Today is a historic anniversary in Fair Caledonia.
1320 and all that…
However, given what we are all dealing with in the here and now I doubt that anyone is commemorating on the streets of Raith.
I think that it is usually a crass error to look back into the distant past and put a modern construct on the actions of people long gone.
It is a form of attribution error that is very common in those claim a historical justification for their politics.
I’m sure the signatories to the Declaration of Arbroath had excellent reasons for petitioning the Pope 700 years ago.
Moreover, in 2020 I find it entirely understandable why progressive-minded folk in Scotland would want to bail from the United Kingdom.
Here is one of them.
In a recent two-part documentary comedian and commentator Frankie Boyle summed up where his native land was at this stage of the 21st century.
I was encouraged that he called out those in the separatism industry who wanted to airbrush Scotland’s British imperial past.
For the man with Donegal parents that just wouldn’t do.
I’m paraphrasing, but he said that Scotland rebranding itself a small colonised country was just pish.
The successors of the aristocracy who petitioned the Pope in 1320 would attempt to colonise Central America.
If things had have worked out different then there might be kids today in the Yucatán Peninsula saying “och aye!”
Of course, the Darien imperial adventure died in the swamp.
Here is the definitive account from the Scottish section of my bookshelf.
When a distinctively Caledonian imperium was stillborn failed, the Scottish elite were eager participants in the British Empire.
Indeed, they supplied it with a disproportionate number of the managerial cadre.
In his book Inglorious Empire, the Indian writer and politician Shashi Tharoor gives the Scots a special mention at the end of the chapter entitled “the looting of India”.
Today there are some 62 countries with a seat at the United Nations who achieved their independence from Britain.
Note, not from England, but from Britain.
In the aftermath of the 1707 Anschluss it was the era of North Britons.
For example, the Royal Scots Greys regiment was renamed the “Royal North British Dragoons”.
Those days are long gone, and the Scottish brand is back.
Today there is undoubtedly a significant minority of Scots who dream of the Holyrood legislature being a state parliament as opposed to just a regional assembly with notions.
For the avoidance of doubt, the former can conduct foreign affairs, have embassies, a seat at the United Nations and control and deploy armed forces.
Oh, and passports, they can issue passports too!
Hey, they can even be blue…
Of course, all of this was on offer on September 18th, 2014.
That day, while the polling stations remained open, the Scottish people had national self-determination.
There wasn’t a shot fired and no one spent an hour in prison to get there either.
Of course, many of the nations who freed themselves from British rule had to walk a harder road.
I was at the count centre in Ingliston through the night as the results were called.
This Irish interloper was interested to see what way it would fall.
I had made something of a prediction by way of a question-actually the same question at several pressers in the weeks running up to “IndyRef”.
I asked several prominent Yes folks this:
“What will you do if you lose, but get forty-five percent of the vote?”
No one answered me.
Instead, they all confidently predicted victory on the Great Day.
Of course, my question indicated that I wasn’t convinced.
Others are better placed to say whether a re-run of the referendum would have a different outcome today.
If 2014 was a victory of “Project Fear” then the British state hard needed to get out of bed to win it.
The chaps in Whitehall can be much more frightening if they feel the need.
My next novel, a sequel to The Squad, is set during an IndyRef 2 and Brit securocrats decide to put a bit of fear into the proceedings.
Back when I was a young sociology graduate, I passed through the Scottish Nationalist subculture during a brief sojourn in Glasgow.
As a piece of Participant Observation, I should have written it up back then.
For some of the veteran SNP activists that I met then Scottish independence must have seemed like a Sisyphean task when faced with a hillside of Labour votes at every election.
If any of them are still around they will be a mighty age.
No doubt they would struggle to grasp how the psephological landscape has changed in their constituencies.
My view was that the key to unlocking the Labour heartland vote was to get the message over to the multi-generational Irish community that they had nothing to fear in an independent Scotland.
I also recall writing an op-ed for the then Glasgow Herald at the time.
