Strabane, Co. Tyrone
Paternal grandfather from Strabane
Oversaw America’s entry into the First World War and helped found the League of Nations.
33
33rd President
Harry S. Truman
Co. Donegal & Co. Tyrone
Ancestors from Donegal and Tyrone
Succeeded FDR; authorised the use of atomic weapons against Japan; oversaw the start of the Cold War.
35
35th President
John F. Kennedy
Co. Fermanagh (among others)
Great-grandparents from Limerick, Wexford, Cork, Clare and Fermanagh
37
37th President
Richard Nixon
Co. Kildare & Co. Antrim
Milhous family from Kildare; Presbyterian ancestors from Carrickfergus and Ballymoney
Presbyterian ancestors left Co. Antrim for America around 1753.
38
38th President
Gerald Ford
Co. Armagh & Co. Down
Great (×4) grandparents from Armagh and Down
39
39th President
Jimmy Carter
Co. Antrim
Great (×4) grandparents from Antrim
40
40th President
Ronald Reagan
Co. Antrim & Co. Tipperary
Great-grandparents from Antrim and Tipperary
41
41st President
George H. W. Bush
Co. Down
Great (×4) grandparents from Down
42
42nd President
William J. Clinton
Clinton, Co. Fermanagh
Paternal line from Fermanagh
43
43rd President
George W. Bush
Co. Down
Great (×5) grandparents from Down
Ulster on the Greenbacks
Presidents on U.S. Currency
Several U.S. Presidents depicted on current and historical U.S. bank notes are of Ulster-American (Scotch-Irish) descent. These prominent figures include Andrew Jackson ($20 bill), Ulysses S. Grant ($50 bill), William McKinley ($500 bill), and Woodrow Wilson ($100,000 gold certificate).
Andrew Jackson — $20 Bill
The 7th U.S. President is prominently featured on current $20 bills. Both of his parents were born in Ulster (County Antrim, Northern Ireland) and emigrated to the Carolinas in 1765.
Ulysses S. Grant — $50 Bill
The 18th U.S. President and Civil War hero, currently on the $50 bill, had deep Scotch-Irish roots tied back to Ulster immigrants.
William McKinley — $500 Bill
The 25th President, who appears on the historical $500 bill, had a grandfather who emigrated from County Antrim.
Woodrow Wilson — $100,000 Gold Certificate
The 28th President, featured on the high-denomination $100,000 gold certificate used only for Federal Reserve transactions, was the grandson of an Ulster immigrant from County Tyrone.
A Second Line of Liberty
The Ulster-American Vice Presidents
Beyond the twenty Presidents, a further line of U.S. Vice Presidents — from John C. Calhoun in 1825 to J. D. Vance two centuries later — carried Ulster Scots lineage into the second highest office of the Republic without afterwards being elected to the Presidency in their own right.
7
7th Vice President
John C. Calhoun
Co. Donegal
Calhoun family of Donegal stock
Vice President under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson; one of the most consequential statesmen of the antebellum era.
14
14th Vice President
John C. Breckinridge
Co. Antrim (via Scotland)
Breckinridge family from Scotland to Antrim, then to the American colonies in the 1700s
Great-great-grandfather Alexander Breckenridge settled in Virginia after a sojourn in Ulster. Served as Vice President under James Buchanan.
23
23rd Vice President
Adlai E. Stevenson
Ulster (via Kentucky)
Scots-Irish; ancestors emigrated from Ulster to the American colonies prior to the Revolutionary War
Vice President under Grover Cleveland (second term). Grandfather of the twentieth-century statesman of the same name.
33
33rd Vice President
Henry A. Wallace
Ulster (via Pennsylvania)
Scots-Irish Presbyterian; forebears emigrated from Ulster to Pennsylvania
Vice President under Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941–1945); later U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of Agriculture.
35
35th Vice President
Alben W. Barkley
Ulster (paternal line)
Scots-Irish Presbyterian paternal ancestry
Vice President under Harry S. Truman (1949–1953); long-serving Senate Majority Leader before that.
41
41st Vice President
Nelson A. Rockefeller
Mixed; partly Ulster
Primarily English and German, with Scots-Irish ancestry on one line
Vice President under Gerald Ford (1974–1977); long-serving Governor of New York.
45
45th Vice President
Al Gore
Ulster (via Virginia & Tennessee)
Scots-Irish; the Gore family settled first in Virginia, then moved to Tennessee after the Revolutionary War
Vice President under Bill Clinton (1993–2001). Both Clinton and Gore therefore bring Ulster lineage to the same administration.
50
50th Vice President
J. D. Vance
Co. Antrim (Presbyterian line)
Scots-Irish 'hillbilly' heritage; family ties to the same Co. Antrim Presbyterian congregation as Andrew Jackson's mother and many Carolina settlers
Vice President under Donald J. Trump from 2025. Though now a practising Catholic, Vance has visited the ancestral Co. Antrim church associated with his family's emigration.
A Wider, Deeper Lens
The ancient seafaring highway between Ulster and America.
For centuries, history books have forced the story of the Ulster-Scots into a narrow box — defined strictly by seventeenth-century politics and religious dividing lines. We look at history through a wider, deeper lens.
When we speak of the Ulster-Scots, we are not talking about a modern political invention. We are talking about something older, longer, and permanently etched into the landscape — an ancient, seafaring people who turned the narrow sea between the cliffs of Antrim, the hills of Donegal, and the coast of Argyll not into a frontier, but into a high road.
This site is dedicated to the American presidents and leaders who carried that northern spirit across the Atlantic. From the rugged populism of Andrew Jackson to the historic partnership of Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill, these leaders were shaped by a culture born of the ancient Scoti — the northern tribes who knew that blood, water, and storytelling run deeper than any border.
Holding image · awaiting a cleared photograph of Reagan & O'Neill
The Reagan & O'Neill Partnership
The Convergence of the North Channel in the Oval Office
Perhaps no relationship in modern American political history better embodies the unbroken continuum of the Ulster thesis than the partnership between President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill.
To the casual observer, they were political polar opposites: a Western conservative and a New England liberal; a Protestant with frontier roots and a devout Irish Catholic whose maternal family hailed from Buncrana, County Donegal — in the historic province of Ulster. But look closer, and you see the ancient seafaring highway at work.
When Reagan and O'Neill sat down after six o'clock to swap stories, debate fiercely, and ultimately forge compromises that moved a nation forward, they were channelling a shared cultural DNA. Both men possessed the egalitarian, plain-spoken and fiercely independent streak native to the north of Ireland. Neither bowed to elites. Both ruled through the deeply personal loyalty of the clan system. Both shared the sharp, anti-pretentious wit of their ancestors.
By honouring Speaker O'Neill alongside President Reagan, we close the full circle of the Ulster-American story: two giants who clashed, cooperated, and ultimately used their shared heritage to help bring lasting peace back to the very northern hills their ancestors left behind.