Scotland. Geographically the north of Ireland is separated from Scotland (Kintyre) by a narrow strait, 20 miles wide. Hence it is not surprising that Ulster should have been closely linked with Scotland, more so than southern Ireland, whose links were more with Wales. Colonization from northern Ireland (Dál Riata) began in the 3rd century
ad. It was followed in due course by evangelization. Like other conquerors, the Irish advanced with the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other. Conquests were made at the expense of their fellow Celts, the British of Strathclyde and the Picts of eastern Scotland, and by
c.1000 Scots‐Gaelic was prevalent over much of Scotland, although it did not reach Orkney and Shetland. Irish missionaries led by
Colum Cille brought Christianity to much of Scotland and also played a key role in the Christianization of Northumbria, an area which was long regarded as being culturally and politically tied to ‘the kingdom of the Scots’. Thus Ireland left a lasting mark on the history of early Christian Scotland. Fergus Mór (
c.
ad 500), ruler of Dál Riata, was seen as the founder figure of Scottish dynasties. The very name ‘Scotland’ means ‘the Land of the Irish’. Many Scottish place names (e.g. those incorporating
sliabh=hill,
cill=church,
baile=village, and
achadh=field) have Irish origins. Early folk history, adumbrated for example in the story of Deirdre and the sons of Uisneach, implied the existence of close links between Ulster and Alba (the Gaelic name for what came to be called Scotland).
The
Viking raids (
c.800) transformed but did not destroy the links between Ireland and Scotland. The Gaelic ‘kingdom of Scots’, under the McAlpine dynasty, shifted its centre of gravity from west to east under the impact of the Vikings. In the 12th century, however, a revival of Gaelic influence began under the leadership of Somerled, founder of ‘the kingship of the Isles’ (d. 1164). One of Somerled's sons, Donald, gave his name to the MacDonald dynasty, ‘lords of the Isles’ who exercised power on both sides of the sea dividing Ulster and the west of Scotland. The
MacDonnells of Antrim were key supporters of the royalist cause in the civil wars of the mid‐17th century and backed Alasdair MacDonald (‘Colkitto’) in Montrose's campaigns in 1644–5, when Irish and Highland forces fought on behalf of Charles I.
The link between Ireland and Scotland was not confined to the lordship of the Isles. In 1315 Edward
Bruce, brother of Robert Bruce (de Brus, of Norman background), newly established ‘king of Scots’, came to mobilize Gaelic Ireland against English power there. After his death, however, Bruce was condemned by some as ‘the common ruin of the Galls and the Gaels of Ireland’. One Irish writer, a chronicler of the O'Briens, compared the Scots to a ‘black cloud with vaporous‐creeping offshoots and dark mists … [which] covered our Ireland's surface’. The result was nevertheless to undermine English influence in the north for two centuries. Ulster became a frontier region between Scotland and the English lordships in the south, where chiefs such as
O'Neill and
O'Donnell enjoyed an autonomy comparable to that of the marcher lords on the Welsh borders and the Percy family on the Anglo‐Scottish borders. In maintaining their local position, Ulster chiefs routinely hired mercenaries from Scotland, the so‐called
gallowglasses. It is not too much to say that during this period (1300–1500) Ireland north of the Boyne looked more to Scotland than to England.
The
Ulster plantation established links of a different kind between Ireland and Scotland. The accession of James VI of Scotland as James I of England in 1603 brought Ireland into a ‘three‐kingdom’ political structure. The new king used his power to support colonization from the Scottish lowlands into the territories of the Gaelic chiefs O'Neill and O'Donnell. He also encouraged settlement by the Campbells in Kintyre at the expense of the MacDonalds. In the newly planted counties of Cavan, Donegal, Armagh, Coleraine (later replaced by Londonderry), Fermanagh, and Tyrone the balance on the whole favoured English settlers. In Antrim and Down, however, colonized after the purchase of the estates of Conn O'Neill, the vast majority of the new arrivals were Scottish, Lowland born and
Presbyterian in religion. They brought to Ulster a distinctive convenanting style of
Puritanism in which the papacy appeared as Antichrist. There was an inevitable and bitter clash over land and religion between the colonists and the existing Gaelic‐speaking inhabitants, whose earlier cultural links were with the Highlands and the Isles, not the Lowlands. In 1641 the Ulster Catholics, led by Phelim
O'Neill, rose against a plantation in which they had lost much of their lands. A massacre of Protestants occurred which came to have the same historical resonance in Ireland as the later Scottish massacre of Glencoe in 1692 (where Catholic MacDonalds were the victims). During the civil wars of the 1640s, in both Ulster and Scotland, clashes between Catholics and Presbyterians took on a bitterness rivalling that of the Wars of Religion in Europe.
During the 18th century, Ulster Presbyterians experienced political and religious discrimination, most notably the
sacramental test. It was such grievances which led to the disenchantment of some Presbyterians with the British government and to their involvement in a radical alliance with the Catholics—the
United Irishmen. The influence of the Scottish Enlightenment had also encouraged the growth of a more liberal and tolerant ‘New Light’ (see
old light and new light) movement in Presbyterian circles. It was thus not surprising that groups of Presbyterians and Catholics should have made common cause in the
insurrection of 1798 in Antrim and Down. Among the Presbyterian body as a whole, however, there was probably little sympathy with the United Irishmen and during the 19th century it was political and religious orthodoxy that was to prevail.
After the passing of the Act of
Union relations between
evangelical Anglicans and Presbyterian covenanters drew closer in the face of the threat of a resurgent Catholicism, led by
O'Connell. Economic competition for jobs in newly industrialized
Belfast added to the tensions. Belfast, once a liberal city, became a byword for sectarian violence. The liberal traditions of the Scottish Enlightenment did not disappear entirely, but they were gravely weakened.
The relationship between Ireland and Scotland underwent further changes during the
Great Famine and its aftermath. Irish refugees poured into Glasgow and its surrounding areas, where they took low‐paying jobs in mining and in the cotton industry. The Irish newcomers were resented as a source of ‘cheap labour’, and sectarian antagonism in the Scottish Lowlands reached levels comparable to those in Belfast.
As in Northern Ireland, sectarian hostility persisted to the end of the 20th century. In Scotland, however, there has been some decline in the level of inter‐ethnic bitterness and, unlike Northern Ireland, Pope John Paul II was able to pay a visit there in 1982. In recent years the problems of Northern Ireland have not seriously affected Scotland, and sectarian rivalries have largely been restricted to football grounds.
Bibliography
Connolly, S. J., Houston, R. A., and Morris, R. J. (eds.), Conflict, Identity and Economic Development: Ireland and Scotland 1600–1939 (1995)
Ellis, S. G., and Barber, S. (eds.), Conquest and Union: Fashioning a British State 1485–1725 (1995)
Kearney, H. F. , The British Isles: A History of Four Nations (1989)
Hugh Kearney