The piece was about how the Ibrox subculture could provide an anti-independence street militia at some point in the future.
I think my point was rather vindicated on the night of the referendum result.
The year after my SNP safari ended, I was asked to give one of the Terence MacSwiney Memorial Lectures in London.
The thesis that I presented in the lecture in 1988 is still largely how I think about the politics of the part of Britain that I was born in.
Now, I’m sure that those entitled men in 1320 certainly meant it when they asserted their right to have a piece of feudal Christendom to themselves.
What relevance it has to 21st century Scotland is for others to assess.
After all, I’m just looking over the hedge at a rather genteel dispute among Britons.
For the avoidance of doubt, any notion that Scotland could not be a successful small European nation is fatuous.
Therefore, remembering this important medieval event might have some resonance.
Of course, April 6th is also the anniversary of a famous victory for the little guy in Scotland.
In my writer’s mind, I cannot shake an image now and it has staked a claim in my consciousness.
It is of the late great Turnbull Hutton telling an aghast Plantagenet where to shove his royal claim over Alba.
Now that would be better than Braveheart!
Stay safe.
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Such a interesting piece. I well remember our family never voting SNP, until some did recently, as we were always worried about being prey to fundamentalist protestant anti-Irish/anti catholic interests in an independent Scotland. We voted Labour, the party we knew and who ‘protected’ us from the orange yoke. Nowadays, some do vote SNP. However, I’m still a Labour man and a Sinn Fein man – if we were still in the oul country.
Mike Goonan. My sincere apologies for miscalling you. A) I was unaware that Goonan was an actual surname. B) I thought that the title was one of those made up names folk use on social media. My ignorance has been corrected. Thank you
Thanks for that Lewis – no problem. Cheers
History states that the Irish were probably the first to raid British shores and that the Kingdom of Dál Riata was most likely a result of this.
This of course was before Ireland,Scotland and England were even a thing.
Historically of course each and everyone of us who reside within these shores are descendants of Immigrants who came to these lands after the last Ice Pack receded during the ice age.
People who tend to use history as reference or start point (particularly Nationalists and right wing Extremists ) do so using only a snapshot of the history they use to back up their argument.
Take the fact that it was a deposed Irish King (of Leinster I believe) who cordially invited the Normans into Ireland to fight his battle.
Backed up by the Pope in Rome no less.
From space you cannot see a border or flag on Earth,the only borders you can see are those that are Natural to the Earth.
Probably the way it should have remained but for the greed and want of a few select men who ultimately elevated their status over everyone else before carving the Earth up into chunks of their own.
Power,greed and self preservation.
Same as it ever was.
A greedy self serving Irish Leader is no different really than a likeminded Scots or Englishman.
The end result is the same,they win we lose.
Now get your wee flags out and be all uppity about how proud we all are of our respective wee chunk of this World which at present is being ravaged by a disease that does not give one single fcuk about the Borders it has crossed.
The UK Govt should do the honourable thing and let the Island of Ireland decide its own future.
If not from a moral standpoint then the £10bn it costs us every year holding onto it should be acknowledged.
The past is the past live and let live I say.
Peace to all men and keep safe.
🙏🏼
My background is Irish. Born in Scotland and proud of that fact but also proud of my Irish heritage. Your anti-Scottish stance is both annoying and repetitive. It’s your opinion and that’s fine and so is you ethnicity. No problem and no slight was meant but you taint Scots with no regard for the feelings of others.
Lewis, no need for name-calling. Goonan is an Irish name from Mayo, Sligo, Limerick and Cork. Always defend the Irish in everyway I can and a strong supporter of Irish unity, but I will not stand by and allow my country to be run down by anyone. I’m no journalist but . . . . . . . . . . . Tha na faclan agam sìmplidh agus cridheil
No one forces you to read this free content.
If my Irish Republican analysis of Scotland’s role as a key part of the British Empire hurts your feelings then you don’t need to be here.
