THE RACES OF GREAT BRITAIN.

 MR. GLADSTONE having said that there are "within the compass of the United Kingdom no less than four nationalities," John Lubbock in the London Times of March 19th, proceeds to divide up the country according to blood. As regards South Britain, he says, it will be generally admitted that, omitting the question of pre-Celtic races, Wales and Cornwall are predominantly Celtic; that the south and east are predominantly Saxon, with a considerable Norman intermixture; that certain districts are mainly Scandinavian ; that one population is built up of three principal elements— Celtic, Saxon and Scandinavian.
In Ireland, the population of the east and north is mainly Saxon; in the northwest Celtic, while in the extreme southwest the basis is Iberian, akin to the population in parts of Spain. Very many of those who imagine themselves to be Celts, and the natural foes of the Sassenach, are descendants of English colonists, even in Munster and Connaught. The Parnells, Grays, Moores, Buries, Fitzgeralds, McMahons, Barrys, Butlers are Anglo-Norman.
To pass to North Britain. Here we are met at once by the curious fact that the Saxons were in Caledonia before the Scots. In fact the Scots were an Irish tribe. Ireland, says Bede, "Was the original country of the Scots." "Ibernia propria Scotorum est patria."  "Scotia was originally Ireland," said Bozius —" Scotia, quæ tum erat Ibernia." The Scotch came from Ireland, says Marianus, " Scotus de Ibernia insula natus." Ireland, says Chalmers in his great work, was "known at the end of the third century as the native country of the Scots, and in after ages by the name of Scotland; this appellation was afterwards transferred from Ireland to Scotland ;" and he asserts, as the result of all his inquiries, that no permanent settlement of the Scotch in Caledonia took place till towards the close of the sixth century.
In fact, down to the Middle Ages, if a person was called a Scot it was meant that he was born in Ireland. Mr. Bonwick says, "the real Scotia was Ireland, whose name got transferred to North Britain," and Mr. Taylor, in "Words and Places," remarks that "the Scots, this conquering Irish sept, which appears to have actually colonised only a part of Argyle, succeeded in bestowing its name on the whole country." Argyle is indeed the country of the Gael or Irishman. In the north of Scotland, the Orkneys and Shetlands, the population is mainly Scandinavian, Sutherland being so named is the southern portion of their territory. In the east and south the population is mainly Saxon. Edinburgh is a Saxon city, built by Edin, King of Northumbria, and called after him.
Of the great Scotch families, the Baliols are named from Bailluel or Beliol in Normandy, the Camerons from Cambronne, the Bruces: from Yorkshire, the Stewarts from Stropshire, the Hamiltons from Hambleton in Buckinghamshire; the Lindsays from Lindsay in Essex, the Sinclairs from St. Clair in Normandy, the Comyns from Comines in Flanders. Some even of the Highland clans are Teutonic. The Gordons, says MacLaughlan, the Frasers, the Chisholmns, etc., are without any trace of a connection with the Celts, and originally without doubt, of pure Teutonic blood. So are a the Macaulays, while the MacLaughlins, Kennedys, Macdonalds and Munroes are Irish, and the Elliotts, Frasers, Maxwells, Mathesons and Keiths English.
"The great heroes of Scottish history," says Bonwick, "Bruce and Wallace, were of English origin." The Lothians say Hume, were, "entirely peopled with Saxons."
Thus, then, in Scotland, as in England, the east is mainly Teutonic, the west mainly Celtic. If we are to be divided at all according to blood, the divisions would not be into England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The main division in Great Britain would not be from east to west, but from north to south; the Saxon division would include the greater portion of the east of England, the east of Ireland and Scotland; the Celtic division would comprise most of the west of Ireland and west of Scotland, with Wales and Cornwall;the Scandinavian the north of Scotland, several maritime districts on the east, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Pembroke, while the extreme southwest of Ireland would be Iberian. Indeed, so much intermingled are the different races that one of our highest authorities, Dr. Beddoe, after careful and prolonged study, says: "With respect to the distribution and commixture of race elements in the British Isles, we may safely assert that not one of them, whether Iberian, Gaelic, Cymrie, Saxon or Scandinavian, is peculiar to, or absent from, or anywhere predominant in any one of the three kingdoms."

Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW : 1876 - 1954), Monday 8 August 1887, page 2