Sectarianism and racism

Irish immigrants to Scotland experienced various levels of antagonism from the local Scottish population. Some of this antagonism was due to racism and xenophobia towards incomers, who were perceived to be less equal and a threat to local harmony and jobs. However, another form of antagonism originated in the reaction of Protestant Scots who demonstrated their anti-Catholic sentiments. Irish Catholic immigrants were faced with double discrimination, based on religion and ethnicity. Some Irish Catholics internalised the racism they were encountering and the phrase 'Sandy reaps what Paddy sows' exemplifies this reaction.

Sometimes these issues played off one another to provide justification for continued discrimination. For example, Finn (2003) suggests that Irish immigration was perceived as a problem with social class, ethnic and religious dimensions. The Catholic Irish were judged then to be from a different ethnic community and were subjected to racism. Their racial inferiority and alien status were confirmed by their adherence to Catholicism.

There were reasons why Irish Catholic migrants were viewed as 'aliens'. The height of the Empire was the time when 'racism', as we now know it, was rife in all sections of Scottish society. All the people subjugated by the British, whether in Africa, India or the Caribbean, were viewed as inferior subjects, and some Scottish intellectuals, theologians and preachers spoke and wrote freely about their 'civilising mission' and sought to eradicate all other forms of belief and custom. The Irish, in particular, were viewed as outstandingly troublesome and unworthy of respect. After all, their subjugation had been essential to the cause of establishing the Protestant ascendancy that eradicated Catholics and Jacobites from Scotland and took Scottish soldiers into Ireland to establish the rule of William of Orange. Irish resistance to rule by the British authorities was never eradicated and there were many rebellions that had to be quelled by Protestant settlers and their militias.

Another factor in anti-Irish feeling was that cheap Irish labour was often used by employers to undermine employment conditions and Irish immigrants were also used to break strikes. For example, the bitterness still remembered today in some villages in the west of Scotland can be traced back to the use of Irish 'scabs' (strike breakers) to break a local mining strike in the 19th century.

However, there was some positive welcome from Scots, e.g. churches working together in the Temperance movement and the common cause forged between workers within the labour movement. The contribution of the Labour movement to overcoming sectarian divisions was critical in providing routes to full citizenship, and to power structures both local and, eventually, national. It was also a vehicle through which interdenominational issues and tensions could be addressed and a route by which ideas of economic emancipation could be developed in both Protestant and Catholic communities alike.

Irish Protestant immigrants were generally less affected and, unfortunately, some contributed to the anti-Catholic sentiments by importing their hatred of Catholicism as a result of the political situation in the North of Ireland.

The Church of Scotland records with great regret that their Church and Nation Committee campaigned vigorously against Irish immigration into Scotland, particularly during the Great Depression. They cite in their publication, The Demon in Our Society: Sectarianism in Scotland (2002), examples of Church of Scotland reports and letters during the period of 1926-34 which today make disturbing reading, e.g.

'A law-abiding thrifty and industrious race (the Scots) is being supplanted by immigrants whose presence tends to lower the social conditions, and to undermine that sprit of independence which has so long been a characteristic of the Scottish people, and we are of opinion that, in justice to our own people, steps should be taken to prevent the situation becoming worse.'

It is useful to remember this perspective in the twenty first century, and to consider that there may be racism as well as sectarianism and religious intolerance embedded in current expressions of bigotry.