For the avoidance of doubt, the facts don’t care about your feelings.
I really like your stuff but your appraisal of the history of how Scotland become part of GB is too simplistic and you miss large swathes of history. Irish Republicanism wasn’t supported by all Irish and not all Scots supported the Union. Most of the men that died at Culloden where Scots making it more of a civil War than anything else, the Scots fought against 16 battalions that day, 4 of which were scotish and one irish. The sad fact is we lost to the English and over many years and had most of our/their way of life changed forever & we are desperate to find our identity again. Cheers
You have your identity.
You are a Scot whether part of a historical Union or not.
You define you,not where you happen to live.
You very much misunderstand my feelings. This is not something that came from me after this post. It goes way beyond that. Your views on Scotland’s role in the British Empire don’t hurt my feelings, I agree with you. I can’t do anything but agree with you. Nothing to do with your Irish Republicanism. I count myself in that camp. If I’m not explaining this very well then this is the last comment I’ll make on this matter.
Mike,
Place of birth is often an accident of birth. Being Irish, I know that story very well.
So, I suspect, would Phil. The reason that Irish people exist all over the world is that we were forcibly displaced there over the past 800 years. Usually by means of dispossession, expulsion or starvation. That is one of the main reasons that many Irish people came to Scotland.
They came not to invade or take land, they came to escape those policies on their own lands. As you may imagine, that didn’t mean they defined themselves as being Irish all of a sudden which leads me to my question to you.
Can you explain why the only Country I know of – Scotland, denies the right of second generation residents to define themselves as Irish? I’m curious?
The returning diaspora, people like Phil and his young family, are welcomed and recognised as our own.
I don’t see why that gives you such a problem.
I really don’t get this at all. None of it. I don’t have to explain anything. I know exactly how parts of my country treat the Irish. I know because I have suffered through this too, from being Catholic to being from an Irish family. I was only defending what I see as unjustified comments on Scotland and that is ALL.
“I was only defending what I see as unjustified comments on Scotland and that is ALL.”
No, you were doing something quite different.
You informed me what my nationality was.
That is why you were called out.
On one of my visits to India I went to a museum in Jaipur…and I booked the services of a tour guide.
He was an educated Indian gentleman…who spoke excellent English and knew his stuff.
All was going well until we came to a huge display which was based on British Royalty…and British Governors and High Commissioners.
There were countless photos of Kings and Queens and other assorted Royal parasites…and guys in white suits with what looked like parakeets sticking out of their helmets.
I politely informed my guide that this was not a section I was interested in and so…could we move on.. ?
To say he was horrified would sum it up nicely….as he could not understand why I wouldn’t want to dwell and learn more about these great people. ( His words ).
I patiently explained to him that my ” attitude ” was confined not only to me…but that in fact there were countless thousands ( possibly millions) of people just like me back in the UK.
He was genuinely shocked by this and couldn’t understand why.
We moved on as requested…but the remainder of the tour was strained…to say the least.
And I’ve discovered on my travels through this vast country…that his love for ” The Raj ” was common among the educated classes.
It takes all kinds I suppose.
1320 to 1707 in one leap?
The Arbroath edict was about freedom forever from any foreign rule. Probably one of the first intelligible european proclamations of it’s day.
We’ve never had self determination and it is a burning desire for the many Scots that would rather live like Celts mate.
We too were enslaved for the most part mind.
Nobody I know ever benefited from foreign exploitation.
The Declaration of Arbroath was essentially signed by Norman Lords in Scotland. First or second Generation born in Scotland.
The Highland Clan Chiefs of ancient SCOTTISH ancestry who spoke Gaelic didn’t sign it. They were too busy still fighting Norman’s who signed the declaration.
I see Irish PM Leo Varadkar is working as a Doctor during the Covid19 pandemic. Very commendable.
