Seventy per cent of UK citizens in the land voted Yes to independence, they left the UK, got a government of their own, and local officials transferred their allegiance to the new state. But you can still take an express train across the UK border to the capital of the independent nation without a passport.

For years afterwards – even today – the acronyms of Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V adhere to the postboxes. “Royal” still adorns the name of the local automobile club, the yacht clubs, even one of the country’s finest hotels, and “Honi soit qui mal y pense” remains on top of many government buildings and courts.

So don’t sweat about the Scottish independence vote. It’s all been done before – in 1919, and in the following three years. True, the postboxes are now coloured green. its citizens carry an EU passport with a golden harp on the front and they use the euro, but Ireland’s towns and cities look a bit like Britain in the 1930s. Spared the Luftwaffe’s urban renewal programme by its neutrality in the Second World War, the Republic of Ireland – for it only shrugged off the Commonwealth in 1949 – boasts thousands of English Georgian houses, complete with 18th-century fanlights and streets named after Palmerston, Wellington, Victoria and a few miscreants like Wolfe Tone, Padraig Pearse and James Connolly.

In other words, there is life after independence from the UK. The day the British left in 1922, the Union flag came down, the Irish Tricolour was hoisted over Dublin Castle – seat of their Britannic Majesties for hundreds of years – a UK Governor General (who was of course Irish) took his seat, and anyone lucky enough to receive mains electricity could turn the switch by the dining room door – and the lights came on, just as they always did.

Scottish Independence: For and against Show all 24 1 /24 Scottish Independence: For and against Scottish Independence: For and against Vivienne Westwood YES: “I hate England. I like Scotland because somehow I think they are better than we are. They are more democratic.” Getty Scottish Independence: For and against Bob Geldof NO: "This argument needs to be had among us all, you can't selfishly resolve it amongst yourselves by taking an easy opt-out clause." Getty Scottish Independence: For and against Leonard Cohen UNDECIDED: “People are trying to make their lives significant,” he said. “[They] are engaged in a struggle for self-respect and significance.” Getty Scottish Independence: For and against James McAvoy UNDECIDED: “If you vote for continued unification or independence there is no protest vote – that’s it. And that could be it for decades, for centuries. There’s no going back from it." Getty Scottish Independence: For and against Bill Clinton NO: “Unity with maximum self-determination sends a powerful message to a world torn by identity conflicts that it is possible to respect our differences while living and working together. This is the great challenge of our time. The Scots can show us how to meet it.” Getty Scottish Independence: For and against George Galloway NO: “There will be havoc if you vote Yes in September. Havoc in Edinburgh and throughout the land and you will break the hearts of many others too… I know which side I’m on. I’m with JK Rowling. Just say No.” Getty Scottish Independence: For and against David Beckham NO: “We want to let you know how very much we value our relationship and friendship. Of course regardless of your decision that will never change, however, my sincere hope is that you will vote to renew our historic bond which has been such a success over the centuries and the envy of the entire world. What unites us is much greater than what divides us. Let's stay together.” Getty Scottish Independence: For and against David Bowie NO: "Scotland stay with us" Rex Features Scottish Independence: For and against Eddie Izzard NO: "You can be Scottish, you can be British and you can be European. We can have that. “I say have the parliament, have the more power, but be with us. Like David Bowie said, ‘Stay with us Scotland’ and I’m saying the same – don’t go." Getty Scottish Independence: For and against Frankie Boyle YES: "It’s an ‘aye’ (for Independence) from me, man." Association of Online Publishers Scottish Independence: For and against Andy Murray NO: "I started competing for Great Britain when I was 11. A lot of people forget that. I didn't like it when Salmond got the Scottish flag up at Wimbledon" GETTY IMAGES Scottish Independence: For and against The Proclaimers YES: 'Scotland has huge national resources, with its people, its wave power – all the possibilities that this country has...we need to take charge of our own affairs' Gary Calton Scottish Independence: For and against Susan Boyle NO: "I am a proud, patriotic Scot, passionate about my heritage and my country. But I am not a nationalist." Rex Features Scottish Independence: For and against Chris Hoy NO: "It will weaken the British team obviously if Scotland went separately, and it would be harder for the Scottish athletes, initially, to establish themselves in a new training environment, with new coaches, with a different environment altogether." Scottish Independence: For and against Alex Ferguson NO: "Eight-hundred-thousand Scots, like me, live and work in other parts of the United Kingdom. We don't live in a foreign country; we are just in another part of the family of the UK" Getty Images Scottish Independence: For and against Alan Cumming YES: "The evidence is clear - in the past 15 years we have become stronger economically, socially, culturally and globally. The world is waiting for us and I know Scotland is ready." Kalpesh Lathigra Scottish Independence: For and against Emma Thompson NO: "Why insist on building a new border between human beings in an ever-shrinking world where we are still struggling to live alongside each other?" Carlo Allegri, Reuters Scottish Independence: For and against Billy Bragg YES: Independence would "create a new settlement that puts people before profit. Those in England who believe that our own society needs to be rebalanced along similar lines should wake up and join the debate" Getty Images Scottish Independence: For and against Marcus Brigstocke NO: "If Scotland go their own way (based on fingers crossed, f**k the Tories, William Wallace bollocks it'll be a damn shame. Still wish 'em well" Scottish Independence: For and against Rod Stewart NO: "I'd hate to see the union broken after all these years. It's always been a spiritual home - but as I don't live there I shouldn't comment on independence. If it's good for the Scots I'm happy." PA Scottish Independence: For and against Sean Connery YES: "As a Scot and as someone with a lifelong love for both Scotland and the arts, I believe the opportunity of independence is too good to miss" Rex Features Scottish Independence: For and against Al Kennedy NO: "Salmond has the warm potato head of a man who is Scottish and – we hope – no threat" Rex Features Scottish Independence: For and against Annie Lennox YES: "There is an opportunity for something innovative and visionary. Scotland could have some kind of new, ethical, visionary stance and it could take on some fresh ideas. That could be amazing, really amazing." Getty Images Scottish Independence: For and against Morrissey YES: "They must cut ties with the United King-dumb. I love Scotland, and I love the Scottish spirit and they do not need Westminster in the least." Getty Images

