REDWINE PRODUCTIONS LLC Redwine Productions LLC GULLION MEDIA LTD. + (1) 770-482-1209 INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY ASSOCIATION PROPOSAL AMERICA’S OTHER IRISH HOW IMMIGRANTS FROM ULSTER AND THEIR DESCENDANTS INFLUENCED DEMOCRACY IN THE UNITED STATES Project ID: AOI-6218280916 A ONE-HOUR DOCUMENTARY FOR PUBLIC TELEVISION Prepared for: Proposal issued: Chris Moser & George Kingsnorth 16/09/2018 Producers CC-BY-SA-3.0-US 2011 FORESTWANDER FIRSTLY THANK YOU FOR CONSIDERING US! We appreciate your willingness to consider contributing production funding for our planned public television documentary AMERICA’S OTHER IRISH. As you read this prospectus, you will see why viewers will recognize your admirable public service for making this program possible. Our film will recount the little-known but vital role of the people known as the “Scotch-Irish” or “Scots-Irish” in shaping our country’s democratic traditions. It will not be ancestor- worship, but rather an objective history based on solid scholarship. Moreover, it will confound conventional wisdom by underscoring the common bonds between Irish Catholics and Protestants in Ireland and in the U.S., rather than just the differences that have sometimes divided them. AMERICA’S OTHER IRISH is a fiscally sponsored project of the International Documentary Association (IDA), 501(c) (3) nonprofit arts organization. Contributions in support of AMERICA’S OTHER IRISH are payable to IDA and are tax deductible as allowed by law. Chris Moser & George Kingsnorth Co-Producers PROJECT PROPOSAL CONTENT THE TEAM 4 THE PROJECT ... SO FAR 5 PLANNING A DOCUMENTARY 6 THE CHARACTERS 7 CONSULTANTS 10 FUND RAISING PITCH 12 America’s Other Irish 3 CC BY 3.0 2011 JOHN PHELAN THE TEAM Chris Moser (Project Director/Producer/Chief Scriptwriter) is CEO of Redwine Productions LLC. Moser is an accomplished public television producer/writer/director and a former news writer for CNN-USA. George J. Kingsnorth (Co-producer/director) is Producer/Director/ Educationalist for Gullion Media Limited. George began his career in television. Since 1984 he has been involved with over 200 productions. John H. Felton (Executive Producer with Commonwealth Public Broadcasting’s WCVE) will lend his expertise in script and production framework advisement throughout pre-production and through the entire project, and he will oversee distribution to PBS stations. Dr. Katharine Brown, Director of Research, is a former adjunct professor of history and art at Mary Baldwin University, former Director of Research and Collections at the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia, and author of a doctoral dissertation and numerous books and scholarly papers related to the Scotch-Irish. 4 www.gullionmedia.com ABOUT 1 THE PROJECT ... SO FAR Long before the Great Famine, immigrants from the north of Ireland - mostly Presbyterians of Scots heritage - profoundly influenced American history, politics and culture. AMERICA’S OTHER IRISH, a one-hour documentary for public television, will explore the influence of the Scotch-Irish (a.k.a. Scots-Irish) on this country’s democratic traditions. The film is intended for broadcast on PBS and on public service television in Ireland and the U.K., with accompanying material formatted for digital media. An underwriting grant from your foundation, corporation, or individual philanthropic fund can help bring this long-overdue project to fruition. RESEARCH LEGACY We have meticulously researched the We will explore Scotch-Irish history content, and our consultants include several objectively, guided by the principle that of the world’s most eminent scholars on the everyone can look back on their ancestral subject. legacy – whatever it may be – with both pride and shame. AUDIENCE FUNDING CC-BY-SA-3.0 2010 KAREN NUTINI More than 25 million Americans with some All funds will be donated to and disbursed Scotch-Irish heritage. A recent survey to us by our fiscal sponsor, the non-profit indicates that more than three-fourths of International Documentary Association, and Americans who know of their Scotch-Irish are tax-deductible. heritage America’s Other Irish 5 OUR OBJECTIVES PHOTOGRAPH: CC-BY-SA-3.0-US 2012 FORESTWANDER PLANNING A 2 DOCUMENTARY IT’S WHAT WE ARE HERE FOR We are planning the project with certain important goals that will have particular appeal to some prospective donors. We will aim to: (1) engender feelings of kinship on the part of vast numbers of Americans with the people of their ancestral Irish homeland; (2) showcase Northern Ireland as a safe and attractive tourist destination; and (3) underscore the common historical heritage of Irish Catholics and Protestants in Ulster and in the U.S. rather than just the differences that have divided them, thus contributing to the process of peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Viewers