I have been told by Dublin pals he’s doing a good job as is his excellent Health Secretary.
https://time.com/5816126/irish-prime-minister-doctor-covid-19/
In Scotland I’m afraid Nicola Sturgeon is falling flat on her face. She’s not made of the stuff required for this. So implies her Mother.
Her CMO has been a disgrace and has been sacked.
Ms Sturgeon and her Health Secretary are accountable for the 16 deaths of pensioners in a care home. The buck stops with them.
All three of these women if given the choice of Celtic or rangers would be painting their noses blue.
Oh! And if Scotland was the second country of Empire then Ireland was most definitely the third. The Irish Regiments, Brigades and Divisions featured very prominently in the British Army during Empire.
Scotland disproportionately provided the empire with its managerial class.
There is no Irish equivalent until the early 20th century.
Even then it was a just few outliers (eg. O’Dwyer in the Punjab).
This is not disputed by serious historians.
The British empire always wore a kilt.
That’s because the Scots were integral to the project.
That is also why, unlike Ireland, there was no serious separatist movement in Scotland during the 20th century.
I agree with some of these comments. Not always the kilt, sometimes tartan trews.
The excellent Actor Edward Woodward sang this piece, spot the kilts:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0-JvnsSryYg
I applaud your position regarding an individual’s right to choose their own culture irrespective of birth.
There are many who choose to be Scottish-British irrespective of several generations long gone of Irish ancestry. Although admittedly these folks are siding with their birth not going against it.
And the Scots regiments are well remembered in the north, not that long ago.
I don’t understand the Celtic and Rangers reference. In what way is it relevant?
I despair sometimes.
Sacking the CMO, or her enforced resignation, was not the right move, in my opinion.
Clearly she made a daft mistake but now is not the time to change the CMO in Scotland.
I am no fan of Nicola Sturgeon but she is working in commendable unison with the UK government during this crisis, and, for once, not resorting to political point scoring.
As for the Letter from Arbroath, to give its proper title (it was one of three), it was ignored by Pope John 22nd, and completely ignored until quite recently when Scottish Nationalists found someone who could translate the latin.
Your constant and repetitive SNP and Sturgeon bashing are beyond boring now. Let’s look at the facts here instead of your empty rhetoric.
Scotland has 10% of the UK population give or take the odd decimal point.
We have 4.1% of the the UK deaths from the virus.
So would you care to point out what your beloved Boris and his Westminster Old Etonian Boys club are doing that is so much better than what the Scottish Government are doing.
Where is your head ? private enterprise to greater extent owens most of the homes for the elderly and should have looked after their clients and staff better.I,m not excusing the authorities from any blame in this horror(I,m 71 and still very active,praise the lord) but to get free from the clutches of our large neighbour in the south,personally i would willingly vote for auld nick himself.
I see what you did there:
“I think that it is usually a crass error to look back into the distant past and put a modern construct on the actions of people long gone.
It is a form of attribution error that is very common in those claim (sic) a historical justification for their politics”
Then at the end of your piece you stick up The National front page with the Wallace freedom nonsense and call it remembering an important medieval event having resonance. A political newsprint with a heavy political message from 700 years ago.
I accuse you of contradicting yourself.
Oh dear, I think that you have rather misunderstood the point I was making.
To be fair I do too. It all depends on how far back you class distant past. You have often printed about the Irish ” troubles ” and as far as many are concerned they are ancient history.
As for Indy. Scotland would be independent now if Salmond had stuck to his guns and refused Cameron the chance to change the goal posts. By allowing them an indy light it left the door open to many who were going to vote yes, but grabbed the chance to stay in the UK, but get the benefits of Indy. Then we had the ” vow “, a vow that was torn up before the ink was dry.
A crucial skill in any democracy is the ability to count.
55%-45% is a comfortable majority.
Regarding my original post.
Phil not only does it with Declaration of Arbroath/ Wallace but also with British Empire, The Famine, Irish Independence and the troubles.
It’s all history baggage, needs dropped off and folks need to look to the future. They had their lives and times, made their choices. We’ve got ours.
