Irish/Scottish Tensions

[this_ismy_story]

I know I've heard somewhere before that there's some tension between the Irish and the Scottish--that it derives from something in the past.  This tension may have severely lessened through the years, but there was something that made Irish feel...defensive against the Scottish.  I cannot find the exact cause of this, and I've looked through

Comments

[usekh]

Never heard such things myself from my Scottish relatives. Only thing I can think of is that at various times there have been Scottish settlers brought over(after the flight of the earls and the potato famine). But never heard of too much tension

[starry_diadem]

What tension there is probably arises from what's called the Plantation of Ulster - the process that started in the 1600s with the displacement of native Irish and the importation of loyal (to the crown) English and, especially, Scots colonists. That demographic change eventually led to Partition last century, where Northern Ireland remained part of the UK after the rest of Eire achieved independence. Try googling that and see what that gives you.

[lolmac]

And allow yourself plenty of time. It's a huge subject, and a very painful one (still).

A key element is that the Scots who were brought in to 'colonise' Ireland were Protestant. Ireland was Catholic, and the laws of the time were violently anti-Catholic. Intermarriage was almost impossible, so the populations mingled little, with no resulting reconciliation. In Northern Ireland today, simply having a recognisably Scots name, or a recognisably Catholic/Irish name, will still get you pigeonholed.

[deannawol]

I don't find that at all. But I'm Republic of Ireland not Northern Ireland. (And yes, that can be a massive difference.)

The attitude to the Scots outside the "wee six" is rather different as most people aren't looking back that far when they're tracing the troubles in the North. They stop at the 1800's and 1920 with the change from Independance and DeValera's declaration that Ireland was 32 counties rather than 26.

For the South, it's more bonded than anything else, usually over the joint hatred of the British and a joint Celtic background. All the other plantations were English based and the English are still blamed for a lot of problems with the country.

From our side of the border, we don't like the Brits. Northerners aren't too hot either. They're either rabid republicans or unionists. We don't mind the Welsh but they did kidnap our patron saint way back when, but we wouldn't mind offering them our current flock of priests. And the scots are our brothers in arms against the English.

[steepholm]

We don't mind the Welsh but they did kidnap our patron saint way back when

Ahem! The other way round, surely? Patrick was a Welshman (at least, a Briton) kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken into slavery there. But don't worry, the Welsh don't hold a grudge.

[zeecoldwater]

What's already been said -- it's not a Scots/Irish rivalry, it's a Catholic Irish (mainly actual Irish extraction) and Protestant Irish (mainly Scots extraction) rivalry. T

here's still a lot of bitterness over what resulted from the plantations (a whole lot of trouble and lots of shittiness for the Catholics) and the fact that until very recently, the North was more prosperous than the Republic.

I recommend looking into the Penal Laws, the Home Rule movement and the Independence movement and the early days of the Free State for an idea of things at their utter worst (as in, unrest, riots and two wars).

[hollywood666]

If by "sporting events" you mean the Scottish Premier League rivalry between Rangers and Celtic, it's my understanding that the sporting rivalry is a product and symbol of the Scottish Protestant vs. Irish Catholic issue.

Sporting rivalries often model or are derived from very real ethnic/religious/class/political rivalries-- this is especially true of (though by no means limited to) European soccer-- so don't discount them as a starting place for research.

[darkindegrees]

This, precisely. The rivalry is less to do with sports and more to do with religion--if you're Catholic you are a Celtic supporter and if you're a Protestant you support Rangers. There are people who are very vocal about their atheism who will still support whichever team their family supports (if raised Catholic, they will still support Celtic despite being atheist) because it's more a culture thing than an actual football thing.

[dipenates]

The Old Firm (the collective name for Rangers and Celtic) isn't about being Scottish at all. Rangers fans don't wave either of Scotland's flags, they wave the Union Flag, the flag of the UK, to symbolise political unionism.

There has been such extensive migration between Northern Ireland and Scotland (particularly the west of Scotland) that sectarian tensions are mirrored in Scotland. It's utterly inaccurate to say that there is any tension, per se, between Ireland (or N. Ireland) and Scotland. The two are very culturally similar.

[snippy_kitty]

True that.