Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767. He was born in the Waxhaws, a settlement on the border between North and South Carolina. He was the son of Andrew Jackson Senior, who had emigrated from County Antrim two years earlier, and Elizabeth Hutchinson, also from County Antrim. His father died before he was born.
He was the seventh President of the United States and the first of Irish descent. He was not the last. Of the forty-six presidents who have held the office, more than twenty have documented Irish ancestry, including John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden — who was fond of pointing out that he had more Irish ancestry than most Irish people he knew.
Jackson’s life before the presidency was the kind of story that required Ireland to start it. His mother and two brothers died during the Revolutionary War — his mother of cholera, his brothers of disease and wounds sustained fighting the British. He himself was captured by British soldiers at fourteen and struck across the face with a sword when he refused to clean an officer’s boots. He carried the scar for the rest of his life and the hatred considerably longer.
He became a lawyer, a judge, a general, a senator, a president. He was violent, brilliant, deeply flawed, and incapable of backing down from any confrontation in any context whatsoever.
The Irish who looked at Andrew Jackson saw something they recognised. Not because he was admirable in every respect. Because he was exactly as ungovernable as the situation required.