Incidentally Scotland IS a successful small European country. It would be considerably less successful out of the Union and further less successful if in the EU and independent. Scots know it.
Its not been a good day. Son trapped in rural France, daughter on the ‘care front line’ -least romanticised, least protected and now this umbrella-conflation dialogue. My forebears were shot at by government forces 1688, The Killing Times, we stayed home, didn’t do Darien, didn’t do Empire, did fill trenches, did die on beaches profited not one jot from any of that shite so no apologies Phil. Desist hammering me for being a Scot.
Goon guy! Phil might have been born inScotland but feels himself to be ethnically Irish. What is your problem with that? My son was conceived in Paris, born in Scotland, brought up in England, my youngest was conceived in Edinburgh, born in England brought up in Scotland. Guess what they are ethnically? That’s right pal! Celtic supporters!! Fucksakes, there’s a plague runnin rampant and I’ve a doctor friend in New York. Get some perspective.
Lewis, I’m “hammering” no one.
However, Scotland’s history is that of an imperial power.
That is undeniable.
Best wishes to your daughter.
Vital work.
Scotland’s history one of imperial power? Tell that to the Ayrshire, Lanarkshire and Fife miners. I feel that somewhere you are telling some of us what our ethnicity/ history is.
In what way do you associate or disassociate from the 1863 New York race riots. Oh aye! History calls it something else but it was a black orphanage and Afro-American bodies swinging from lampposts with many Irish immigrants involved in the violence. Like somebody has written, history is a dodgy reference point. It rhymes. You can change the pattern. Repeated rhyme becomes a hammering. Cheers. Thanks for your wishes for my daughter
Many of those miners were Irish:
The Xarnegos of North Britain.
Once we Irish arrived in the USA we were allowed by circumstances to behave like Brits.
Shamefully many of us excelled at it.
“How the Irish Became White” by Noel Ignatiev covers this subject very well.
I am sick of this. Sick and tired of this. You’re a Scot – act like it!!!! FFS!!
Oh dear…
I’m afraid that the “One Scotland many cultures” marketing slogan rather falls down when it comes to the multi-generational Irish community in that part of Britain.
The lack of cultural space for Irishness in modern Scotland makes it rather abnormal within the anglosphere.
Finally, it is a basic human right to be able to self-define your ethnicity.
If that bothers someone else then it is they who have the problem.
I have explored this issue at length in my book “Minority Reporter”.
The strapline gives a clue:
“Modern Scotland’s bad attitude towards her own Irish.”
Your comment rather neatly falls into that category.
So, for the avoidance of doubt, Is Éireannach mé.
Which is really none of your business, whoever you are…
This is a strange argument..from my point of view 2 (intellectuals?) discussing Irishness/scottishness! the bad or good either of them have done to each other and other people! I have lived to the auld age of 71 and have only rarely ever heard minor arguments on this about who is Irish/Scottish and who was or was not historically evil to other people,because they were forced into a certain situation and so……..puleez just carry on,it,s very enlightening and entertaining,
Simplistic view of the Empire, but popular view of the Empire. The Darien scheme was dreamt up by the elite, the cannon fodder died on the peninsula. The vast majority of the pax gained nothing only the so called great and the good.
There is an imperialistic Unionist brethren in Scotia, similar to the Snarlene mob in Norern Ireland that believe they are superior, a tactic used by the ruling classes of the Brit Empire to divide and conquer.
Vast wealth including human beings were stolen from all parts of the world to improve the lives of the a Great and the Good. The majority of people slaved in the fields the mines and their huge houses to serve as vassals.
The reason that 2014 vote failed was the fear factor engendered by the so called intelligensia, the vow of Brown and the sniping of the London media.
The SNP have baggage but Labour are not a party of the people and will never gain independence.
The only answer for a better life for people is an independent Scotland and a United Ireland. With Brexit this is a strong probability as the Empire finally sinks below the horizon