It’s a bit of a difficult topic to write about the connection between Scotland and Ireland because ultimately, it’s a mixed situation. We have shared heritage, cultural similarities, struggles, but also, Scotland is the origin of some of the bad guys in Irish history. It represents one of the limitations of this series of articles about national connections in that the picture is always diverse. There’s always going to be a mix of heroes and villains between nations.
But today, let’s explore together.
We’ll talk ancient links, present day cultural similarities, historical fun facts, and a couple individuals in our long and storied past. There’s also a lot of sport to talk about as the Irish have had an outsized impact on Scotland’s sporting history.
The Geographical Connection between Scotland and Ireland
Two wet countries
Both Scotland and Ireland are famously wet. Which is wetter? Looking it up on Weatherspark, Edinburgh seems colder but dryer than Dublin. Of course, Edinburgh has the best weather in Scotland so it seemed more fair to compare some other cities. Glasgow is wetter than Dublin.
Amazingly, Inverness is warmer and dryer than them all! Until I realised I was actually looking at Inverness, Florida. Incidentally, Inverness, Florida is warmer than Dublin, California. Inverness, Florida is also substantially wetter than them all during the rainy season.
Basically, Scotland and Ireland are both temperate and have quite a lot of misty drizzle. It makes both lands very green, Ireland famously so.
Distinctly different lands
The thing that hits me is how different places are as well. Ireland and Scotland share many links but we are also vastly different in geography. Scotland has higher hills and many more of them. We’ve also got generally less good soil for growing than Ireland. This impacted how the countries developed.
Ancient Links
In the greater mists of time is the strongest connection between Scotland and Ireland. The Scots emerged from the Irish, said to originate in the Irish Scotti tribe who migrated to the south east of Scotland. This was way back when the Roman Empire was in retreat, about the 5th century, the 400s AD. This Irish tribe wen on to found the Kingdom of Dal Riada which took over much of the West Coast of Scotland and also ruled in Northern Ireland (a part of Ireland which could deserve its own article, further ballooning this series. We decided to go by rugby rules so Ireland is a united country in this series).
Due to this, one part of Scotland’s founding myth is the same as Ireland’s. Essentially, the Irish are said to have originated as travellers whose boy Goidel Glas originated in the times of Moses in Egypt, then went on a bit of a journey across Europe with the Stone of Destiny. The Scots argue the Stone of Destiny is the one used in our coronation ceremonies, currently residing in Perth. The Irish also have a Stone of Destiny, Lia Fail, which is a large standing stone.
There are some people in Ireland who are not particularly fans of the Scottish claim to this mythical connection. The story definitely seems to have originated in Ireland, and is first recorded in the 11th-century Lebor Gabála Érenn. The Scottish addition was a couple hundred years later. As we are right next door though and the Irish did settle large parts of our country, it’s a bit of a wash.
Linguistics
In Scotland we have gaelic (pronounced gah-lic) and in Ireland they have gaelic (pronounced gay-lick), which are virtually mutually intelligible with a few differences which have evolved over the years. The anglicised names of both languages are the same but the indigenous spellings are different Gàidhlig (Scots Gaelic) versus Gaeilge (Irish).
Personally I speak neither as my ancestry is almost entirely Lowland Scottish and the distant Irish parts of me were not from the Gaeltacht. But it’s a significant connection between the two nations which neither shares with Welsh. This makes it highly fascinating and relevant. Let’s get onto something more modern.
The Less Ancient Connection Between Scotland and Ireland
We’ve all seen Braveheart (1995) (coincidentally large parts shot in Ireland). During the Scottish Wars of Independence, the plucky Scots stood strong against the mischievous English, until William Wallace was betrayed by his own side and gets executed. But added into this is the section where the Irish mercenaries that the vile Edward I tried to bring in shake hands with the Scots instead of fighting them.
A core sign of Celtic brotherhood and fraternity, right? Something which underpins the strong connection between Scotland and Ireland.
Well, like a lot of Braveheart, I’ve not been able to verify this event happened at all. It seems unlikely. It also ignores some of the bad behaviour of the Scots in the last thousand years.
See, the Scottish Wars of Independence are fundamentally hard to capture in film. There’s about 30 years of them. There is also a lot of movement. There was side switching based on intentions we no longer understand. The people involved were motivated by religious ideals, mythical ideals, as well as their own domestic power issues and their personalities. This probably works better in a TV show, but good luck funding that.
There’s also a pretty significant bit in the middle of the Scottish Wars of Independence where our boy Robert the Bruce tried to get his brother made King of Ireland. It’s said he had local support but that’s what people always claim.
It’s a complicated past at any rate which only gets more complicated later.
The Plantations
It was when James VI of Scotland became King of England too (in 1603) that there was to be a step up in colonialism. Scottish Protestants were moved into Ireland and they became a privileged class. The ruling chieftains of Ireland were expelled and replaced with a Scottish nobility who were specifically tasked with bringing in other Scottish Protestants.
This is what makes the Irish situation so complicated. It was an engineered ethno-religious conflict. The indigenous Irish were predominantly Catholic and their faith was more than a little disrespected by the Scottish Protestants. This was not long after the Reformation and people were harder in their beliefs. Toleration was low, and it only got worse as time went on. Protestants primarily married with Protestants and Catholics married with Catholics.
