''The sovereignty of a nation is complicated, as Alex Salmond and his ScotNats will surely find out. And a largely unconsidered angle in the looming referendum on whether the United Kingdom will break up if Scotland becomes independent is the impact on Northern Ireland.
Ulster Unionists have always championed the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but their more particular attachment has been to Scotland rather than to England.
The late Ulster historian A T Q Stewart showed in his research how close the links were between Northern Ireland and Scotland, dubbing those 33 miles of water between the two "the narrow ground". In mediaeval times, when land was thickly forested, it was easier to sail between Larne and Stranraer than to penetrate forest.
So it is an old bond.''
There are a number of Southern nationalists who identify with the Ulster people, identified as 'Scots-Irish' or 'Ulster Scots' and who are seen as the mother nation for the Southron people. There is a commonality there, and a sense of kinship, so this is significant in an American context, and has a bearing on our own question of secession. However, this is a more complex situation in the UK, and Mary Kenny's article touches on the various ramifications.
The break-up of a political union is no small thing, because treaties, customs, languages and cultures get knitted together over the centuries and there are shared memories, which go way back -- the Highland regiments fighting for the Crown, or the extraordinary number of Scots who were the engineers of the British Empire.''
Mary Kenny's views are not the same as mine, but she makes what I consider some important points; read the article at the link.
I continue to follow this story because it is important in my opinion to all of us whose roots are in that part of the world.
H/T: RossRightAngle
See also this related article linked at the same blog.
