Migration Religion and Scottish society
Early times
Scotland was to a large extent formed from migration, the Celtic Welsh Britons and the Picts/Crunithi the indigenous people. The Angles, Scandinavians and of course the Scots/Gaels another branch of the Celtic people from Ireland. Forming Dal-Riata migrating in after the fall of the Roman Empire. It would take several centuries but a nation was formed of two Dominant groups mixing together with other cultures. In the north the Gaelic Highlands in the South, the Angles who called themselves the Scots actually after the Gaelic group-as indeed did the whole nation. The Normans, Bretons and Flemish arriving later also influencing the cultures. Both altered by their contact with the other groups into a unique culture, with aspects of several groups. Despite being an ancient nation Scotland was never a monoculture.
Early Scots migration back to Ireland
Early Scots migration back to Ireland, In the mid 14th century a vital group from Scotland migrated to Ireland. As part of the Wars of Independence, the Scots were invited by the Celtic Irish to send armies to try to stem the Anglo-Irish colonisation of Ireland with over half Ireland under their rule. Robert the Bruce's brother Edward was the principle leader it was initially successful with Edward being crowned king of Ireland in 1316, leading a mixed force of Lowland Scots and Celtic Irish, but failed through poor judgement and the effects of a famine running through the whole of Europe and was killed. However at one point his brother Robert was involved and brought with him “a great power of Gallowglass”. Translating as something like Gaelic Outsider. These were fierce charging Norse-Galic mercenary warriors from the Scottish West Coast described as “either winning or dying quickly”. They were more than a match for the Anglo-Irish knights hitherto ruining over the lightly equipped Irish.
The Irish chiefs took note and in the later 14th century to the mid 15th Irish armies centred round thousands of these mercenaries drove the Anglo-Irish back and recovered the Gaelic character of most of Ireland from the English. After a while Galloglass settled and established their own clans. Names like McSweeny, O'Regan, McCabe, McDonnel, Donnelly have their origins in the Hebrides. For centuries these clans were reported as having distinct and strange accents. The other side of the coin however was the Anglo-Irish fought back with the none to cunning expedient of hiring their own. But the overall effect was that the Anglo-Irish never conquered the whole of Ireland and it's culture survived as principally a Gaelic culture.
Scot's role in the plantation
The early plantations of Ireland in Medieval times and under the Tudors before 1606 did not concern the Scots (other than sending thousands of fierce Redshank mercenaries who had replaced the Gallowglass) -the Scots we were at this point a completely separate nation. After however the union of the crowns in 1603 the king now in London starts to involve Scots. The lowlands of Scotland had it's reformation by this point. These however were Presbyterian’s and not part of the King's Church. Further the reformation in the lowlands had been more complete than England's with only 5% or so left of the old faith. However in the Gaelic Highlands most were initially anyway catholic. Before the union of the crown the King had to tread a careful path of trying not to upset anybody just too much, so there was a nervous peace on the subject -he took it out on witches and warlocks instead. Sword waving clansmen to the North, Reivers and Mosstroopers to the South and he kind of ran the bit in the middle.
But that king, James the VI and I had now run off south and was king of England and Ireland as well. Just in time for England to eventually win the 9 years war -the Irish one.
The crown initially magnanimous, the Irish tried again to rebel in a thing called the flight of the Earls, with Spanish aid -it failed. Jamie hatched a scheme to up the plantation effort of Ireland, increasing the numbers of staunch loyal protestants -half from Scotland. That and take the Catholic churches and land and hand it over to his own with a view to conversion of the natives. Then confiscate and redistribute lands from the rebellious Irish nobles. Thing was it was only half successful, the Scots were Presbyterians who had issues with the Kings church and were never near half the number, many of the English were Catholic and became sympathetic. The conversions didn't go well, not least because the English pastors couldn't speak Gaelic. The allocated farm land was poor and the settlers tended to urbanise and go into a trade rather than farm the land. Leaving the isolated pockets of Protestants in a sea of native Catholics.
