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History Channel Documentary Gets An August Screening

An American History Channel documentary on the Ulster-Scots immigrants from Ulster who settled on the American frontier in the 18th century will be screened in the United States on Sunday August 26
The title of the two-hour documentary show is 'Appalachia: America's First Frontier' and producer Jenette Restivo of Moore-Huntley Productions who works on behalf of the History Channel,confirms it will segment a wide range of the lives and times of the hardy Scots-Irish, who were among the first white Americans.

Billy Kennedy,author of nine books on the Ulster-Scots settlements in America,travelled to Boston last month for interviews for the show and his contribution, as the only non-American taking part,extends to the migrant trek from Scotland to Ulster and thence to the 'New World'and on,what was achieved by these people when they crossed the Atlantic,created a civilisation out of a barren wilderness.
Among the American contributers to the documentary is US Democratic Senator from Virginia James Webb, who is from an Ulster-Scots background and author of the best-selling 2004 book 'Born Fighting':How the Scots-Irish Shaped America.

The producers have also lined up several American historians for interview,as well as a reputed ''moonshiner' ' from Western North Carolina,and a spokesman for the lucrative NASCAR sport, which was founded in the Southern states by Ulster-Scots ''Good Ole Boys'' during the prohibition years of the 1920s and 1930s.

American country music legend Merle Haggard is also featured speaking about his people The Okies,who,facing a stark future of poverty,left the dust bowls of Oklahoma for California during the depression years of the 1920s and 1930s
Filming for the documentery took place in Tennessee,Georgia, Virginia and West Virginia.
The trailer explains vividly and colourfully the psyche of these unique people,who left Ulster in such large numbers to escape religious persecution and deprivation and to stake for land,freedom and democracy in the 'New World'.

''The southern Appalachian mountains,America' s first frontier! It was these rugged hills and valleys that absorbed waves of tough,restlesss Ulster-Scots immigrants in the 1700s,chewed them up with a series of epic tests of survival,and spat out a true-blue American original; the mountain people, a.k.a. mountaineers, Appies,Arkies, Okies, rednecks or as they are often labelled - hillbillies.
''Fiercely independent and resourceful, these strangers in a strange land produced a new American culture,they created their own armies,alcohol, music,religious faiths and their own sport; the now fabulously popular stock car racing [the NASCAR]. In fact,without them,there would be no United States of America at all!

Their contribution from the very heart of our national identity: rabble-rousing, freedom-loving, God-fearing people willing to die for a just cause or defend their way of life. They are the heart and soul of working-class America,'' runs the trailer
It accurately capsules a dogged determined people,who were undeterred by the enormous dangers that they faced on the American frontier.

Jenette Rostivo adds: ''The documentary, now being finalised will cover the 17th century Ulster Plantation,the 18th century movement to America by essentially the Presbyterian people,the history up to and including the Revolutionary War,western frontier migration [to territories like Tennessee,Kentucky, the Shenandoah Valley,south- western Virginia and Western North Carolina],religion, music,the developement of the railroad to Appalachia,coal mining, moonshine,stock car racing and sterotypes.' '
History Channel programmes are extremely popular on both sides of the Atlantic and this documentary will eventually be screened to millions of people around the world.