It's easy to see that there is a connection. The exact nature of that connection is much more difficult to pin down. What is more, I have not seen a single account of this - except for a very judicious article in, I think, The Encyclopaedia of Southern Culture, which does not claim a lot more than is supported by evidence.

I've been researching this for a couple of years and in order to be able to make a statement which has any real basis have had to consider, migration and settlement patterns in the southern mountains as evidenced by distribution routes, demographic and archaeological evidence; house types; farming style including artifacts and household implements; language; dance and dance music; song (especially the distribution of older ballads as against younger); stories; instruments; religious music. Each of these has had to be researched in seventeenth/eighteenth century Scotland and Ireland (especially the north) and in pre-Revolutionary America.

There are difficulties attached to this, particularly that the first song collections in Ireland and the Southern Mountains were not made until the early 20th century. The Scotch-Irish migration took place (mainly) from 1718-1775. Any attempt to use the 20th century record to infer the situation of 150 years earlier is problematic.