Back in Scotland the King by then Charles I were up in arms. He had a solution to the problems of his religiously mixed peoples. Invent a church that was though protestant included aspects of both the Catholic and Protestant ideas. Then frog-march everybody into it. It went down like a lead balloon, Catholic, Presbyterian and Puritan hated it. He tried imposing Bishops and a new liturgy on the Scots kirk. Following disturbances and protests the Scots signed in 1638 a document called the covenant protesting their views. It ended in a thing called the Bishops war, the English army was a rabble, the Scots calling on the experience of mercenary officers mainly in Sweden, France and Holland, trained up a good army -were our other lot sold their military services. They brushed back a small English army at Newburn, took Newcastle where England got it's strategically important coal, they also drove flocks of sheep onto English pasture to strip it and the king had to back down.
Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion.... Thomas Paine.
The Civil War
The whole thing blew up into the English civil war, 20% of England's population died, 20% of Ireland's, Scotland got off light with 10%. Actually they all got off light as it turned out the religious war in Europe the 30 years war killed over 50% of the population of what is now Germany. Scotland and those well trained Covenanter armies was it turned out the key to victory for Cromwell and Parliament.
Not that it did Scotland any good, after Charles ran from defeat north and signed the covenant. The Scots put him in prison, the English stole him back and chopped his head off. His son Charles II (a god anointed king you see was always necessary) came back he also signed the covenant and Cromwell came over the border fresh from his fun in Ireland. Those fine Scottish soldiers were lead to ignominious defeat at Dumbar and Worcester by eye watering incompetence. Several thousand prisoners from Worcester were sent as slaves to the Americas and Barbados.
Another general, Monck was given command to complete the conquest of the country after Cromwell had pursued Charles II' to England. He captured Dundee and made an example of the city, standing by while his troops sacked it, killing up to 2000. Then placed Scotland under military occupation. Cromwell abolished Scotland as a nation along with Christmas. disarming it at the same time. Young Charlie though escaped to France. The first of the pretenders.
This didn't leave the Presbyterian Scots in Ireland in a good position, receiving now hostility from both sides now. Heretic protestants invaders to the Catholics, untrustworthy rebellious extremists to the Crown. The Irish rose in 1641 resulting in a massacre leading to the death of perhaps 12,000 protestants. Even at this early point they began to slip over the ocean to the American colonies.
After Cromwell's death in 1658 there was political turmoil. Monck led his army south, crossing the Tweed on 2 January 1660 and entering London where he called new parliamentary elections. The new parliament brought back Charles and re-separated the two nations of Scotland and England. Charles had to facilitated this declared at Breda that all crimes against the monarch other than regicide would be forgiven and their would be religious freedom.
The Killing Times
However Charles took a very high hand, he believed in High church Anglicanism, bishops, archbishops, a liturgy that said the state should be involved in the very punishments of sins by the church -he too renounced his part in the covenant he signed in 1650. So much for the deceleration of Breda. The Scots refused to let him be king of Scotland. Actually he signed the covenant back in 1650 because the Scots though declaring him king, wouldn't let him into the country unless he signed saying as king of the 3 nation and he accepted Presbyterianism for all the 3 nations. They suspected him too of being far too close to Catholic doctrine and sympathetic with a Catholic wife -and indeed it would seem had a deathbed conversion to Catholicism. He introduced the Clarendon code that attacked the rights of Nonconformists.
The king passed The Rescissory Act 1661 repealed all laws made since 1633, this brought back bishops and archbishops, took away from the congregations the right to appoint their own minister, made the Covenant a criminal document and effectively excluded Presbyterians from public office. Over 400 ministers refused to accept this and were effectively sacked from their position. So much for freedom of religion?
So began the Killing times in Scotland, as the king tried to impose his will by force. If you were seen with a bible in your hand outside a church you could be summary executed -some were. You were required to take an oath of allergen, if you did not, they applied thumb screws or cut your ear off with scissors as an incentive. (Probably my ancestors with the clippers). The Presbyterians took to having secret meeting outdoor, called conventicles. Mounted soldiers would patrol the area looking for these. 7000 Highlanders were recruited by the king and set on the lowlands, plundering as they went -the Highland host. The Presbyterian's armed themselves, there were fights and atrocities. It was the time of Bloody Clavers, against the militant Cameronians and 18,000 dead. More people fled Scotland, even today one in five Dutch people have some sort of Scottish blood.
