Traditionally in Scotland the immigrant Irish, second and third-generation Irish-Scots and Scottish-born Roman Catholic communities were wary of Scottish Nationalism or at least Scottish Nationalism as it manifested itself amongst some individuals in the mid- and late 20th century. Before that time, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Irish and Scottish Nationalists formed close bonds based upon a shared inheritance of language and culture. The Gaelic Revival in Ireland spurred a similar, if lesser, revival in Scotland with a renewed interest in the nation’s indigenous tongue and an associated political resurgence by those who favoured independence. However in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s those ancient ties of Gaelic kinship were rejected by many Scots who looked to a Lowland, Anglophone and distinctly Protestant sense of national identity. Out of conviction or electoral temptation some politicians and activists in the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) cultivated that stream of militant Protestantism and for a time found it a powerful (if turbulent) force that delivered both supporters and votes, especially at a local level.
In contrast the pro-Union Labour Party in Scotland (and to a lesser extent the Conservative Party) frequently posed as an opponent of sectarianism and faith-based politics and in places like Glasgow it actively wooed the “Irish vote” in order to sustain its local hegemony. However over the last two decades the SNP has made a conscious effort to disassociate itself from any form of sectarian politics, becoming increasingly secular and open to all faiths. Under Alex Salmond in particular the remnants of the anti-Catholic or anti-Irish fringe of the party have largely (but not entirely) been pared away.
Conversely as the Labour Party has found its vote eroding under the SNP onslaught it has increasingly reached into the anti-Catholic and anti-Irish feeling that pervades some of the pro-Union electorate (matched by the actions of their Tory rivals). In former Labour heartlands north of the border the Labour Party has gone to great efforts to curry favour with sectarian organisations like the Orange Order and other “Kick-The-Pope” groupings. Party members with dubious views on Ireland and the Irish now turn up in Labour ranks in far greater numbers and are quite happy to express these biased impressions.
From the Huffington Post:
“A top Scottish lawyer has sparked outrage after posting on Twitter that it would be better for Scotland if the Tories were in power for 100 years than “the turn on the Poles and the Pakis that would follow independence failing to deliver.”
Ian Smart, who is the former president of the Law Society in Scotland and a member of the Labour party, became embroiled in a race row after saying that Scotland would turn on Polish and Pakistani immigrants if independence didn’t fulfil nationalist expectations.”
In an effort to explain himself Smart wrote on his personal blog:
“Throughout I have attempted to make the simple point that the part (and it is only a part) of the nationalists’ support that currently blame the English for all our woes, would, inevitably, on finding that Independence is not a cure for all our ills, look round for somebody else to blame.
All historic precedent suggests that will be an internal minority as it was, to a greater or lesser degree of seriousness, for the Jews and Gypsies in Hungary; for the Anglo-Irish in de Valera’s Ireland…”
Really? The Anglo-Irish class was subject to the same legal and social discrimination and violence in independent Ireland as the Jews were in fascistic Hungary during the 1930s?
But then his “peculiar” views on Ireland are not exactly without precedent:
“For, for all the faults of Imperial Britain, who in the period 1920 to 1980 would not have preferred to live here than in “free” Ireland? It is a cheap shot to choose the experience of the struggle against Nazism when Ireland sat matters out on the principle that “England’s enemy was Ireland’s friend”.”
So Ireland’s neutrality during World War II was because the Irish were “friends” of Nazi Germany? Does that apply to the other hundred odd nations around the globe that sat out WWII as neutral states or is the vitriol only reserved for Ireland? Of course he seems to be of the view that some SNP members during this period were effectively closet Nazi-sympathisers too.
“It is readily remembered that De Valera infamously signed the book of condolence at the German Embassy following the death of Hitler. Such had the doctrine that “England’s enemy is my friend” become distorted. It is more readily forgotten (indeed when I referred to it once on Twitter it was clear many in the modern SNP had no idea what I was talking about) that during that epic struggle to defeat Nazism, much of the leadership of the SNP took a similar view. Not that they were Nazis themselves, but that such was their tunnel vision commitment to the “cause of Scotland” that even the defeat of Hitler was to take second place.”
Or how about this piece of anti-Gaelic invective (playing nicely to the Anglophone bigots):
“A National Broadcaster where you only see what Alex Salmond wants, and even then only if he can afford it. A National Cultural policy that in its promotion of Scottish literature and music makes De Valera’s Ireland look like Renaissance Florence. A massive brain drain as any young person of ambition, having escaped compulsory Gaelic in every school, will still have the portable skill of speaking English, at least for the moment, and will, if they’ve any sense, leave the Country at the earliest opportunity. After all, that’s precisely what happened in Ireland.”
Yes, because Scottish school children speaking the indigenous language of the nation they are born into would be a terrible thing, wouldn’t it? They might actually begin to believe that they are not British.
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
Couldn’t disagree more about anti-Irishness in the SNP. I’ve never seen any evidence of it, right back to Winnie Ewings many meetings with Dev, and how fondly she speaks of the Irish politicians she worked with at the European Parliament. Labour has for years hypocritically appealed to both the Orange Order Rangers fans as well as the Catholic Church. I’ve often heard it said Labour campaigners in Glasgow would take a blue and a green scarf out campaigning and switch about depending what area they were leafleting. Either way I remain completely unaware of any ‘sympathy’ for militant Protestantism or antipathy for Catholics and quite frankly having lived among Protestant Glaswegians most of my life I can’t see how it would have done us any good. They remain firmly committed to Brutishness to the extent that during the flag protests recently there was 150odd Rangers nut outside Glasgow City Chambers protesting in solidarity with the Unionist Anti-Democrats of the North of your great nation.
