The ancient and once powerful Rutherford family of Scotland, the Scottish Borders, and England has spread far and wide; for many, Ireland was the emerald stepping stone.
King James VI of Scotland, James I of England and Ireland, used the Plantation of Ulster in 1609 to relocate troublesome Border families including Rutherford Reivers. The Muster Rolls of 1633 details the fighting men of seven Rutherford families – living in counties Down, Tyrone and Fermanagh – able to take up arms and defend their family, Undertaker and lands. They were quite possibly needed during the bloody uprising of the displaced Irish in 1641. There were still stout-hearted Rutherford families living in Ulster two generations later when the next influx of settlers arrived from the Scottish Lowlands – escaping religious persecution and famine.
In 1690, four sons of Captain James Rutherford of the Scots Brigade in Holland arrived in Ireland. Three, who fought at the Battle of the Boyne, were awarded land as servitors in County Down and County Tyrone, and the fourth, a Presbyterian minister, settled in County Monaghan. There are many descendants of these Scots Irish Rutherfords of Ulster.