Dublin had for more than 100 years been the UK’s second city, the jewel in the crown of the nation which ran an empire, and many visiting Englishmen were surprised to find that the Irish spoke English. In fact, like the Scots, they often spoke it rather better than the English. After independence, there was much economic hardship. Old age pensions were reduced. But the Irish “punt” was pegged to sterling, and remained so until in 1979 a dodgy Taoiseach – literally “chieftain”, a title for prime minister adopted, let us remember, in the age of fascism – “unpegged” it and Sterling moved a few pence higher in value.

Although the four great Irish regiments which fought so loyally in British uniforms in the Great War were disbanded, their colours were returned to the King in case Ireland returned to the Motherland. Some hope! The three great Royal Navy Treaty ports in newly independent Ireland stayed in British hands for another 16 years. But we handed them over to the Irish in 1938, thus losing them when we needed them most – in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Of course, there are some bleak differences between Ireland then and Scotland now. The Irish had fought for their independence in 1916 and been mightily and brutally crushed by the British army. Then they bravely fought the British all over again. Ireland’s 800-year history of English occupation puts Scotland’s misery into the shade. We won’t mention the Troubles.

Alex Salmond and the nationalists reject claims that Scotland's economy would suffer if the UK broke up (EPA)

But in Ireland, there was a place put aside for those 30 per cent who voted No – or would have done, if they hadn’t been square-bashing to fight both the Catholics and the British army. The Protestants were allowed to keep six of the nine counties in the north-east province of Ulster, and Belfast became their capital and industrial heart, the Protestants proclaiming their British citizenship with even more enthusiasm than the English.

In other words, the Catholic nationalists got Dublin, the Protestants Belfast. In Scottish terms, it was as if the Yes voters were to receive Edinburgh as their capital, but the Noes given Glasgow as a consolation prize with a few of the lowlands still in UK territory to keep them happy. Shipyards, courage and desolation mean that Glasgow and Belfast have a lot in common. But there, the parallels end.

The Protestant-Catholic struggle which divided Ireland (though not as much as the British think) has little or no role in the Scottish independence debate, save perhaps for the historical memory that Scots Protestant planters displaced Catholics in 17th-century Ireland. The Irish Yes voters – those 70 per cent who elected Sinn Fein to parliament in 1919 and set up the initially illegal Dail Eireann (Irish parliament) – broke apart in civil war before the British had even left the country.

But Scots beware… Irish nationalists fought each other not so much because of the border, which deprived them of six of the 32 counties of Ireland, but over the Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch. Those Irishmen who signed the initial treaty (Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith and the rest) insisted it would lead to sovereign independence, while those republicans who regarded the agreement as a betrayal thought it left Ireland effectively in British hands. De Valera notionally led this opposition – which lost the civil war – boycotted the initial years of the Irish parliament, then entered parliament as prime minister after a democratic vote – but without signing the oath. The Irish thus claimed they were independent when they were not, while the British could insist the Irish were still British at heart.

Irish Republican Army officers in May 1922 (Getty Images)

Another danger signal for the Scots. In 1932, De Valera decided Ireland would no longer pay debts to the UK government for loans given to tenant farmers when the country was part of the UK. The British introduced trade restrictions which bankrupted farmers and businessmen in Ireland. De Valera survived. Like Collins, he had fought in the 1916 rising, received a death sentence – later commuted – risked death on the losing side in the civil war, declined to fight for the Allies in the Second World War, yet saw his country triumphantly – if belatedly – join the UN. De Valera, as the great Constantine Fitzgibbon wrote, is one of the great survivors of the 20th century. And Alex Salmond is no De Valera.

But if it’s a Yes in Scotland, life will go on. There’s a crack train from Belfast Central to Dublin Connelly several times a day, so the Flying Scotsman will go on racing down from Edinburgh Waverley to King’s Cross without stopping at the border. These days, on the front of our passports, it says: “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. Note the “and” – because no one has ever decided whether Northern Ireland is really in the UK, a UK-protected “country” or a province. But it’s British. We think.