I ALWAYS wince a little when people declare pride at belonging to a race or nationality. You might as well proclaim your delight at simply being members of the human race. All countries and peoples have unique histories bearing witness to deeds that exemplify the best and worst of humanity.

Certainly, you might be proud of the achievements of your fellow Scots who have helped improve our understanding of ourselves and the world around us or decoded some of the secrets of the universe. If you’re tempted to believe though, that these indicate exceptionalism then you might be advised to take a closer look at the role of our forebears in the Caribbean slave trade. And besides, a cursory glance at the list of achievements of any other nation you care to choose will reveal similar patterns of accomplishment and moral failure.

Best simply to offer thanks that by random circumstance we were born into a progressive land of economic sufficiency providing a reasonable opportunity to make something of our gifts. And that our system of democratic accountability offers the chance of carrying out running repairs.

Scotland is not the best wee country in the world; it’s simply one of many small nations striving to live its best life. And let’s not be patronised by government officials who pledge to deliver the world’s best service or most accomplished system in the orbits of their chosen sectors. Just get on with being clean and efficient and leave the superlatives to the judgment of history.

Nor should we equate support for Scottish independence with feelings of ethnic supremacy. Most nationalists I’ve ever encountered simply feel that Scotland’s interests are best served by determining our own future. It’s never been about being morally superior to the English whose 450,000 nationals residing here, incidentally, are vital to Scotland’s collective economic and cultural wellbeing.

For many of us, matters of nationality and ethnicity are not very straightforward anyway. Scotland’s 2022 Census gave me and many thousands of others the opportunity to claim both our Scottish nationality and our Irish ethnicity without feeling any sense of conflict.

Even after the 2022 census data has been received and analysed it will be difficult to track anything like a precise number of Scots with Irish heritage. Owing to the multitudes of Irish who fled the Great Famine from the 1840s onwards identifying as Catholic is often used as a proxy for Irish ethnicity, but this too is an imprecise and shifting demographic. That said, it’s reasonable to assume that the majority of the 840,000 Catholics registered in the 2011 census have strong Irish roots.

I can’t claim to speak for others, but as a third generation Scots/Irish I feel more comfortable in my Scottish skin now than at any other time in my life. Occasionally though, cracks appear in the façade of ethnic diversity that Scotland carefully cultivates to indicate there remain some who are a little – how can I put this – uncomfortable about the Irish in Scotland.

Almost 100 years after the Church of Scotland’s notorious proclamation about the threat of the Irish race (for which its leaders have long since acknowledged and apologised), significant pockets of Scottish society remain a little ambivalent about the Irish among them or, at least, about the free expression of Irish heritage.

In Scotland’s prisons there are a disproportionately high number of Scots/Irish and not all of this can be explained by the effects of multi-generational poverty. Most Irish are easily identified by our distinctive nomenclature and in a country whose national police force is still held in deep suspicion by our community for historic and current discrimination against it (most recently in their prosecution of the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act) it’s reasonable to assume a sinister aspect to this.

The conditions of extreme deprivation that survivors of the Great Famine found in Glasgow are manifest in crime and poverty statistics today. Many who are descended from those huddled masses overcame their dire personal circumstances to flourish in Scotland. Many more, however could not. The 2022 census is important in identifying those areas where they chiefly reside and any disproportionate health indicators they possess as an ethnic grouping.

At last Sunday’s Scottish Cup semi-final Celtic supporters were encouraged to bring Irish tricolours with them. Pictures from the game showed the entire Celtic End swathed in green, white and orange while a vivid display of pyrotechnics created a vibrant and dramatic mosaic in the colours of Ireland.

Yet, before the game the prospect of the Irish tricolour appearing in such numbers seemed to cause apoplexy in some quarters. And this more than 70 years after Celtic, who remain the most important sporting and cultural expression of Irishness in Scotland, successfully challenged an order to remove the Irish flag from their stadium.

Not for the first time, some of us were left to consider why the sight of a flag belonging to a country with whom Scotland enjoys close political and cultural connections seems to elicit such negative responses.

In a similar vein, we failed to understand why Glasgow City Council insulted the city’s large Irish community by refusing permission for a memorial to the Great Famine to be built on its ground. Glasgow’s Irish community, sickened by the council’s cowardice, commissioned its own memorial, which sits within the grounds of St Mary’s Church in the Calton district.

The Great Famine fundamentally changed the face of Glasgow and changed it for the better. In hundreds of other cities across the world with large Irish populations there are memorials to the Great Famine and/or St Patrick’s Day celebrations to mark their contribution in these countries. But not in Glasgow or anywhere else in Scotland.

Just as inexplicably, no literary, artistic or historic work exists devoted to the movement and experience of the Irish in Scotland. Nor has there ever been an exhibition of Ireland’s massive contribution to the development of modern Scotland in politics, art and education and in its built infrastructure.

The presence of the Irish in Scotland has enriched this nation. The simple expression of this shouldn’t be regarded as a threat but as a tribute to the country which eventually gave us respite and sanctuary.

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