We meet the cousins tomorrow. In Yokohama. Seems a long way to go to meet the cousins. But this is the Rugby World Cup and we are talking Scotland.
Our very first game in this Rugby World Cup for which expectations now are similar to those in Mayo at the beginning of the GAA football championship any summer. Every year!
A warning there? As any Mayo person will tell you, the road to misery is paved with expectations. The road to Yokohama, on the other hand . . .?
So today we meet our perfect cousins, so to speak, the Scots. And, let’s hope we thrash them. A necessity, you see, en route to greater things.
Separated by a common language – Gaelic/Irish – and an impenetrable accent, we share so much in blood, in a common tendency to passionately held convictions, in a certain . . . er . . . volatility and, above all, in a common view of our English neighbours. Not least in these Brexit days.
None of which should come as a surprise. It is a widely held if erroneous view that we indomitable Irishry (us!), while colonised, never colonised. The truth can be a bit of a let-down for those who cherish the view of ourselves alone as MOPE, the Most Oppressed People Ever.
There is a reason they speak Gaelic in Scotland. There is a reason they are called Scots. We are the reason. You may have heard of the medieval Irish theologian/philosopher John Scotus Eriugena. He died in 877, aged 62.
The Romans referred to us Irish as "Scotti", while John Scotus himself added the "Eriugena" bit, meaning "Ireland (Ériu)-born".
Yes, yes, I know. The Romans were never in Ireland, but the Irish were already on the island next door. They were part of the Irish kingdom of Dál Riada, which included parts of western Scotland and north-eastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel.
Founded by King Fergus Mór (Fergus the Great) in the 5th century, at its height in the late 6th and early 7th centuries, it included roughly what is now Argyll in Scotland and part of Antrim in Northern Ireland.
From where they launched regular raids on the Romans in Britain who knew them as Scotti. Beam me up.
Scotland, from Latin Scotia and Scotti. Old English Scottas (plural): "inhabitants of Ireland, Irishmen". You can tell them!
inaword@irishtimes.com
