IRISH Republicans once talked of winning their struggle with a ballot box in one hand and an Armalite in the other.

Their ally ETA summed up their similar effort to use both politics and violence to achieve a Basque homeland in a perhaps more poetic symbol, a snake wrapped round an axe.

As Northern Ireland's paramilitaries have moved slowly to democracy, so too have followed Basque militants. But - gradually - it is no longer Ireland that is the inspiration for both ETA and others who dream of a Basque state. It is Scotland.

Last month's vote may have failed to deliver independence for Scotland. But it delivered hope - and a vital propaganda tool - for self-determination movements across Europe and beyond. If the British state, the logic goes, can allow a referendum on its own demise, then why not Spain? Or Russia? Or Burma?

ETA, according to Spanish press reports, is now advocating a Scottish-style independence referendum. "There is an ever-wider alliance behind the right to decide," the group, still officially regarded as terrorists in London and Madrid, said in a rare public pronouncement just as Yessers here licked their wounds.

Right to decide. Those are crucial words in Iberia. They are used too by Catalans - independentistas or not - who believe their nation should have a say on whether it remains part of Spain. Political and judicial authorities in Madrid want to block a referendum scheduled for November 9. Cue, potentially, constitutional stalemate.

Catalan nationalists - left and right - love to laud David Cameron, the real pin-up of European separatism, the unionist, after all, who allowed a vote.

They know a good PR coup when they see one. If you want to bug Mariano Rajoy, Spain's ultraunionist conservative prime minister, then compare his democratic credentials with Mr Cameron's. Basques too praise UK Tories. But long-standing links with Northern Ireland mean they don't quite buy the "British fair play" rhetoric heard in Barcelona. ETA shared tactics and even safe houses with the IRA. It also shared horror stories. ETA's political wing, Batasuna, developed close ties with Sinn Fein. One legacy of that relationship: a deep scepticism among many Basque radicals about the way the British state conducts itself.

EH Bildu, the alliance of left parties that supports independence and contains some who can trace their political roots to the banned Batasuna, now have their eyes firmly on Scotland. Like the ruling conservative pro-autonomy PNV, they sent delegates to watch our referendum. Basque sources stress their interests are now Scottish, not Irish. "It used to be Basques went to Belfast," said one. "Now it's Edinburgh. The place is full of us."

But I think Ireland still poses a warning from history for the Basque country: partition. A future referendum may only occur in Euskadi, the existing autonomous Basque region, not the wider Euskal Herria. Sometimes it's not so much Who has the right to decide that matters but Where has the right to decide. Let's not forget that Scotland, with its centuries-old and clearly defined border, had it lucky both geographically as well as democratically.