We have a couple of misconceptions here. 1. Universities were nothing more than a collection of "colleges" and colleges have been around for quite some time and long before the concept reached the land of the Scottii ["the Irish" who were the first Celtic settlers from the continent to the island during the stone age as opposed to the Iberian Celts who arrived 500 years later from what is now Spain]. Socrates attended a scholarium or a magistratum from which the word "university" is derived. 2. Secondly Elizabeth I re-established the olde college in Dublin and called it Trinity College of Dublin in the 17th century initially yes for Anglicans and later Presbyterians a great many of whom were native Irish as members of the Reformation and later again for Catholics. There were social classes in each group and lucky for north America and Australia those with money and an education were the most likely to leave first. The less fortunate stayed and in a great many cases simply went to England to work on the farms and in the mills. It was this group that lead to some rather interesting and less fortunate tales about the poorer Irish that permeates literature to this day. The exact same problematic level of obtaining an education in Scotland was the same. The Protestant Reformation hit everyone at approximately the same time. In fact it was the mirror image on the continent but in many cases in reverse. If anyone was "big" on education is was the Irish and their collegial monks who were responsible for the re-introduction of Christianity back into the Continent. I'd be might leery about any misconception as to the education of the Irish as to being less than anywhere else. There were almost just as many Irish that joined the Reformation as any where else. And like anywhere else there was an economic hurdle as well that effected both groups. In fact more Irish obtained their BA's than did the Scots and for quite some time. Your sweeping and obviously un-educated statements about the Irish in the particular and specific are to be regretted. Lastly, and unlike the poor Irish classes on both sides who lived in simple little stone houses with straw roofs and dirt floors, that they would rather migrate than starve, it was the poor Scots including the Gordons, a great many who lived in sod huts, some at ground level, who were simply cleared off the lands [i.e. deported to such an extent that whole Clans now only exist in north America] by the "lairds of the land" few of whom were English to make way for the raising of large herds of sheep who were considered more valuable than the simple minded highlanders and lowlanders. Some of the smarter ones simply retraced their Irish roots and went home, bag pipe and all to, yep you guessed it, to Ireland. Eric Macklin in Trinitas omnium Dublin/Toronto From: "Sandra Gordon" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, September 05, 2004 6:43 PM Subject: [NIR-DOWN] Education My understanding is that the Scots were very "big" on education. The first Universities were established in Scotland. I can't give dates off the top of my head, but I will check this tomorrow. I do know that my G-Grandfather, born in 1840, was well educated, as were his siblings in Co. Down. I have family letters that indicate they had a command of the language and their penmanship was beautiful. My G-Grandfather's brother finished school and served a five year apprenticeship. He then returned to school for a higher education - which was rare. From the many books I've read about the Scots-Irish in America, they all indicate that they were more highly educated than the average immigrant to the U.S. Always be leery of equating the Scots in Ireland from the native Irish. The native Irish did not have the same freedoms as the Scots. Their education would be very different from the Scots who settled in North Ireland. The native Irish had a much harder time under British rule than the Scots. Sandra