I live at the foot of a mountain someone named Ben Lomond because it reminded him of home...
And yet, and yet, of the Celtic races, the Scots and the Irish have managed to spread their seed far and wide around the world...
My family's an example of that...I have more Scots names in my family lines than English...some lowland, some perhaps highland, and one probably from the Orkneys...
Ben Lomond, the name of the town I lived in when I started learning pipes!
And yet, and yet, of the Celtic races, the Scots and the Irish have managed to spread their seed far and wide around the world...
You can thank the English for some of that. But what's impressive is not so much the spread but the success. I don't know what the cultural element was, but they seem to have been successful wherever they landed. (There are others who seem to do the same -- the Jews and the Iranians, for example.)
I remember our Gaelic teacher showing us a video, "The Blood is Strong", about the Gaels abroad, and the struggle to preserve their culture. Their success elsewhere, and how their "origins" are not forgotten, is part of it.
(We have a story passed down in my family about where in Scotland our surname comes from, confirmed by someone else with the same surname but not related to us in North America, but for both the exact place itself is forgotten. There are hints it was in the Highlands, and emptied in the Clearances.)