Making notes on the coast of the Gaels

It may well be that the harp, emblem of Ireland, appeared first in Scotland, and that some form of pipes, icon of Scottishness, made their debut in Ireland. But what is certain is that the musics of both areas are a tangle of migrations, annexations, sharing and borrowing of territory, patronage, instruments and repertoire. And if, at the present time, Ireland enjoys a boom in not only appreciation of its native strains, but also in their marketability, so too does Scotland.

Scottish cultural links to Ireland begin in Argyll ("Earraghail", coastland of the Gaels) an area taking its name from the Irish who migrated from Co Antrim in the opening half of the first millennium. Trading links kept music exchange active, as did the movements of pipers and harpers between Irish and Scottish patrons up to the 18th century. The colonisation of Ulster, and later seasonal migration of workers continued this, with Donegal and Antrim "tatty hokers" and pit workers bringing Irish song out, and Scottish songs home.

Neilli Ni Dhomhnaill from Rannafast, Co Donegal, assembled a large repertoire from local emigres' gleanings, this becoming the commercial stock-in-trade of her niece Triona and nephew Micheal of The Bothy Band. Traveller families too travelled between Ireland and Scotland, a living song-transmission mechanism that involved such as the Stewart family of Blairgowrie in Perthshire, dear to the heart of Scottish music tradition.

Song collector Tom Munnelly of UCD and scholar Hugh Shields document Scottish influence on Irish song by the 18th century; researcher John Moulden believes that Ulster song is some 10 per cent Scottish in origin.

Collector Breandan Breathnach too demonstrated that a large chunk of the Irish tune hoard including our most popular tune type, the reel itself began in Scotland.

Nevertheless, since musics are not just about what one does, but how one does it, Scottish and Irish musics remain quite different. Yet the Scottish music has been influential in the mid-1900s too, when Scottish ceili bandsman Jimmy Shand was popular all over Ireland. And the interest is mutual, with a regular traffic of noted Scottish performers to these shores: Isle of Lewis Gaelic singer Mary Smith, pipers Allan MacDonald and Fred Morrisson, harpers Alison Kinnaird, Patsy Seddon and Mary MacMaster, singer Dick Gaughan.

Many Irish musicians are currently in Scottish bands, notably The Boys of the Lough built around Fermanagh-born Cathal McConnell and Shetlander Aly Bain. And the huge annual Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow has been highlighting the top Irish and Scottish performers for the last three years, becoming something of an international social networking point for both musics. Educationally, Scotland leads us, with a Scottish Music BA running for four years now at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama at Glasgow (until DIT, Dublin, offered it this year we have had no such facility for Irish music). Many other colleges offer certificate and community-based courses, with the Piping Centre in Glasgow focusing on both further education and performance. With the exception of Na Piobairi Uilleann in Dublin perhaps, we have neither got an equivalent of the latter, nor of Balnain House, a year-round concert, information and exhibition facility in Inverness.

The Feisean na nGaidheal movement (like Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann in Ireland) provides teaching and competition for mostly children, the National Mod structure (like our Oireachtas) covers Gaelic language activity, there is a College of Piping, too, and scores of dedicated bodies such as Lowlands and Border Pipers', Piobaireachd and Clarsach societies. Some 80 per cent of this goes on outside the Highland region, and it produces 30 festivals annually, these attended by 80,000 people.

LIKE the competition involvement of 3,500 in 1998, this figure falls short of Irish festival and fleadh statistics, and with the fact that Scotland has no equivalent of Ireland's state-financed Traditional Music Archive, suggests that it is some way behind us.

Yet Scottish devolution has added tremendous impetus to the restoration drive, and if facility-to-musician ratios are higher in Scotland, its emphasis on performance tuition and education promises great numbers of players and educated listeners within the decade.

Faith in this is demonstrated by the 1999 Scottish Arts Council report, Traditional Music in Scotland, a professional and thorough document which makes our own unrepresentative, 1999 All-Party report look like a night-before, National School project.

Traditional music in Scotland is being seen as not only of national cultural value, but also as an economic growth area meriting investment. Those involved in its promotion have an optimistic energy which seeks out and taps every conceivable European and local revenue resource.

When the dust settles however, it is down to the plain people - the playing, concertgoing, record-buying punters - an area which in Ireland remains a model to Scottish culture workers.

But with Scottish music's expanding its remit to the environment of the Popularethos, "Celtic" music market in Europe, the US and Japan, there emerges - possibly for the first time in a millennium and a half of mutual exchange - the awareness of competition for minds and resources between Scottish and Irish music emissaries.