These are two of the first three murals painted in the series “From Pioneers To Presidents”, to Washington and Buchanan, in Ebrington Street Lower and Ebrington Street in the Waterside, Londonderry, along with one to Roosevelt in the Fountain.
George Washington commanded the Continental Army during the revolution and served as the first president of the United States beginning in 1789. His ancestry was English. The quote – “If defeated everywhere else I will make my final stand for liberty with the Scotch-Irish (Ulster-Scots) of my native Virginia” – is undocumented, the closest being this statement from McKinley.
The note in the corner reads “History records that almost half of Washington’s army were Ulster-Scots”; the basis for this claim might be General (Charles?) Lee’s report that “half the rebel Continental Army were from Ireland.” (See Chapter 2 of Bagenal, The American Irish and their Influence on Irish Politics.)
James Buchanan was “15th US president 1857-1861.” Buchanan’s father, also called James, was born in Ramelton, Co Donegal, and was living in Co Tyrone when he emigrated to the United States from Derry in 1783, (one of the “250,000 Ulster-Scots [who] emigrated to America in the 1700s”). James junior was born in 1791, the second of eleven children.
The confusion over the wording of the quote – “My Ulster blood is my most priceless [or simply: a priceless] heritage … [and I can never be too grateful to my grandparents from whom I derived it.]” – is matched by confusion over who said it (Buchanan junior or senior?); the source of the quote is unknown. Likewise we do not know where in Scotland the grandparents might have come from and perhaps the move to Ireland happened much earlier.
See also the Visual History page on Ulster-Scots murals.
Buchanan was also painted on the Shankill in west Belfast.
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
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Paddy Duffy Collection 