“The article doesn’t suggest that the first lady has any Irish ancestry at all but rather Scotch-Irish forbears. It is amusing that the author freely refers to Stotsmen as Irishmen but refers to Michelle as an “African-American”. Apparently a person of Scotish descent can become a plain old Irishman with after a few decades but a black American shall forever be an “African-American” and never a plain old American.”
There were two major migrations from Ireland to North America.
The second group during the 1800s mainly by catholics. Always called “Irish.”
The earlier first group during the 1700s mainly by protestants, predominently people “planted” from Scotland and northern England into northern Ireland.
This first group self-identified as “Irish” in north America, as per census, birth, travel and other documents.
They later called themselves “scots-irish” to differentiate themselves from the unpopular “irish” of the 1800s.
The term “scots-irish” is used only in the US.
In the UK and Canada, they use “Ulter protestants” and “Ulster Scots” for the equivalent immigrant groups.
FYI racially Scots and Irish derive from the same peoples of celtic ancestry, as well as other other lines (English, Nordic, etc.).
A present day Irishman of Scottish ancestry usually self-identifies as “Irish.” Example is Van Morrison.
So yes, a plain old Scotsman can become a full fledged Irishman in just a few generations. But the Ulster Scots category of resentments and conflict have raged for a long time, on BOTH sides.
The single biggest contribution to peace in Northern Ireland was 9/11/2001 whereby both sides decided against being classified with terrorists such as muslims. Previously, the IRA had trained and sympathized with muslim terrorists for decades.
Scots and Scottish are people, Scotch is a whiskey drink.