Incoming US Vice President JD Vance is a self-professed ‘Hillbilly’.
Hailing from Appalachia, where thousands of Ulster-Scot emigrants settled, in his bestselling memoir he wrote, “To understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart.”
Titled ‘Hillbilly Elegy’, Vance’s autobiography, which focused on his poor upbringing in America’s ‘rust belt’, was eventually adapted into a film by Netflix in 2020.
From 1710 to 1775, over 200,000 people went from Ulster to the original thirteen American colonies.
More than one-third of all U.S. Presidents have substantial ancestral origins in Ulster, including former President Bill Clinton.
How did JD Vance go from the Applachians to the White house, what does he have to do with Ulster Scots, and how important is the Ulster Scots community in the US?
Ciarán Dunbar is joined by director of the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College Dublin, Professor Liam Kennedy.
JD Vance is ‘one heartbeat away from the presidency’- who is he?
