[yarddog]

Well to make things even more complicated, Highland Scotland was settled by an Irish tribe called the Scots. There were already a Celtic people in Scotland. The Picts remained mostly in the lowlands.

Then a bunch of lowland Scots were settled in Northern Ireland. So much of Scotland was settled by Irish and Northern Ireland was settled by Scots who became known as Scotch Irish.

[yarddog]

I forgot to add that the Isle of Mann was settled by Manx Cats.

[PotatoHeadMick]

Oh man, now you’re stirring the pot. Don’t forget that most of the people in the US who call themselves Irish-American are in fact descended from the Scotch-Irish, ie the protestant settlers to Ulster from Scotland whose descendants today vehemently reject the notion they are Irish, whooosh, it gets ever-more compliacted.

[Cronos]

You mean the Picts remained in the Scottish highlands. You are correct about the Scots coming from Ireland. One thing to note is that before the Danes came in the 8th century there were actually FOUR nations I.e. Ethnic groups in what is now Scotland: you had the picts in the highlands, you had Britons(related to the Welsh ) in Alt Cluith the area around Glasgow that is strathylclyde, you had Angles in the southern lowlands and you had Scots between the first and the latter two. To make it more confusing the angles spoke a version of west Germanic that became Scotch ehule is a separate language from English and quite different from thehighlanders Gaelic

[the scotsman]

Cronos has written exactly what I, as a Scot, was about to.

The only thing I would add is that whilst Celts from Ireland came across about 500AD and settled in the SW and W Highlands, the people we know as the Scotti/Scots, recent study has shown that the widely believed mass migration didn’t happen, and that most Celts in the area were already there, King Fergus and his Scotti/Scots came over in far less numbers than most people think.

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

http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/ewancampbell/

http://senchus.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/scottish-origins-myths-and-misconceptions/

http://irishtribesman.blogspot.co.uk/2005/04/scots-did-not-come-from-ireland.html

http://www.newsnetscotland.scot/index.php/arts-and-culture/3206-a-new-history-of-scotland-part-3-were-the-scots-irish.html