Was there ever a time in past 2 hundred or so years when Scotland could have united with Ireland?

Question

There is Irish and Scottish Gaelic.
Both have similar traditional sports.

Both traded with each other hundreds of years ago.

Answer 1

Probably not.

And the Scottish Gaelic was only spoken in the far northern part and the Hebrides Islands.

Trade between them had been going on probably since the end of the Ice Age. The Scots were originally an Irish tribe which invaded Scotland (ca 1500 BC?) and took it from the Picts, who predated them there. The Picts may have been Gaelic also but since they didn't have a written language or history all historians have to work with are the names of their kings. I once met a man in a pub in Edinburgh who claimed he had the facial features of a Pict. His head was somewhat triangular shaped with a pointed chin. Since his buddies agreed with him, it appears to be apart of the accepted Scottish folk history.

Anyway, more arcane is the fact that there were two varieties of Gaelic spoken, Q-Gaelic and P-Gaelic. Although Irish and Scottish Gaelic were both Q-Gaelic, they evolved differences over the years. Today they even pronounce the word "Gaelic" differently, with the Irish "Gaelic", a long "a", and the Scottish "Gallic", a short "a".

But by 1600 AD, most lowlanders, where most of the population was, spoke English, didn't wear kilts, didn't have tartans or clans and had many different regional accents. They were closer in manners, religion, and customs to their English neighbors than to the lawless Gaelic highlanders. The Protestant Lowlanders acted to separate and buffer the Catholic Irish from the Catholic Scots who spoke Gaelic in the Highlands.

My own ancestors on my father's side lived in Largs, Ayrshire, Scotland, on the west coast south of modern Glasgow. They had been there for at least a thousand years and probably longer. They spoke English, wore pants, didn't have a clan, didn't wear a tartan and acted more like the English one hundred miles to the south than popular romance novels portrayed them.

Answer 2

Irish and Scotish Gaelic are about as similar as French and Spanish, so a common language would not be a contibuting factor unless the language in question were English. I think I could more easily see an alliance built over a common love for whiskey! But truthfully, any attemts at alliance would probably have been seen as a threat by England and England would have acted accordingly. In the past 200 years neither Scotland nor Ireland has had the level of prosperity that would have made a union and possible war with England feasable.

Answer 3

In 1919, the Irish Republic was formed and ceased to be a part of the United Kingdom. Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and England are now the U.K.

Answer 4

Never. One massive problem is religion. Scotland is Protestant and Ireland is Catholic.

Answer 5

No - the Act of Union rules that out.

Answer 6

no