​Celebrating our Irish connections - Angus Robertson

​Families came from across the capital and from further afield to enjoy Irish dancing, Gaelic Football, musical sessions, Irish language taster classes, Irish genealogy and more, with my two daughters also particularly keen on the face painting and bouncy castle.

Big thanks go out to Scotland GAA, Conradh na Gaeilge, Dunedin Connolly GAA, Little Ireland Arts Collective and the Edinburgh Irish Dance Academy.

Ireland, like Scotland, has a vibrant diaspora and we are very lucky to have so many Irish people and their descendants living in this country. They make a tremendous contribution to Scotland’s national life.

Throughout the year there are events to mark the national days and cultural high points of different nationalities that call Scotland home. What is particularly positive is the number of people who attend these events are not directly connected with the country in question. This positive attitude has been highlighted in a new report by Migration Policy Scotland, which included attitudes survey findings by the Mark Diffley Partnership.

These showed that the impacts of immigration are seen as positive by the majority of people in Scotland and a greater proportion of the Scottish public want immigration to be increased rather than decreased, and people in Scotland have a strong preference for labour migrants to have the option to remain in Scotland for the longer term “to settle and integrate” (66 per cent.