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Irish Scottish people

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 216.194.58.76 (talk) at 01:01, 13 April 2006 (deleted "manifest disloyalty"; rv the rest; no reason why List of Irish-Scots needs to be truncated except for public relations; Boru was an imperialist, which I admit I did not previously know.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Irish-Scots are people who emigrated to Scotland from Ireland, mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries, and their descendants.

This group were commonly described as Irish-Catholics, although the term "cradle Catholic" may be more apt today, and the term "Irish-Scots" better reflects the dual national character of this grouping.

Sometimes Irish-Scots are known as Scots-Irish, but this term is more correctly applied to the mainly Protestant Ulster Scots.

As with any national "label", the term "Irish-Scots" is open to interpretation; many Scottish-born descendants of the Irish immigrants would style themselves "Scottish", while others take pride in their dual nationality. The same is true of any other groups, such as Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans, where the link to the country of origin may be decades, or even centuries old.

However, loyal Scots naturally resent this perceived disloyalty and refusal to assimilate. Moreover, Scotland is not the United States and it is not a "melting pot" that the Labour Party and its operatives in Scotland seek to hide behind. As Mick Derrig, a prominent Irish-Scot puts it:

...[b]ecause Catholics still predominate in the lower socio-economic orders and it is an unwritten subtext that Catholics in Scotland, because so many of them have maintained an emotional attachment to Ireland, are not really full members of Scottish society. For many in the West of Scotland, that is an accurate picture of their mindset. It is certainly the sense of identity I grew up with. We were expatriate Irish. That identity would not be a problem in New York; in Glasgow it can be a stabbing offence (see [[1]]).

The fact that those who rubbish the notion of "fifth columnists" in Scotland insist on referring to themselves as "hyphenated" Scots simply reinforces the sectarianism in the "West of Scotland".

Attitudes to the waves of immigration from Ireland to Scotland were once mixed, as evidenced by the following quotations:

  • "In our opinion, the Irish have as much right to come to this country to better their lives as the Scots and English have to go to Ireland or any other part of Britain for the same reason. Let us hear no more complaints about the influx of Irish having a bad effect on Scotland unless it is to do something about tackling the problems which caused the emigration."
The Glasgow Courier, 1830
  • "The immigration of such a number of people from the lowest class and with no education will have a bad effect on the population. So far, living among the Scots does not seem to have improved the Irish, but the native Scots who live among the Irish have got worse. It is difficult to imagine the effect the Irish immigrants will have upon the morals and habits of the Scottish people."
Report from the Scottish Census of 1871 ([[2]])

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, it was reported that, in Glasgow, there were only thirty-nine Irish-Catholics, but forty-three anti-Catholic clubs (see [[3]]).

Some Catholics came from Ireland to take the jobs of striking Scottish workers, which was a source of great friction, as was/is the disproportionate involvement by Irish Catholics in crime, alcoholism, mental illness, prostitution, etc.

When Fidel Castro emptied the jails and mental hospitals of Cuba for the Mariel boatlift, he was following the example of de Valera's emptying of the borstals of Ireland to transfer said inhabitants to Scotland in 1932. Ramsay Macdonald was so terrified of de Valera, he simply rolled over.

2001 Census

In the UK census of 2001, the new category "Irish" was added to the list of ethnic background, although those who chose to label themselves as "Scottish" or "Welsh" were forced to handwrite those choices under "Other" on the census.

In Scotland, results showed that 49,428 (0.98%) people described themselves as of Irish background but this does not seem to be an accurate reflection of the Irish presence in Scotland. The Irish immigrated to Scotland in the tens of thousands, especially from the mid-19th century to the mid 20th century. It is believed that because the Irish category was a new addition to the census, that respondents confused this question with the more familiar question regarding country of birth (see [[4]]).

The Irish-Scots were instrumental in the formation of Celtic F.C., Hibernian F.C., and Dundee United F.C. (which was originally known as Dundee Hibernian). Indeed, these teams were originally formed to provide recreational facilities for the Irish immigrants who refused to assimilate into the existing clubs.

At first, these teams faced questioning from the football authorities, given their clear potential for civic disorder, and there was controversy over whether their players should be picked to play in international games, especially against the Irish international team.

Celtic F.C. is still very proud of its Irish roots, and the predominance of Irish tricolours and the singing of the Irish national anthem among their supporters continues to understandably cause offense to loyal Scots & Britons, as well as to Scottish nationalists and Unionists.

Notable Irish-Scots

As well as almost all the players of Glasgow Celtic, Edinburgh Hibernian and Dundee Hibernian until the mid-20th century.

Scots and Irish

The terms Scots and Irish, while they have a settled meaning today, are not always readily distinguished. Sellar & Yeatman's spoof history 1066 and All That highlighted the confusion that these words can cause when used to refer to the past :

The Scots originally Irish, (but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essentially to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa).

So, while there were Scots in Scotland, there were also Scots in Ireland, Wales and Cornwall, although the Cornish and the Cymri managed to avoid being exterminated by the Irish Scots raiders, unlike the misfortunate Picts.

The 11th century was the time of the Gaelic imperialist, Brian Boru, who called himself "Emperor of the Scots", and of Macbeth, who called himself "King of the Scots", and also of Malcolm Canmore, who went one better and called himself Scottorum basileus (Emperor of the Scots), just as the imperialist Boru had done.

In the 14th century Robert the Bruce spoke Gaelic, and lived in Gaelic-speaking world. When he and his brother Edward campaigned in Ireland, they could present themselves as, and be widely accepted as, fellow-Gaels set on liberating the Irish from the Norman yoke.

After Robert, Kings of Scotland, up to and including James VI, thought of themselves as having a Gaelic, Irish origin; before James V they were Gaelic-speakers. Fergus Mór mac Eirc, whom the Duan Albanach, and Medieval Scots historians like John of Fordun and Hector Boecce, and even James VI himself, saw as the founder of Scotland's ruling dynasty, was said to have invaded Argyll from Ireland, and the creation of Scotland was seen as a conquest by Gaelic kings.

The Reformation and the perception of Gaelic-speaking (their language now called Erse rather than Scots, a name transferred to the Scots language) as idle, warlike and crude changed attitudes, but a scholar like George Buchanan could write of the Picts and the Scots as being like the Irish.

John Pinkerton, and others with more noble motives, would try to portray the Scots as the descendants of the Goths or the Scythians, but their ideas were rejected by the majority of scholars who worked in the field.

Today, while the idea of Fergus Mór mac Eirc as Irish conqueror of Dál Riata is no longer universally supported, and the idea of a mass migration from Ireland is largely rejected, the archaeological evidence shows that contacts between Scotland and Ireland date back to the earliest times, not only passing from Ireland to Scotland, but also from Scotland to Ireland.

See also

  • "The Irish Scots and the Scotch-Irish" - John C. Linehan (ISBN 0-7884-0788-0).
  • [5] A mailing list for the discussion and sharing of information regarding Scots whose ancestors who can be traced back to Ireland. The list does not address Scots whose descendants resided in Ireland.
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