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Personally I have never experienced anything untoward in Scottish nationalist circles (though I admit that could be the Gaelic environment I move in which tends to have a certain level of comradeliness about it). I have had several things said online by SNP supporters that were vaguely hostile in tone (though again that was more to do with their hatred of Gaelic, or as some said “Erse”, than anything else. There was one guy that took umbrage at an “Irish Papist” having an opinion on Scottish affairs but he was very much unrepresentative).
I have heard talk from an older generation of Irish Nationalists/Republicans about a certain chill when meeting some counterparts in Scotland but that was very much from the 1960s to early ’80s and was rare enough by all accounts (and no doubt effected by events in the north-east of Ireland, which is understandable enough). I think the policy by the (Provisional) Irish Republican Army forbidding military operations in Scotland despite the length of the conflict and the actions of some Scottish-based regiments (one unit in particular) speaks volumes about Irish-Scottish relations.
As I hoped I indicated in the post the SNP’s flirting with anti-Catholicism was very much of its time, was confined to a tiny and largely unrepresentative minority and was by no means party policy or even favourably looked upon. Maybe I should have made that clearer? I might rewrite that part based on the points made by yourself and others.
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I just hope a recently retired well known Labour supporter from Govan doesn’t spend to much time campaigning for a No vote in the referendum. Alex should put his feet up and enjoy his retirement.
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Agreed! 😉
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Labour would canvass in the catholic areas, calling the SNP the “Scottish National Protestants”, in the protestant areas, Labour would canvass calling the SNP the “Scottish National Papists”. This worked well until their donation to the Orange Lodge for a party to celebrate the queens jubilee. And also promising to relax laws on orange marches.
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True. I think we have all heard similar stories and certainly the anti-Catholic sentiment of a small and unrepresentative minority in the SNP during the 1950s to 1980s was grossly exaggerated by Labour (and the Tories) for their own electoral purposes.
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I have nothing against Scottish school children learning Gaelic, as it clearly became one of the indigenous languages of that country after it was introduced by Irish migrants in the 5th Century, migrants who gave their name to the country . However, I would query that it is THE indigenous language of Scotland : Pictish, Cymric (the ancestor of Welsh), Anglian (the ancestor of Lowland Scots) surely must have equal claims to being indigenous languages, as well as the languages which probably preceded them.
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Ah, but what if Scottish Gaelic was not brought to Scotland by Irish migrants in the 400s/500s AD? What if in fact it was entirely indigenous to Scotland as part of an Arc of Gaelicness stretching from the southern tip of Ireland to western Scotland, with a thousand years and more of history behind it?
That is the new and increasingly popular belief in academic circles. That Ireland and Scotland formed a continuous Gaelic zone in terms of language, culture and society. In that sense the Scottish Gaelic language, or simply the Scottish language, is THE indigenous language of Scotland.
Pictish (which seems to have been Goidelic with a Brythonic overlay) has unfortunately been lost to us as has the British/Welsh tongue of Scotland. English came to Scotland much, much later than any Celtic tongue. Indeed under the “Celtic from the West” theory the Celtic tongues may well have emerged in situ along the western seaboard of Europe, developing amongst the Neolithic or Bronze Age communities there from an Indo-European dialect (or dialects). There was no Celtic invasion of the island of Britain, or Irish invasion of northern Britain, as such. Celtic-speakers were native to both after the second millennium BC and from them evolved the distinct Q-Celtic speakers of Ireland and Britain (and the same thing happened with the Q-Celtic speakers in the Iberian peninsula). The later Celtic dialect, P-Celtic, developed on Continental Europe and filtered back westward and northward, eventually becoming the Brythonic-speakers of the island of Britain and Gaulish-speakers of mainland Europe.
Of course that does not mean a lesser status for Scots English or Scots. Quite the contrary. It is a distinct language and deserves it place – and support.
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It’s a sign of Labours desperation to embrace the Orange Order and anyone else who will listen to their deceit with regard to Scottish Independence. The Labour Party in Scotland are merely a branch of The Labour Party and consequently will obey orders from London to preserve the British state at all costs.
Therefore they have and will continue to wrongly accuse the SNP of everything from racism to gods knows what. Wouldn’t surprise me if they blamed them for JKF’s assassination.
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its the usual london rule at any costs anxiety kicking in like expected same old divide et impera practiced by the anglo-normna elites willing to leave behind a legacy of hatred for others to deal with……………
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i meant norman not normna
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I read somewhere that up to the 1980s the majority of privately owned land in England was still in the hands of people who could trace their roots to Norman-French immigrants/invaders. That says it all.
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Very true.
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Is this the same Ian Smart who was in the grouping inside the Labour Party called “Scottish Labour Action” back in the 1980s.
The same group that fought to get a Home Rule parliament when the Scottish section of the British Labour Party didn’t want to know.
No Labour Party Westminster victory in 1997, then no 1997 referendum.
No 1997 referendum, then no Scottish Parliament.
No Scottish Parliament, then no landslide 2010 SNP Victory.
No SNP victory, then no 2014 referendum.
Simples.
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Good points.
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Reblogged this on seachranaidhe1.
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Friseal,
You mention “catholic areas” in your post.
Just a bit bemused by the term “Catholic areas” in relation to Scotland.
Could you name them?
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