The Irish Potato Famine, and its impact on Scotland’s population
A major moment in Ireland was the Potato Famine of 1845 – 1852. It’s known in Irish as an Gorta Mór, which is generally translated as the Great Hunger. The Famine had impacts across Europe but was especially pronounced in Ireland because potatoes were the staple crop. Mismanagement by the British authorities often made the situation worse. A million died and a million left. 100 000 of the Irish who left came to Scotland.
The Irish who came to Scotland largely came to the big cities, Glasgow in particular given its proximity to Ireland, but also other significant concentrations in ports like Leith. They faced discrimination from local people but also found a lot of opportunities.
This is part of the intermingling of Scottish and Irish people which can be seen from the very start, with the ancient links, through to the modern day.
Individual Connections between Scotland and Ireland
There’s a few great individuals I’d like to talk about who have a bit of a mixed nationality to them. In no particular order.
James Connolly
One particular individual of note is James Connolly, of the Easter Rising. The Easter Rising was an armed insurrection in Ireland against British rule in Ireland. It was suppressed violently and its 16 leaders were killed. James Connolly was one of those executed.
He’d been born in Edinburgh, on a street known as the Cowgate, often known as Little Ireland at the time due to the number of Irish who called it home. His mum and dad worked in the city, his mum as a domestic and his dad as a street cleaner, but the young Connolly was to go off and work in the printers of the Edinburgh Evening News. At the age of 14 he joined the British Army and was posted to Ireland, which radicalised him. He returned to Scotland, moved to Dundee and became a revolutionary socialist who saw this as Ireland’s best chance. Apparently he spoke with an Edinburgh accent throughout his life.
It’s fascinating that a figure with an almost mythical status should be connected to both countries.
John Boyd Dunlop
Dunlop is a name which should sound familiar to most readers. These days they make tennis balls and rubber tires. John Boyd Dunlop was the figure who made the first rubber tires.
The earliest tires used on bikes and cars were made of leather. This can only go about 20 miles (30km) before it is completely unusable. Dunlop figured out how to make rubber tires for his son’s tricycle. More particularly, rather than using solid rubber which was very stiff, Dunlop filled them with air. Inflatable tires, also known as pneumatic tires, are the main ones used today for transport.
Dunlop was born in Scotland but spent much of his life in Ireland, spending parts of it in Belfast, Downpatrick, and also Dublin. This is why in lists of “what country invented what” you’ll find pneumatic tires in both Scotland’s and Ireland’s column. It just goes to show the links.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Oddly, I’d never considered Arthur Conan Doyle, writer of Sherlock Holmes, to be anything but Scottish. Then again, the last name Doyle is very Irish.
It turns out, his dad was born in England of Irish Catholics and his mum was also an Irish Catholic.
The connections between Scotland and Ireland are so vast, and some of them are hiding in plain sight.
Incidentally,
Sporting Links between Scotland and Ireland
Football
The Irish are responsible for not just one team in the upper league of Scottish football, but two. Celtic (pronounced sel-tik, for Americans) FC and also Hibernian (Hibs).
Celtic were founded in 1887 to give Irish men a chance to get out of poverty in Glasgow’s East End. They’re estimated to have 9 million fans worldwide as they have supporters across the world.
Hibs meanwhile is a little older, being founded by Irish immigrants in 1875, in Leith. They’ve been comparably less successful than Celtic and have fewer fans, but they also have the best anthem of any sporting team, “Sunshine on Leith” by The Proclaimers.
Rugby
Scotland and Ireland’s national team plays each other every year as part of the Six Nations Championship. This means the men’s team has played against them 143 times total.
The reason I’m writing this part of the connections series today is because the Scots face the Irish at rugby tomorrow. In Scotland, the rugby fans are a bit concerned because the Six Nations rugby table is in a very fine balance.
Scotland and France are tied at the top on points, but France has run away with point difference. This being said, we’re in a very unique position. If Scotland manages to get 4 tries against Ireland, we get a bonus point on the win. France needs to get 4 against England to secure the win.
This has us all in a strange situation because both Scottish and Irish rugby fans are hoping that England puts up a good contest at the weekend. Ireland could still technically win the tournament if they beat Scotland with 4 tries and France loses to England. Scotland meanwhile wins if we beat Ireland (with 4), and England manages to stop France scoring 4 tries. It’s a complicated system in some ways, but it’s also nice that it makes for an actually competitive tournament. Some sports have the same consistent winners, mid-table finishers, and losers. The Six Nations can surprise.
The current record of Scotland versus Ireland is also quite thrilling. We’ve played 143 times, Ireland’s won 72 of them, Scotland won 66, and the rest were draws. This is not that far off, it’s closer than I thought anyway. We’ll see!
Conclusion
This was a hard article to write as it’s always tricky to look at two countries with such a long history together and come away with something clean. But at the end of the day, the reason it’s hard to write about the connection between Scotland and Ireland is because there is so much of a connection. We’ve been historically very close, many aspects of our culture can be barely told apart at a distance, and some Scots are Irish and some Irish are Scots. One thing I can conclude is that right now there are huge numbers of us exploring the others country and having an amazing time. Let’s see who feels better on Sunday!
The writer of this piece is annoyingly not quite Irish enough to be able to skip passport lines at European airports. He has tried.
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