I was at a party and someone told me a story about one of the worst maritime disasters in the history of Scotland. It’s not a particularly famous disaster, but the consequences still reverberate today. Deafeningly, in fact.
In December 1918, the Iolaire was carrying men back from the first world war when it foundered on rocks off Stornoway harbour. Over 200 were drowned, most of them men from the Hebridean isles of Harris and Lewis, and at the time it was the worst maritime disaster since the sinking of the Titanic.
Among the inhabitants of the Isle of Lewis was a young, Gaelic-speaking woman named Màiri Anna Nic Leòid (Mary Anne MacLeod), who grew up to realise that the shortage of young men meant that finding a husband would be almost impossible.
And so, when she turned 18, Mary Anne emigrated to the US. She arrived in New York with $50 in her pocket, became a servant, a nanny, and eventually married a socialite property developer. His name was Fred Trump. They had five children. She named one of her sons Donald.
Which makes it an unavoidable fact that Trump is half-Scottish. It causes agony among Scots when you point this out. OK, so he’s genetically Scottish perhaps, they say, but not culturally. People are desperate to play down the association. Aside from his grim politics, most Scots reckon he’s a phoney, just another rich American businessman who only ever talks about his European heritage when it suits his bank balance. And really, his interest in Scotland doesn’t go any further than golf. Trump already owns Turnberry, which he renamed “Trump Turnberry”, as well as a course up in Aberdeenshire. Now he wants to build another golf course nearby, news that has been met with eyerolls by Scots. Trump seems to regard this country as one big golfing playground.
There is also the question of how he got his hands on the land for this new golf course, as well as how much ecological harm his new plans will cause. Trump has already destroyed one local dune system with his first Aberdeenshire golf course. Scottish National Heritage is now worried he’s going to ruin another.
When Trump visited Aberdeen last year and announced that it was “great to be home”, it caused Scots to flinch with shock. Trump? Home? Here? But if Trump really did feel his Scottish heritage and if he really did love the place, he might tread a little lighter. Instead, he has steamrolled all the planning and environmental concerns, and disregarded all local objections. His heart is really in the money.
If you watch Trump on the US campaign trail, the Scottish identity is nowhere to be seen. Much of the “America First” rhetoric he spouts would actually hurt his supposedly beloved homeland – there’d be higher tariffs on imports, for instance. US protectionism won’t do much good for exports of Scotch whisky.
So, Trump is Scottish only when it works in his favour. But Trump being Scottish doesn’t work in Scotland’s favour. Instead, beautiful coastal ecosystems are destroyed and the national culture is reduced to little more than a marketing ploy.
We are all amalgamations of different places and people – having a claim to multiple cultures isn’t unusual. But then Trump has questioned Kamala Harris over her heritage, just as he once tried to shed doubt on Barack Obama’s US citizenship. Perhaps he hasn’t realised that Scotland is not another US state. Or perhaps he doesn’t care. But what is clear is that the Scottish don’t care for him.
Abigail King is a student writer based in Edinburgh
