I see the famous "Scots-Irish" arriving in this thread. They appear to be a mythical race that settled in the Appalachian mountains. This enabling proponents of the Celtic uber-music theory to label Appalchian music, and the people, as basically non-specific Celtic(or possibly Gaelic). These "Scots-Irish" may be be found on many websites aa the dominant cultural group in the area, with all sorts of associated theories about the music. Theories of the origin of bluegrass, oldtime, country music etc often draw heavily on these settlers. I can't help feeling, though, that the presence of so many English-type tunes and songs, and English-type place.names, suggests a more powerful non-Gaelic presence in the area than is often acknowleged.