Page:The dialect of the southern counties of Scotland - Murray - 1873.djvu/15



§ 1. words Scot and Scottish have passed through important revolutions in signification since they first appeared in history. Originally applied to inhabitants of the country now called Ireland, they included in the eighth century, and for some centuries previous, a portion of the inhabitants of North Britain, to whom all accounts concur in ascribing an Irish origin, and whose territory lay along the west coast of Alban, beyond the Firth of Clyde. At that period the terms Scot and Scottish Rh