How JD Vance could join a long line of Scots-Irishmen who shaped the future
“We’re focused on the future.”
— JD Vance, Vice-Presidential debate
The Vice-Presidential debate of October 1st presented two men fighting for competing visions of the future of their country. The Democratic Party candidate Tim Walz refrained from introducing himself, and opted instead to jump straight into a familiar litany of anti-Trump talking points. Vance, on the other hand, recounted the working-class upbringing marked by addiction, poverty, and abuse he described in his bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy.
Vance is aware of his roots in the Scots-Irish heritage that built a large part of the United States. In Hillbilly Elegy, he highlights the “many good traits” of his people including “an intense sense of loyalty, a fierce dedication to family and country,” and also acknowledges traits such as a propensity for violence, ingenuity, innovation, and a constant unfailing desire for achievement.
Vance himself defines the type. An overachiever who joined the US Marine Corps straight after high school, he wrote that he was keen to be “heading to the Middle East to kill terrorists.” Returning to the United States, Vance enrolled at Ohio State University, before moving on to Yale Law School.
At Yale, Vance developed his interest in politics. He began working for Republican Senator John Conryn upon graduating before transitioning into tech circles close to venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. In 2017, Vance co-founded an investment firm with their backing. Thiel later backed Vance’s successful campaign for Senator for his home state of Ohio.
Less than ten years after graduating from university, Vance could become Vice-President of the United States. In his meteoric ascent, a form of Scots-Irish futurism begins to emerge, one that looks backward to the genesis of American nationhood as a springboard for the future. This is a futurism that does not forsake its history but builds upon the achievements of those who came before as a vehicle for innovation toward apotheosis.
This Scots-Irish drive to build a new world emerges from this cultural group’s origins in Ireland in the seventeenth century. Fleeing religious persecution in Scotland, the Scots-Irish moved across the Irish Sea in search of liberty and independence. This same move was then replicated when their descendants again took the future into their hands and sailed west toward America.
Of the 56 people who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, ten were either born in Ireland or descended from Scots-Irish immigrants. The first copies of the Declaration were printed by John Dunlap, born in Tyrone, who went on to immigrate to the United States and become its chief printmaker. John Hancock’s large signature is not on this initial document, but his name appears in large type under “Signed by Order and in Behalf of the Congress,” with the Secretary of the Continental Congress Charles Thomson listed below. Thomson was also an Irishman, born in County Londonderry.
Although predating the Futurist movement, the Scots-Irish exemplify many of the tenets they would celebrate: industry, movement, innovation, dynamism, achievement, newness, and militarism. Lord Kelvin, a scion of a family of Scots-Irish scientists, was instrumental in deducing the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and units of temperature are named in his honor. His father, James Thomson, had helped establish a school of thermodynamics at the University of Glasgow, while his brother, also named James, was a physicist who was the first person in the English language to use concepts of interface, radian, and torque. Among the major nineteenth-century political figures who had military careers before politics Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, Chester Arthur, and Ulysses Grant all have their roots in the Scots-Irish heartland of Ulster. Stonewall Jackson, Irvin McDowell, and John Buford were from the same stock.
As mass industrialization and commensurate mass mobilization accelerated into the twentieth century, intellectual resources were increasingly assigned to the war effort. The Scots-Irish, with their historical propensity for both fields, were instrumental. Working on the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapons, Scots-Irish scientist Samuel Curran invented the scintillation counter to measure ionizing radiation. The device is still used today, alongside the proximity fuse, which is used in missiles to ensure they detonate close to their target; meanwhile, fellow Irishman James Martin invented the ejector seat to ensure pilots escaped such attacks unharmed.
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At the first Italian Futurist “serata” at the Politeama Rossetti in Trieste, a young Irish writer named James Joyce who lived in the city was present. At this time, he was working on what many consider to be his magnum opus, Ulysses, and was a literary tutor to many of the key figures in the Futurist movement. While Joyce was a sensitive young man opposed to the vitalism and masculinity of the Futurists, he was enamored with their writing style. Onomatopoeic phrases, disruption of syntax, short sentences, a lack of vowels — all these are part of Joyce’s modernist masterpiece, and all of these were implanted in his writing style by his Futurist contemporaries. After reading Ulysses when it was published in 1922, the Italian futurist writer Ardegno Soffici remarked that he had “the impression of hearing an echo of some of our things” in the writing.
Futurism and the idea of accelerating technological innovation is today seeing a resurgence in Ireland. A new movement, Éire Accelerationism (Éire is the Gaelic word for Ireland), or é/acc was created in 2024 by Irishman Will O’Brien, founder of the suitably named tech startup ‘Ulysses Ecosystem Engineering’ which uses autonomous robotics to fix oceanic ecological crises. In a blog post, tech founder James Magoo outlines an ethos of “higher ambition [and] radical new ideas” necessary for Ireland to achieve success in the future. Following in the footsteps of many Irishmen before him, O’Brien has recently moved to the United States in order to make use of the large talent pool and resources that the country has to offer.
The United States has historically been the place for the Scots-Irish to achieve big things. JD Vance is an example. Vance stated on Tuesday night that the ordinary people in America are “the most incredible people anywhere in the world.” Nevertheless, he says, “they’re not going to be able to achieve their full dreams with the broken leadership that we have in Washington. They’re not going to be able to live their American Dream if we do the same thing that we’ve been doing for the last three and a half years. We need change. We need a new direction.” We will learn in November if the American people agree.
Adam James Pollock is a writer living in Ireland. He can be followed @aIIegoricaI.
