On this Day: Declaration of Arbroath

This paragraph interests me the most:

'‘We know, Most Holy Father and Lord, and from the chronicles and books of the ancients gather, that among other illustrious nations, ours, to wit, the nation of the Scots, has been distinguished by many honours; which, passing from the greater Scythia through the Mediterranean Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and sojourning in Spain among the most savage tribes through a long course of time, could nowhere be subjugated by any people however barbarous; and coming thence one thousand two hundred years after the outgoing of the people of Israel, they, by many victories and infinite toil, acquired for themselves the possessions in the West which they now hold, after expelling the Britons and completely destroying the Picts, and, although very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, always kept themselves free from all servitude, as the histories testify. In their kingdom one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, no stranger intervening, have reigned.’'

Shame it's complete fantasy. You could have fun with it, rubbing people up the wrong way.

I had never seen it before. Thanks for sending me off on a fun journey. With a last name of Campbell, you can be sure I'm interested in my heritage.

http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/25617/
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The author attributes the claimed migrations of the Irish into Argyll to a set of elite origin myths finding no support in archaeological evidence. He goes on to ask how the Iron Age populations of Argyll established and changed their personal and group identity.

Traditional historical accounts of the origin of the Scotttish kingdom states that the Scots founded the early kingdom of Dal Riata in western Scotland having migrated there form north eastern Antrim, Ireland. In the process they displaced a native Pictish or British people from an area roughly equivalent to modern Argyll. Later, in the mid 9th century, these Scots of Dal Riata took over the Pictish kingdom of eastern Scot­land to form the united kingdom of Alba, later to become known as Scotland. To the classical authors of late antiquity, the peoples of Ireland were Scotti, probably a derogatory term mean­ing something like 'pirates'. The name was used by early medieval writers in Latin for all speakers of Gaelic, whether in Ireland or Scotland. Much later the usage became associated exclusively with the peoples of Scotland, whether speak­ers of Gaelic or not. In this paper I will use the term Goidelic for the Irish/Scottish Gaelic, branch of Celtic (Q-Celtic), and Brittonic for the Brit­ish group including Welsh, Pictish and Cumbric (P-Celtic).

After a period of virulent sectarian debate on the origins of the Scots in the 18th and 19th centuries (Ferguson 1998), the idea of a migra­tion of the Scots to Argyll has become fixed as a fact in both the popular and academic mind for at least a century. Present-day archaeologi­cal textbooks show a wave of invasive black arrows attacking the west coast of Britain from Ireland in the late 4th/5th centuries (e.g. Laing 1975: figure 1). Even the tide of anti-migrationism as explanation for culture change which swept through British prehistory in the 1970s and washed into Anglo-Saxon studies in the 1980s left this concept remarkably intact. Irish histo­rians still regularly speak of the 'Irish colonies in Britain' (Ò Cr òinin 1995: 18; Byrne 1973: 9), and British anti-invasionist prehistorians seem happy to accept the concept (e.g. Cunliffe 1979:163. figure). The insistence on an explicitly colonialist terminology is somewhat ironic given the past reaction of many Irish archaeologists to what they perceived as intellectual crypto-colonialism of British archaeologists and art historians over the origin of the Insular Art illus­trated manuscripts and items such as hanging bowls. Exactly why colonialist explanations should have survived in the 'Celtic West' while being hotly debated in eastern Britain is of con­siderable interest, but not the purpose of this paper, which is to provide a critical examina­tion of the archaeological, historical and lin­guistic evidence for a Scottic migration, and provide a new explanation for the origins of Dal Riata.

Text Source: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/scotsirish.htm

so, that will be interesting to read. For some reason, I seem to prefer Irish Whiskey to the Scottish version. By the way, is that lovely little boat in your signature line yours?

If I had a house on the water, I'd want something just like that tied to the dock, just for the sheer pleasure of it. I don't, so I trailer my boat, which isn't half so charming.

Its had its sides raised, and a cab put on but apart from that. The fibre glass mould (shape), is off a old boat (300 years old). Before engines, it moves through the water very well. The fishing village is built around the harbour and in the summer, its lovely working.

What engine is in it? In the photo, it looks quite small, but there's no point of reference other than the life ring. I love working boats, and that design is especially nice to look at.

Only 3 have been ever built, and its taken from a sail boat, with a Scottish/Norse influence. 2 tons in weight with a draught of 1 meter, Lister engine. Its had a cab and a foot added to the sides cos it was a little dirty in bad weather.

Lovely little craft. Enjoy working her!