Irish Examiner view: Lament for the best kind of nationalist

Scotland's former first minister Alex Salmond's nationalism was, he said, rooted in 'tales of Burns and Wallace'

Alex Salmond, from Linlithgow in West Lothian, led the SNP to power in Holyrood in 2007 and ran a tightly organised minority administration for four years before inflicting a defeat on Labour in 2011.

It’s only in recent years that the term “nationalist” has come to be used as an insult and as a cypher for extreme or unsound political views, frequently with a racist tinge.

But it’s not a description that would have been recognised by Alex Salmond, Scotland’s former first minister, who died unexpectedly last weekend at the age of 69 after giving a speech in North Macedonia.