Echoes of Irish history as Scottish independence faces being derailed by bitter personal conflict

Sometimes the tide of history turns on the fate of one individual and that person's tangled personal relations. Nicola Sturgeon's future, and that of Scotland's independence, is still in the balance. We will know an awful lot more in little over five weeks' time - when the people of Scotland vote in elections for their devolved parliament in Edinburgh on Thursday, May 6. The outcome of that vote - and to a lesser extent a similar vote in Wales - will have huge implications for Ireland, north and south, where the future of partition is being debated.