Out of Context 9

The Ranger Centre, by the way, is right behind the Andrew Jackson Cottage, where President Andrew Jackson’s parents and two brothers lived before immigrating to the United States in 1765. Andrew Jackson was born in 1767, either in South Carolina or North Carolina (history isn’t quite certain). Roughly one third of U.S. Presidents had Ulster Scots surnames and ancestral heritage linked to Northern Ireland.  Although not the father of a president, but perhaps more important, James Rogers, along with his wife, Mary and four children immigrated from Londonderry, Northern Ireland to Boston around 1730. On November 7, 1731, James and Mary had a fifth child they named Robert Rogers, known today as The Father of the Rangers.

Ironically, the first Ranger arrived near Carrickfergus in 1778, not 1942.  It was a ship, not a soldier.  The USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones, attacked the Royal Navy’s Drake in the dead of night (appropriate for Rangers). They muffed the attack and skedaddled back across the Irish Sea, but returned to Carrickfergus a few days later, did battle with the Drake, and captured it: an important victory for our young country against, at the time, the greatest naval power in the world. Some 160 years later, the RMS Queen Mary hauled American troops from New York to Belfast.  Ships were important for Rangers, and Belfast was a ship- building city.  As Northern Ireland contains most of Ulster’s counties, some refer to it as Ulster.  Belfast turned out ships that were christened with names such as HMS Royal Ulsterman, HMS Ulster Monarch, as well as HMS Royal Scotsman.  It was fitting that the Rangers, born in Northern Ireland and trained in Scotland, were transported into battle aboard those three ships.  In addition to the North Africa invasion, the Royal Ulsterman was a HQ ship for Operation Husky, and later transported Darby’s Rangers to Anzio: from the beginning to the end.  Carrickfergus was the beginning.  On the city’s coat of arms, there is a Latin phrase, Gloria Prisca Novatur, which translates, The Glory of the Old Made New. That motto could be applied to every generation of Rangers.

From "Just a Wee Deoch an' Doris"--2010