will recognize funders of this program as having performed an admirable public service towards making this possible. SPONSORS PRE-PRODUCTION DISTRIBUTION We will acknowledge We have completed The film is intended for sponsors with “major research and scripting with broadcast on PBS and on funding” or “additional preproduction funding public service television in funding” credits. These from humanities councils Ireland and the U.K., with credits will appear at the in Pennsylvania, Virginia, accompanying material beginning and end of the North Carolina, and South formatted for digital media. broadcast program, in DVD/ Carolina, as well as Northern An underwriting grant download copies, on our Ireland Screen and the from your foundation, website, and in publicity Ulster-Scots Agency. corporation, or individual materials. philanthropic fund can help bring this long-overdue project to fruition. 6 www.gullionmedia.com THE UNTOLD STORY What we do best The mass migration of the Irish to America resulted from the Great Potato Famine. But much less is known about another, earlier wave of immigration from Ireland who had a more profound infuence on America. CC-BY-3.0 2010 CHMEE2 “SCOTCH-IRISH” BUILDERS OF AMERICA The people commonly referred to as the “Scotch- They produced builders of America North and Irish” (the historic term, still preferred by the South, including explorer Kit Carson, inventor majority of those claiming the heritage) or “Scots- Cyrus McCormick, and tycoon Thomas Mellon Irish” became one of the dominant European among many others. And their rebellious, rough- groups populating the American colonies. They and-tumble spirit of democracy --deeply rooted are among the ancestors of probably most white in generational memory from Scotland and Ulster Southerners and Westerners today. -- has profoundly influenced this country’s history from its founding to the present day. WHO WERE THEY? HOSTILITIES “These people were overwhelmingly Presbyterian, While there was some hostility between them dissenting Protestants opposed to the established and the Native Irish of Ulster, that conflict would Church of Ireland,” scholar Michael Montgomery be exaggerated in later centuries for partisan notes. “The great majority of them were of Scottish purposes. The two groups were essentially one ancestry and tradition (whose forebears had people who had maintained close ties across the migrated from Scotland one to four generations Irish Sea for centuries. earlier following establishment of the Plantation of Ulster under King James I in 1610) and settled in a crescent along the northeastern coast of Ireland.” America’s Other Irish 7 THE STORY 3 THE CHARACTERS HERE ARE SOME OF THE COLORFUL INDIVIDUALS WHOSE PERSONAL STORIES WILL HELP MAKE AMERICA’S OTHER IRISH COMPELLING TELEVISION . PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER JAMES MCGREGOR FREED HIS FLOCK FROM “CRUEL BONDAGE.” In 1718 McGregor led his entire congregation from Ulster to Boston. But New Englanders scorned the “dirty, uncouth Irish” immigrants and burned down their meetinghouse. The royal governor granted them land on a disputed border with New Hampshire, planting them in the crossfire of a bloody border war. MARTHA BRATTON HELPED WIN A CRUCIAL BATTLE IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. Redcoat Captain Christian Huck’s legion swept down on Patriot Col. William Bratton’s South Carolina plantation, finding his family but not him. Mrs. Bratton refused to disclose her husband’s whereabouts. She coolly stood her ground as a Tory militiaman grabbed a reaping hook from a wall and threatened to behead her. 8 www.gullionmedia.com THOMAS LEDLIE BIRCH BARELY ESCAPED HANGING DURING THE UNITED IRISH REBELLION. The firebrand Presbyterian minister was among some 100,000 Ulster immigrants to the United States between the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Birch lost his ministry in Pennsylvania for passionately advocating Jeffersonian principles. Other clergy – fellow Scotch-Irish but Federalist -- condemned him as a “minister of the Devil.” ANDREW JACKSON RODE A FIERCE POPULIST WAVE TO THE WHITE HOUSE. The first Scotch-Irish U.S. President led a Democratic Party strengthened by Ulster immigrants such as Birch. But Jackson’s fealty to the common man extended only to whites. He was a slave-owner and perpetrator of draconian Indian removal policies, which were opposed by prominent Scotch-Irish politicians David Crockett and Sam Houston. PITTSBURGH TYCOON THOMAS MELLON WAS NOTORIOUSLY CONTEMPTUOUS OF THE IRISH. The immigrant from County Tyrone honored his Scottish heritage but considered the Catholic Irish savages. “Cromwell was the only ruler who understood their nature, and governed them accordingly,” he wrote. In the mid-19th century tensions between Famine Irish and those