Re: Countdown to Open Beta - Casse
A funny thing is, Scots for a very long time after the formation of what we would call Scotland (though it lacked the Hebrides and such), still considered themselves an Irish kingdom (and were called Irish by Saxons/English for a long time). The relations began to fall away as the Scots grew culturally distinct from the Irish; where they had been essentially identical as Dal Riadans, as they took control of the north of Britain, they grew to be culturally distinct, but essentially still 'Irish'; they had their own customs and unique traits, but, so did all Irish kingdoms; more or less, they became seperate from the clans of Ulster in custom and tradition. When the last Dal Riadan holdings in Ireland were lost, their direct connection to Ireland was severed, but connections were still, more or less, close. However, they remained, essentially, an 'Irish' kingdom; however, conflicts with Northumbria introduced very long-lived land claims in the south of modern Scotland/north of modern England, between who actually had the right to what. So many treaties were rather ambigous, so there was constant conflict over interpretation; one didn't much like the thought of a foreign king collecting tax or raising levies from people who didn't belong to their land. This inevitably led to the influx of Anglo-Saxons into the area we would come to call the 'lowlands'; invaders, migrants, and by way of marriages. Marriages were meant to try and ensure peace, but that never lasted long in the earlier periods; that most weighs on the very much Gaelic culture of the early Scots, which doesn't recognize marriages that well, since the Gaelic clan societies had no concrete nobility, just various ranks of aristocracy that could fluctuate; a marriage agreement good in one generation can very suddenly become utter rubbish. Until the introduction of the Norman feudal system (where feudal noble houses merged with clan systems to an extent, though Norman political styles became predominant), the Saxons/English were dealing with a people who had a wholely different system of politics. The introduction of Norman systems did change a lot. Ireland (at first), despite Norman presence, and despite descending, in large part, into anarchy, preserved much of Gaelic political systems. Normans were Gaelicized; they started following similar systems. Gaelic/Norse Irish took well to some Norman customs, but found many rather abhorrent and flat out barbaric (the concept of 'divine right', particularly, which even most Irish aristocrats, who would benefit, didn't adopt for generations). The Scots in the lowlands changed far quicker; they had been directly associated with the Saxons and then Normans for a longer time than the Irish. Through marriages and just political situation, they adopted many more customs, much quicker. Normano-Irish and Normano-Scots were wholely different groups; the Normano-Irish were more Irish with strong Norman influences (they were simply substantially more prevalent, and the Norman culture was being submerged in Irish culture), and Normano-Scots were more Norman with strong Gaelic Scot influences (not a matter of numbers here; Saxon and then Norman feudalist influences had been being absorbed for some time); this would be a major shift culturally between the two. However, highland Scots, though affected more heavily by Norse culture (though both were substantially influenced by it) were still like the Irish in many respects, though they also had absorbed Pict culture, and had existed in their own land now for centuries, so they, of course, followed a different course of development; by this point, Scots and Irish are most distinctly different groups. However, things still changed more. That's only the Norman invasions and developments; we could explore further (much further), but I think that's a good time to declare the genuine split between the Irish and Scots into completely distinct cultures, though I could understand arguments placing it earlier or even a bit later.
That said; the kingdom of Dal Riada, despite being across the sea (mostly, it had some coastal holdings in Ireland for a while) was, I think, Irish. I don't see much debate in it; while they did change (northern Briton and Pict influences), they could still converse with the Irish easily, shared most of the same customs, etc. Scots and Irish are culturally distinct today (and I'm sure any of us from either would remind you), but it is something of note that we weren't always.
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