So I have an ancestor who was born in Renfrewshire, Scotland in 1695 but He immigrated to Dromore, Ireland at some point because he married my great grandmother there in 1715 and he stayed there. I know around the time he must of left the Jacobite Rising was occurring but I haven’t been able to figure out when he would have immigrated but his father and mother died in Scotland and his wife was born in Dromore so I guess I’m trying to figure out from a general view point on what motives he had or anyone at that time had to leave
Edit: Here’s some info about him if it’s relevant
Robert John Milliken B. 1695 Renfrewshire, Scotland D. 1750 Dromore, Ireland M. Agnes McFarland in Dromore, Ireland in 1715
Father is James Milliken b. 1648 Renfrewshire, Scotland D. 1725 Scotland
Mother is Harriet Frazer B. 1648 Knock, Scotland D. 1710 Scotland
It's always difficult to discern why ancestors made the moves they did many hundreds of years ago without documentary evidence to corroborate it. I hesitate to surmise given that each person's case is unique and their conditions and attitudes vary according to context. If your ancestors were devoutly Catholic in Ireland during the Williamite and Hanoverian governance of the Three Kingdoms, it makes sense they might flee to a more stable place with less stringent laws. Many Irish Catholics went to Italy and France to remove themselves from the anti-popish atmosphere in the early eighteenth century. Renfrewshire is right across the Irish Sea, but it would have been largely Presbyterian at that time, though plenty of Roman Catholic communities existed up and down the west coast of Scotland. I would find it difficult to believe that they would have left Scotland for Ireland to escape civil war in 1715, as things were no better there for Catholics and Episcopalians.
If you'd like to get a sense of what kinds of attitudes were pervasive Ireland during that era, I can recommend a few sources for you to leaf through. Just keep in mind that we don't know for certain that the Jacobite conflict – or even religious dissonance – was the primary motivator in your ancestors leaving home. Jacobitism was much more about dynastic right than confessional freedoms, but the latter certainly played a role in it. If you would like further recommendations on sources pertaining to Scottish Jacobitism, I am happy to provide them.
• Éamonn Ó Ciardha, Ireland and the Jacobite Cause, 1685-1766.
• Vincent Morley, ‘The Continuity of Disaffection in Eighteenth-Century Ireland’ in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 22 (2007).
• Allan Macinnes, ‘Catholic Recusancy and the Penal Laws, 1603-1707’ in Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 23 (1987).
Hoping this is of some help to you.
With best wishes,
Dr Darren S. Layne
Creator and Curator, The Jacobite Database of 1745
(recently of the Institute for Scottish Historical Research, University of St Andrews)