An Irish-American commentator has claimed that Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and hunger striker Bobby Sands are both of Scots Irish stock.

Chuck Hamilton has claimed in a lengthy article on the website www.chattanoogan.com that the two Republicans are of Scottish extraction.

He goes to explain the article where the term Scots Irish comes from and what it means but the most striking claim relates to the two nationalists.

Hamilton writes: “Two of the most famous Irishmen of Scottish descent are former MP (Member of Parliament), former IRA (Irish Republican Army) Volunteer, and Long Kesh prison hunger striker Bobby Sands, and current president of Sinn Fein and SF deputy to the Irish parliament from Co. Louth, former MP, and former OC (Officer Commanding) of the IRA’s Northern Command, as well as my very distant cousin, Gerry Adams.

“Not exactly what comes to mind when one hears the term ‘Scotch-Irish’ or ‘Scots-Irish’ as most latter day proponents of the phrase and the idea now write.

“A reason often given for the change is that Scotch comes from a bottle while Scots don’t, but Scots almost always use the word whisky when discussing the beverage rather than the other word.”

Hamilton has researched the Adams and Sands family trees and expands on his theory.

He adds: “Bobby was descended from an English family which migrated to the Lowlands of Scotland in the early 1400’s before relocating to the northern Irish province of Ulster in the 1600’s.

“Gerry descends from some of the MacAdams of Galloway, a sept of the notorious Clan Gregor, who likewise crossed west over the Irish Sea to Ulster during the Plantations.

“According to Gerry’s bio he is related to the political Adams family of the early United States which produced the country’s second and sixth presidents, as are the Adams from whom I am descended that were among the first settlers of the original Warren County in Tennessee.”

Hamilton continues: “Of course, the term Scots-Irish refers to those in America while their counterparts in Northern Ireland most often use the term Ulster Scots to describe themselves.

“The problem in both cases is that those referred to are often more English-Irish, Welsh-Irish, Dutch-Irish, Flemish-Irish, etc., than they are Scots-Irish or Ulster Scots.”