The concluding chapter, written by the editors, identifies future challenges in the relationship between Scotland and its diaspora. Chapters deal with the arts, language and sport, as well as the media and representations of Scotland in the diaspora. The authors explore historical perspectives, sociological and anthropological perspectives, issues of public policy and politics, (including the Scottish Government's diaspora strategy), and the development of business links with the diaspora. The book reflects a growing interest in the subject from academics, policy makers and politicians: the Scottish Government has actively developed a diaspora strategy, not least in order to encourage 'roots tourism', as individuals come back to visit their 'homeland' diaspora. 1983.Ĭoinciding with Scotland's second year of Homecoming in 2014, The Modern Scottish Diaspora brings together well-established and emerging scholars to present a contemporary 'diasporic' perspective on national affairs for Scotland. Hobsbawm, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Prys Morgan, David Cannadine, Bernard S. Racially and culturally, it was a colony of Ireland. On that broken and inhospitable coast, in that archipelago of islands large and small, the sea unites rather than divides and from the late fifth century, when the Scots of Ulster landed in Argyll, until the mid-eighteenth century, when it was ‘opened up’ after the Jacobite revolts, the West of Scotland, cut off by mountains from the East, was always linked rather to Ireland than to the Saxon Lowlands. They were simply the overflow of Ireland. Before the later years of the seventeenth century, the Highlanders of Scotland did not form a distinct people.
Indeed, the whole concept of a distinct Highland culture and tradition is a retrospective invention. And even in the Highlands, even in that vestigial form, it was relatively new: it was not the original, or the distinguishing badge of Highland society. Before the Union, it did indeed exist in vestigial form but that form was regarded by the large majority of Scotchmen as a sign of barbarism: the badge of roguish, idle, predatory, blackmailing Highlanders who were more of a nuisance than a threat to civilized, historic Scotland. It was developed after, sometimes long after, the Union with England against which it is, in a sense, a protest. This apparatus, to which they ascribe great antiquity, is in fact largely modern. They wear the kilt, woven in a tartan whose colour and pattern indicates their ‘clan’ and if they indulge in music, their instrument is the bagpipe. Today, whenever Scotchmen gather together to celebrate their national identity, they assert it openly by certain distinctive national apparatus.
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