This anthology contains work by 45 Scottish or Scottish-based writers with Irish connections. These stretch from Patrick MacGill, whose account of Irish migrant labourers in Scotland, The Children of the Dead End, was published in 1914, to a number of authors still in their early 30s. The anthology also features Irish-born writers, Bernard McLaverty, Hayden Murphy and Rody Gorman, who now live in Scotland.
At the heart of the book are the autobiographical passages in which the contributors record their reactions to Ireland. While the creative selections contain some fine writing, for Irish readers much of the fascination of this book will rest with the insight it offers into the persistence of Irish identity in modern Scotland. In their introduction, the editors write of the "uneasy assimilation" and the "ambiguous" sense of Scottish identity that has been the experience of generations of Irish immigrants and their descendants.
In the Ireland of the 1960s in which I grew up, the question of identity was not a particularly pressing one, for virtually everyone I knew was unmistakably Irish. For societies with significant immigrant populations, however, identity is an unavoidable issue. Immigrants and their families have difficult decisions to make regarding social integration and ethnic identity; host societies have to determine how to respond to those who have come to live amongst them. During the last 150 years, Scots of Irish descent have been obliged to confront the "who are we?" question. Nineteenth-century Scotland, with its rapidly expanding industrial economy, was a magnet for Irish emigrants. As early as 1851 there were more than 200,000 Irish-born people in Scotland, where the Irish formed a much larger proportion of the population than they did in England and Wales.
The Irish-born population remained at the same level until the early 1920s, when the influx tapered off. The fact that the bulk of Irish immigrants were Catholics set them apart in a predominantly Presbyterian society, and gave rise to considerable friction. As one contributor puts it, in response to this situation the Irish "circled the wagons and stuck to their own". The establishment of separate, and since 1918 State-funded, Catholic schools added to their sense of having a distinctive identity. On the evidence of Across the Water, Ireland continues to occupy a prominent place in the imagination of Scottish writers, to an extent that will surprise those unfamiliar with Scotland. The novelist Brian McCabe refers to the insecurity in the Scottish-Irish psyche, the sense of being an "imitation Irishman - cursed with an Irish name and genealogy, but unable to be Irish". The playwright and Joyce scholar, Willy Maley, admits to having spent many years of his life "loathing my country of birth and residence and loving my land of ancient origin". Andrew O'Hagan maintains that the experience of the Irish-derived Catholic Scot remains under-described, and sees his own writing as an effort to give it a voice so that its contribution to Scottish identity can be better appreciated.
Not everyone in this fine book views Ireland with affection. Playwright John Byrne professes "a deep loathing" for the Irish, suggesting that those who emigrated did themselves and their offspring a big favour. For those who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, however, Ireland was "an inescapable aspect" of their identity. Images of Ireland were imbibed through stories recounted by parents and grandparents, the singing of Irish songs (the words of Hail Glorious St Patrick are quoted by several contributors), supporting Glasgow Celtic, dealings with Irish priests, and attendance at Catholic schools. There are several accounts of a conscious shedding of what one writer calls "Bally-in-the-Bog banalities", but also of mature rediscoveries of Ireland on foot of visits that uncovered a reality very different from sentimental childhood perceptions.
For many in Scotland, Irishness and Catholicism tend to overlap. Chris Dolan describes his family's Irishness as having been "preserved in the aspic of Catholicism". One of the editors, Jim McGonigal, confesses to never having learned the "protestant discourses" of Scottish social and intellectual life. The TV scriptwriter Danny Boyle attests to the influence of his Catholic upbringing and remarks that, while he has ceased to practice, being old enough to remember "less than tolerant times", he still feels "part of the tribe".
Protestant Irish perspectives are well represented in the collection. Alan Spence's piece "Its Colours They Are Fine", offers an account of an Orange Walk in Glasgow. Another writer, Angela McSevenny, brought up in a non-religious environment, admits to "a prejudice, an innate inexplicable knowledge that Protestant equals good, Catholic equals not good." Mixed backgrounds are celebrated, as in Donny O'Rourke's lines "The Ulster blood that pulses proud in me/ pounds pape and planter both."
Only one writer, Gerry Cambridge (born in Morecambe but raised in Scotland), opts to describe himself as more Irish than Scottish. William McIlvanney describes himself as a Scot to the backbone, but is glad there is "some residual Irish blood" coursing through his veins. Some choose to see themselves as both Irish and Scottish or as Scots-Irish. Many more contributors would probably agree with Annie Donovan, who finds Irishness to be "part of the fabric of the self".
Although emigration to Scotland peaked at the end of the 19th century, many Scots of Irish descent undoubtedly retain a complex sense of Irishness, even if this derives as much from generations of experience in Scotland as from anything intrinsically Irish. There is a sense of a community coming into its own after generations of travail. As the parameters of Scottish identity are reshaped, the Irish contribution to the diversity of the contemporary tartan is being more readily appreciated. Glasgow-born Donny O'Rourke, who writes movingly of the importance of his Irish background, expresses the hope that modern Scotland may now be able to "face up to just how Irish this place and people have always been".
Daniel Mulhall's book, A New Day Dawning: A Portrait of Ireland in 1900, was published last year. He is currently based in Edinburgh, where he is Ireland's consul general
Nation, Region, Identity is the theme of an Irish-Scottish Academic Initiative interdisciplinary conference to be held at Trinity College, Dublin between 29th-30th of this month. Details from msenior@tcd.ie