Brian Lee, you out there? You might have a word or two on this subject. 
Tom
Wikipedia (sorry 
):
“Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon,[1] Englisc by its speakers) is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and southern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century.”
Eduard Sievers, An Old English Grammar, emphasis added:
“The OE Writers uniformly call their own language Englisc […]
Northumbrian and Mercian together form the Anglian group [of dialects]”
From these two quotes we learn that English was spoken in both England and Scotland, because the “English” people, when they invaded Britain settled, that far north.
Scots Online: http://www.scots-online.org/grammar/whits.htm
"…south east Scotland was part of a Northumbrian kingdom based on the Lothians. These people were the descendants of the Angles who had settled in the north of England. […] This language called Inglis was spoken between the river Humber in the south and the river Forth in the north. By 500 A.D. a tribe of people from Northern Ireland called the Scoti had began to settle in Argyle. […] It wasn’t long after 970 A.D. that the Northumbrian kingdom also became part of the kingdom of Alba [the Gaelic kingdom], creating the borders of modern Scotland that have hardly changed since.
One of the conditions to the annexation of the Northumbrian kingdom was that the Northumbrians were allowed to use their own language and laws. Scotland’s political centre of gravity moved from the west Highlands into Central Scotland. Soon a situation had emerged where the Royal household was only Scots in name. They too were speaking Inglis. At this time Inglis speakers called Gaelic Scotis."
And to make a long story short, this “Inglis”, due to its preeminence, eventually took over the name “Scottis” and became what we today call “Scots”, parallel to the development of English from the southern dialects of OE (which is why we call Scottish Gaelic “Gaelic”, not “Scottish”). But its roots, unlike that of the northern language, are Germanic, not Celtic. Before Alba, lowland Scots would not call themselves “Scottish”, but “English” or “Northumbrian”; the Scots were foreign invaders from Ireland, just like the English had been centuries before. In the same way Cubans don’t call themselves “Mexicans”- but if Mexico took over Cuba (who knows 
), in a hundred, two hudnred, three hundred years Cubans jsut might call themselves “Mexican”, and there’d be nothing wrong with that.
So there you go, hope that helped 
And sorry for the confusion; I was using Scot in the modern sense of “person who lives in Scotland”. And actually, on the word Scot being used in OE in the sense of “foreigner” (I didn’t mean that it meant foreigner, I meant that it was used in that sense, because the Irish were foreign to the Anglo-Saxons), I acutally don’t remember where I got that, so I’ll take that back for now 
I do know that the word “welsh” comes from the OE word for foreigner, wealh.
I play ITM because I like it; not a drop of Irish or Scotch, that I’m aware of, unless I’ve been drinking. Of course, there will be narrow minded people in every culture; if I was faking an accent and trying to pretend I was Irish, that’d be something different. But I don’t pretend to be anything I’m not; it is, for me, all about the music. If my Americanism shows through the music, somehow, so be it.
For me it is the other way around, no connection to Ireland at all. The only time I have been there was then I picked up my set of pipes.
But as my ancestors very efficiently spread their gene pool while ravaging and plundering the costs of Ireland and the British isles
I feel there is a strong enough bond for me to play and listen to ITM 
/MarcusR
No, the reality is much more complex. The Scottish lowlands were a crucible
of clashing cultures - Scot’s, Strathclyde Britons, Picts and Angles. Cumbric
(the Brythonic tongue of the Britons) was spoken in Strathclyde into the 11th
century, and Gaelic was spoken in Galloway into the 17th century and into to
the 20th century along the borders of the lowlands that creep up the East
coast beyond Aberdeen. The Anglian speech of the Northumbrians did
eventually displace the Celtic languages in the lowlands but the people
speaking it were not Angles - they were a Celtic/Germanic hybrid. Check
out detailed maps of the lowlands and you’ll see hundreds of place names
derived from Gaelic, Cumbric, Pictish and Scots (derived from the Germanic
Angles).
Then there’s the debate on just what sort of language Pictish was.
I tend to accept the evidence which points to Pictish being a P-Celtic or Brythonic language. So, Brythonic languages would have been widespread across Scotland until the introduction of Q-Celtic and Old English from the West and South.
I haven’t got a stitch of Irish in me. I’m more a product of my environment. My girlfriend is from Clare, I live in Boston, where there is a ton of Irish culture around, and I just love the music, and the beer, and the country, and the Irish chicks!
I still have my green card although it expired long ago. Anyone else here go to Saint Flannans College in Ennis in the late seventies?
A few of you hit the head on the nail.
It doesn’t matter if a person is irish or not.
You love irish music, you feel irish music. The reason alot of people outside Ireland plays the music is because it “speaks” to us.
As far as i know, i have no connection to Ireland whatsoever. But i grew up with a father who listened to alot of instrumental music, and from that grew my own love to expressing feelings through instruments. And it’s that last part the irish music is great at, from the sadness of a good slow air to the joyfulness of a fast dancing tune.
I’m not sure.. might have been… don’t really recall… it was the seventies…
I don’t think it would be something one wouldn’t be able to recall, no matter what might be in ones bio systems at the time, particularly Honors English Class
I spoke with my father a few weeks ago, he is in his mid seventies. He corrected me , I went to St. Flanaghans , not Flannans. He is more than 30 yrs. older than me with a much better memmory.
Yer probably right; I recall taking my Literature classes in a small New England college at the time… Not too many chemicals floating about, actually; it’s just that the seventies were so very long ago. ..
A life time ago…