Kilt Go Braugh? A cultural/historical question

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Seeing as I'm still up...

The book is a very comprehensive history of Scotland so you might enjoy reading it. I like reading histories and court cases, I'm funny that way.

Anyway, we tend to think in terms of longitudes and latitudes. Scotland doesn't do many things straight (check out the Irn Bru ads).

Have a look at the map of Scotland. We always thought it looked like a witch on a broom. There's two big indents on the east coast: the Firth of Forth in the south; the Firth of Moray in the north. On the west there's also two but not so clearly defined: Clyde and Lorne.

There's a mountain range in the south that runs from the north side of the Forth to the Clyde. Until recently that was an effective barrier to travel. South of that range is land that is accessible to England and all that entails. Edinburgh is in that region. Most of the battles and political action takes place in this region. As a rule, nobody got past Stirling. The Romans built two walls here to keep the Picts back.

North of that range, is what is considered the highlands. The geography created pockets of people, clans. Glasgow is in lower western corner of this region (it's actually south of Edinburgh but grouped north of it). Most of the clan history takes place here. This is where the Gaelic is more common. Few invaders got through to this area, except for the last time. The north border of this region is the diagonal along the rift that runs along the Lorne-Moray line.

North of the Lorne-Moray line is where the pure Gaelic would be found. Also more Scandinavian influences. Picts ruled back when. No invader got past this line.

This is a very rough outline so I don't expect to get picked apart on this.

For the sake of the subject at hand, the Irish influence came into that middle region and spread through it. It kind of forced the Picts north and east. Later on in history, the English had some of the Scots from primarily the south region go back to Ireland and take over Irish estates. There's no real connection to the migrations, it's just the way it happened, causing all sorts of trouble on the way.

Again a rough overview, if you want more get the book, or Prebble's The Lion in the North.