This article explores aspects of identity which underlie compositional processes in James MacMillan's music. This is not intended as a critical discourse on identity as such, since this highly contested area is subject to ‘extensive and intensive controversy about how identity should be conceptualised in the wake of various anti-foundational critiques to which it has been subject’. Since in the course of this article I will use the essential concepts of ‘Scottish identity’ and ‘Catholic identity’ in particular as points of reference, it is necessary to show on what basis these terms have been conceived in relation to MacMillan.