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How did we go from Scottish to Irish in this post? I am always interested in my ancestry, since it is almost exclusively from the British Isles, including Ireland, but does anyone know more about Scots to input on this discussion? I would hate for it to be left to the Neanderthals at this point! LOL!

When you refer to the Scots, there are two major groups with quite different origins: the Lowlanders and the Highlanders. The Lowlanders, who inhabit the southern parts of Scotland, speak the Scots language, or dialect, made famous in Robert Burns' poetry and the novels of Robert Louis Stevenson. Their language, though influenced by Scots Gaelic, is a Germanic tongue, closely akin to Anglo-Saxon, especially the English spoken in Northern England. Angles from northwest Germany began settling the Lowlands in the 7th Century AD. Most of the Lowlands were Celtic speaking, being inhabited by Britons (akin to those pushed into Wales, Cornwall and Brittany by the Angles and Saxons when they conquered what is now England). The Picts also inhabited the Lowlands. They spoke Celtic but were likely of pre-Celtic origin, sometimes referred to as the "auld black breed." However, Scots became dominant in the Lowlands by the 14th Century, as Englishmen, Flemings, and Normans established towns in the Lowlands. Additionally, Viking settlements were noteworthy. The Lowlanders are culturally more akin to the northern English than to the Highlanders and the Irish. Racially, they are a mixture of pre-Celtic, Celtic, and Germanic, not unlike the Highlanders and Irish.

The Lowlanders were the primary contributor to the Elizabethan and Cromwellian settlement of northern Ireland to establish an area of that island that was solidly Protestant and pro-English. While northern English and Highlanders, plus "old" Irish and French Huguenots, were among the invaders, the Lowland Scots were the core of this group. Forced to leave northern Ireland by persecution by the Anglican church or due to economic hardship, these settlers emigrated in large numbers to America in the 18th and early 19th Century. Here, they were known as the Scots-Irish and became the predominant population of the Upland South, from the Shenandoah Valley to the Texas High Plains.

The Highlanders are more closely akin to the Irish. Indeed, the term "Scots", first applied to the Highlanders and later to all the people north of the English border, was a term used in Roman and early medieval times to apply to the Irish. Scots Gaelic is closely akin to Irish Gaelic. The clan form of government and the warlike character of the Highlanders are other Irish legacies. There is a stronger Scandinavian influence among the Highlanders than with either the Lowlanders or the Irish. Northeastern Scotland was heavily settled by Vikings. The name of the county Sutherland, oddly in far northern Scotland, reflects the fact that it was the southernmost dominion of the kings of Norway. On the other hand, the Highlanders were less influenced by Anglo-Norman settlers than were the Irish.

The bottom line is that the Scots, both Lowlanders and Highlanders, like the Irish, and for that matter the English, are an amalgam of several western and northern European peoples.

Ireland was originally called Scota, after the Great Goddess. It was renamed later on to Ireland, after one of the three sons of Mil who invaded circa 700 BC. He was named Ir.

Alba, the Northern portion of Great Brittain, was then renamed Scotland by invading Scots from what is now Ireland.

Ir came from Galicia, or, as it is more properly known "Carvajal", which is the country just to the West of the Basque territories in the Spanish peninsula.

No doubt many Basque servants were taken by their Gaelic speaking lords in Carvajal to the new lands in Scota (now Ireland). The result is that for the most part there is no genetic difference of any significance between the Basque and Irish populations. Hover, the Basques speak Basque, and the Irish speak English.

As a practical matter, just about 100% of the population in the lands adjacent to the Bay of Biscay are closely related. This proves that mankind has made use of boats in the dating process for a very long time.

Well, I read recently that the typical Irish Orangehead was of the Scots-Irish clans, i.e. those that emigrated from Scotland to Ireland. Don't know much about it myself.