Day 27 - Scotland - Additional thoughts

Today was our last official day in Scotland, as we left Islay and headed south toward Belfast.  I have thoroughly enjoyed my four week stay in this beautiful country.

Although Scotland covers the northern third of the British Isle, it only contains about 10% of the population.  There are almost 800 islands in Scotland, most of which are unoccupied.  I thought a wee bit of history might be interesting, so I present this from Wikipedia:

The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the 9th century and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI of Scotland became king of England and Ireland, thus forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created the Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. In 1801, the Kingdom of Great Britain entered into a political union with the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (in 1922, the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being officially renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1927).

The Scotch (and the Irish) are proud people with many customs and cultural features which do not align with the British. Many expect that within the next few years we may again see an independent Scotland and a re-united Ireland.

Scotland is about the same size in area as the state of South Carolina and only contains about 5.6 million people.  I was surprised to find that even in this small area, the Scottish are a very diverse people.  For example, you find the wearing of kilts very common in the highlands, but you never see kilts in the northern islands, Orkney and Shetland.  On the west coast and islands of Scotland there is a very definite Irish influence, especially with the language.  In the northern islands there is very much a Nordic heritage which they are very proud of.  One Shetlander even made the statement that if Scotland did not become independent, perhaps it could again become a part of Denmark, which he felt would not be a bad thing.  There is a lot of political unrest here, the Scots feel they are taken advantage of by the UK.  Being a more rural area, they don't receive the funding for infrastructure the population hubs of the larger cities do.  This sounds familiar to those of us in the states in the more rural areas as well.

The Scottish people are warm and friendly people, we experienced this throughout the country.  If it weren't for the wind and rain, I could definitely enjoy living in this beautiful place.

I meant to include this short essay in yesterday's post, but the change up is our scheduling due to the weather caused me to forget... must be getting old.