Last week, in the wake of the failed referendum on Scottish independence, we witnessed gangs of violent British nationalists (so-called unionists) taking to the streets of Glasgow to bask in the defeat of the pro-sovereignty “Yes” campaign led by the SNP, Scottish Green Party and others. British flags were waved, Scottish flags were torn down or burned, Nazi salutes were given and anti-Irish, -Catholic, -gay and -immigrant slogans were chanted. Prominent in the crowds bringing chaos to the centre of the city were members of various Far Right groups and known supporters of the Protestant fundamentalist Orange Order and the British terror factions in Ireland. It is in this light that we must read the allegations made by the Roman Catholic and unionist writer Tom Gallagher in Britain’s conservative Spectator magazine in relation to Catholic and Irish-descended voters in the recent plebiscite:
“An influx of Irish immigrants restored a Catholic presence in Scotland after 1800. The overnight results show that the descendants of this community must have voted disproportionately for independence. Its remaining strongholds, North Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire, Dundee and, above all, Glasgow are among the few areas of Scotland that voted Yes.
Many in the community were persuaded that Britain had become an alien and unjust entity.
The increasingly risible ‘rebel’ culture associated with Celtic football club was pressed into service.
Perhaps I am woefully misinformed, but I heard last week from a pupil at the largest Catholic secondary school in Scotland, Holyrood in Glasgow, that many teachers were completely open with pupils about their pro-independence views.
Ultimately, the increasingly cult-like nationalist campaign was rejected in nearly all the SNP’s strongholds in the east of Scotland on 18 September.
Instead it was Catholics in the west of Scotland who helped to get the Yes vote well above the 40 per cent mark where, for most of the campaign, it was normally thought to be languishing.
On Thursday I am firmly convinced that most Catholics flocked to support a cause which viewed Britain in the most negative and demeaning terms. It was a poor way to repay a country which helped them to journey from the margins to the mainstream of society. Their Church in particular showed little statesmanship or even common sense. And secular leaders, primarily driven by their own egos, embraced the chaotic vision of Alex Salmond…”
If you are left with the impression reading the above that Roman Catholics in Scotland, regardless of their actual beliefs, as well as those with Irish ancestry are now viewed as something akin to any enemy within by British nationalists, well I suspect you are not the only one. Who are the real opponents of ethnic, cultural and religious diversity on the island of Britain now?
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
It is ahistorical nonsense. It is only recently that Scot Catholics of Irish descent have become less suspicious of Scot nationalism. And a lot of this is due to Salmond and the SNP building an inclusive idea of nationhood which has the descendants of Irish and so-called “new” Scots as part of an evolving nation.
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Gallagher is obviously pandering to a deep strain of professional victimhood and self-pity in English/British nationalism (why do Irish republicans habitually fail to call Unionists/loyalists what they are – British nationalists?). Look how eager the Unionist camp were to use the “Scottish nationalism is really anti-English racism” canard during the referendum (a referendum I believe there is compelling evidence was rigged by the way – but that’s another story). It’s a devious, passive aggressive form of rhetoric that has been perfected in Ireland by revisionist de-facto British agents in the Workers Party and so on for years. The essential technique is to airbrush English/British nationalism out of the picture and pretend that the only actors in the conflict motivated by nationalistic sentiment are Irish nationalists/republicans. In fact the reverse is the truth – English/British Whig nationalism is much more visceral and sentimental than the Irish version. Look at the way Irish Unionist/revisionist fellow travellers such as Gay Byrne, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Mary Kenny, Colm Toibin, Eoghan Harris, et al swoon like besotted debutantes over the alleged glories of the Big House and the Ascendancy. And look at how the British and equally(if not more) Anglophile Irish media keep coming back again and again to the crimes perpetrated by the IRA – while airbrushing out of modern history the Dublin and Monaghan pub bombings, Greysteel, Loughinisland and so on. Hence the invention of the phrase “whataboutery” – British nationalists in both Ireland and Britain hate “whataboutery” because it dares to shine a light on their own fanatical jingoism.
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“Irish Unionist/revisionist fellow travellers such as Gay Byrne, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Mary Kenny, Colm Toibin, Eoghan Harris, et al swoon like besotted débutantes over the alleged glories of the Big House and the Ascendancy.”
I shall use that one! 😉
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my feelings in a nutshell,brilliant
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