Unionism, Loyalism, and the Ulster-Scots Ethnolinguistic 'Revival'

The Ulster-Scots ethnolinguistic 'revival' in Northern Ireland has been appropriated, promoted, and internalized by many across the varieties of unionism and loyalism. Much of the academic literature on Ulster-Scots has focused on political and cultural dimensions of the 'revival'. This article analyses the written promotion of the Ulster-Scots movement by those who purport to conceptualize it primarily in terms of a literary-linguistic revival. Through a close textual analysis of the Ulster-Scots Language Society's journal, Ullans, I investigate where this part of the Ulster-Scots 'revival' fits in the nexus of unionism and loyalism. Although Ullans does contain markers of the 'Protestant community', in general its Ulster-Scots narrative fails to conform to any specific form of unionist ideology. Rather, this victimhood narrative may be more mimetic towards Irish linguocultural promotion, defence, and legitimization than a development of various strands of endogenous unionist ideology.