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Comment by kagamine | Hacker News Reader

As a Scot who watched the 'troubles' on the news week after week, year after year, I respectfully disagree. Many Scots I believe felt that the Irish had the courage to do what we did not: to take the matter into our own hands. Those same people also held the contrary view that violence was not the answer, and that common sense would prevail. They can now feel venerated in that they took the higher ground.

Recent events in Scotland however, display that the political situation/plight is not different enough that you can merely dismiss it as you do, almost half the population of Scotland want self-rule (for the record, I'm not among them). The details may differ but the desire is equal.

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I don't think the deep sectarian divide in Northern Ireland can be dismissed as a 'detail'. It makes the situation over there fundamentally different from that in Scotland.

For Scotland you can pretty much talk about the Scottish people as a more or less unitary group. The devolution referendum was decided based on debate and argument. Sure there was a strong nationalist component of it, but that didn't completely override all other factors. It was just one of many important factors, and you can't argue that someone to voted Yes or No is clearly more or less Scottish then the other. Factors other than national identity play important roles. For example if the UK votes to leave the EU, that will likely play a decisive role in many Scots switching to prefer independence so they can stay in the EU.

When talking about the situation in Northern Ireland, you can't really talk about 'The Irish' as a group the way you do in your post. A vote on devolution there would have nothing to do with debate or weighing of pros and cons. Staying in the EU or not would be a footnote. Any such vote would be a straight down the line sectarian census.

The troubles were far more about the sectarianism than independence. There was little evidence of sectarian overspill in Scotland outside of Glasgow. That was down to Irish emigrants settling en-masse in Glasgow, and probably explains Glasgow having an Orange order, the Rangers/Celtic divide and the like.

Scots seeking independence is rather different from the Irish situation mainly as the driver is not religion. For the record I agree with self-rule for Scotland, but am a Sassenach who would wish to move to post-independence Scotland. ;)

Dundee utd in Dundee, Hibs in Edinburgh, even in England, Everton was traditionally the catholic club in Liverpool and Man utd in Manchester. I'd say Glasgow remained the most bitter one on account of its close links to Ulster. If you read about Irish navvies working on the canals and the railways in Britain it was in Scotland that they were the most disliked and where the most violent incidents occured. Even today a lot of scots seem to be anti irish. You see it to a lesser extent in Liverpool as well if you scratch the surface of some people.

I'm not that strong on this aspect of history, but it has always seemed to be an association rather than a sectarian divide. Even though it was well known Everton was the catholic club, plenty of catholics supported Liverpool from the beginning, for instance. Glasgow and surrounding areas seemed the strongest exception.

You're right about sentiment in Liverpool though. That probably stems from the port and strong association as the point of migration leading to a large Irish community.

I don't disagree about a desire for independence but unless there have been huge civil rights abuses in Scotland in the last 40 years that I'm unaware of (maybe there have been, please correct me if there were) then then necessity for change is different.

Well, it depends who you talk to, and honestly I haven't the time nor the inclination to get into the details of Scottish politics right now, but some would say the last 300 years of Scotland's history are one long human rights abuse. Some would disagree.

In JavaScript terms: Is Ireland === Scotland? or... Is Ireland == Scotland?

"last 300 years of Scotland's history are one long human rights abuse"

Apart from sectarian bigotry, which I don't think was ever quite as institutionalized as it was in NI, what human rights abuses are you referring to in the last ~100 years?

As a "Yes" voting Scot I have to say that I think the rights of Scots were treated with great respect by the rest of the UK - we wanted a referendum for independence and we got one.

I suspect '300 years' takes us back to 1707 and the Acts of Union.

I think most (not 'some') people would disagree with the hardline nationalist view that we've endured 300 years of human rights abuses since then.

Ireland != Scotland; there's no Scottish Bobby Sands and no Scottish Easter Rising. The sectarianism maps differently too. The Scottish independence movement is largely secular.

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