Regions of Scotland

Borders Central Dumfries & Galloway Fife

Highland Grampian Lothian Strathclyde

Tayside Orkney Shetland Western Isles

The Scottish People as They Are

People who live in Scotland are Scots. They are also called Scottish or Scotsmen. Scotsmen will be rather annoyed if you call them Englishmen.

One of the things that people associate with Scots is the kilt. The kilt is the relic of the time when the clan system existed in the Highlands. Everybody in the clan had the same family name, like McDonald or MacGregor (Mac means ‘son of’). The clan had its own territory and was ruled by the chieftan. The great clans of the 16^th and 17^th centuries were indeed very similar to enormous families. Sometimes there were fierce battles between different clans but nowadays they all live in peace with each other. It is possible to find people with these surnames in many English-speaking countries, and they all feel they share the same background. There are about 300 clans in Scotland.

Each clan has its own special tartan. A tartan may be in different colours. It is used for clothes. By tartan you can learn which clan the man belongs to. There are more than 300 different tartans: some clans have more than one tartan. A Scotsman’s traditional clothes are socks, shoes, a kilt, a tie, a jacket and a bonnet. Some people in the north of Scotland wear a kilt every day. But in other parts of the country most Scottish people wear just the same clothes as the English. They put on their traditional clothes only on holidays and wear them with pleasure.

Scottish people like to dance very much. They say that they dance better than English people. Glasgow has more dancing schools than any other European city. A lot of people enjoy Scottish dancing. There are dances for groups of people and there are some other dances - more difficult ones - which are only for one or two people.

All the inhabitants speak English although about 100,000 still speak Scottish Gaelic. Many of the Scottish accents are very strong, and visitors from abroad (or even England) sometimes have difficulty in understanding them. For example, when a Scotsman uses the word “arm” he says “ar-r-m” so that you can hear the sound [r].

English people say that they do not like to spend money. “Penny sound and pound foolish” is a characteristic of Scots. They like spending money on their friends and visitors - not on themselves.

NORTHERN IRELAND

Ireland is the second largest of the British islands lying in the Atlantic off the west coast of Great Britain. The island of Ireland is politically divided into two parts: Northern Ireland, which forms part of the UK, capital Belfast, and the Republic of Ireland - a separate state named Eire in Irish; its capital is Dublin. Northern Ireland contains six of the nine counties of the historic province of Ulster and that is why the name ‘Ulster’ is sometimes used as equivalent to Northern Ireland.

For seven centuries Ireland was a colony of Britain. Due to the colonial policy of Great Britain the Irish nation was forcefully partitioned. As a result of the hard struggle of the Irish people for independence the larger part of Ireland (26 counties) gained the status of a British dominion in 1921. Much later, in 1949 it was officially proclaimed an independent state, the Irish Free State or Eire. The industrial northeast (Northern Ireland with its 6 counties) was retained by Great Britain as its smallest component. But certain forces of both the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland are for the reunification of the country, against social deprivation which is at its worst among Catholics. They believe that British withdrawal from Ireland is the only way to achieve piece. Since trouble started in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s there have been a number of attempts to find a political solution to the problem. In November 1985, the British and Irish governments made a new political agreement on Northern Ireland, the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It gives the Republic of Ireland a voice in the administration of Northern Ireland, and the Irish government recognizes that there will only be a united Ireland, if the majority of people in Ulster agree to it. The two governments are still working together toward a solution.

If one asks an Irishman away from home what he misses most about Ireland, he will probably tell you ‘the greenness’. Irish poets put it in a different way when they call Ireland ‘the Emerald Isle’. Is the grass really greener in Ireland? The fact is that the winds usually blow in from the Atlantic Ocean and make the air and soil warm and damp. Grass grows well in such a climate and it makes the island look so beautiful.

There are low hills and peaks of rocks in the northwest, while the northeast sector of the island is the plateau. The Mourne Mountains in the southeast slope down to Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the British Isles. The rivers of Ireland are short, but deep. The largest river is the Shannon.

The population of Northern Ireland is about 1.5 million people. 53 per cent of the total population live in urban areas. The whole economy of Northern Ireland is closely integrated with that of Great Britain. Belfast, the capital of the Northern Ireland is the leading industrial centre and the large port.

In Ireland the national musical instrument is the harp.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1157