There was another aspect to Charles reign. In 1672, the Royal African Company received a new charter from Charles II. It set up forts and factories, maintained troops, and exercised martial law in West Africa in pursuit of trade in gold, silver and African slaves. In the 1680s, the RAC transported about 5,000 slaves a year to markets primarily in the English Caribbean across the Atlantic. Many were branded on the chest with the letters "DY" for "Duke of York", the RAC's Governor. As historian William Pettigrew writes, the RAC "shipped more enslaved African women, men, and children to the Americas than any other single institution during the entire period of the transatlantic slave trade"..
Wikipedia
Charles II died suddenly in 1685, his brother the above mentioned Duke of York became James VII&II was on the throne. Now no kidding he was a catholic, appointed by divine right of his lineage. It was for sure nothing else, he was stupid, incompetent, as a commander contributing to heavy naval defeats against the Dutch, cowardly not a trait appreciated in a supposed soldier, immoral, he had the Royal Navy try to wrest the African slave trade from the Dutch, which caused the war -and on the throne. A fool and a catholic on the throne of a predominantly protestant England, that wasn't going to last long.
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King Billy
Enter King Billy (pronounced Kung Buhlee by old firm fans).In 1690 he did down the Kaflics by storming ashore at Derry on a white horse while the apprentice boys manned the walls and let him in. Then the Kaflic trahiters tried to get him oot and were beaten at the Boyne -he still had the same white horse. Then the Irish tried tae fight back by saying he was a pouf, when he wisn'y. A Rangers fan recites world history.
Not really though William III or is that III&I was gay. It was the Glorious revolution, 1688, KB marches ashore at Torbay invited by parliament, with 20,000 veterans, James army of 19,000 just melts away. James throws the great seal England into the water and runs for it. James tries to come back in Ireland, but can’t even besiege Derry properly which lets in William with a fleet.
His badly led badly equipped and trained troops were no match for the Dutch-British forces, who crush him at the Boyne, then complete his defeat a Aughrim. There is bloodshed but William is no Cromwell, the Irish were spared the worst of war. He rules as a joint monarch with his wife Mary. Nonconformists are now given rights of religious freedom, well mostly. Surprisingly he was lenient on the Catholic population guaranteeing freedom of worship if they swore allegiance to the crown. In Scotland however Wiliamite forces are crushed by Bonnie Dundee's (also known as Bloody Clavers) heavily outnumbered clansmen at Kilikrankie but Dundee is killed and it all peters out. With the freedom to non conformist thing however, the Kirk is back in business. Séamus an Chaca went into exile as the Old pretender.
Interestingly the numbers of Scots who migrate are as we shall see actually quite similar to the Irish who come later to Scotland after their famine in the 19th century, which was at a similar level. Both also about 50% caused by a famine the rest economic migration.
For a short time Scots outnumber English migrants to Ireland but this falls away with English migration representing probably 70% if the modern Protestant Irish. Monarch's church and English nonconformists. Scotch Irish and Modern Protestant Irish are not the same. Firstly, the Scots dominate the numbers of the Scotch Irish, they are almost exclusively nonconformists, they also migrated before the Orange Lodge was founded so never came under it's influence. The modern Protestant Irish are primarily English in descent, 40% State church and under the influence of the Orange lodge and it's there to represent the British state church primarily.
Penury, Famine & Migration
Did the Pope bless King Billy on his venture on the Boyne?
The problem is that the kirk may have got back it's trade but business it's self is bad. Scotland's traditional trading partner France is excluded, they are also are frozen out of England's Imperial markets. Just to add to the woes of poor old Scotland, famine set in. Scottish Famine the Seven ill years in the 1680s-90s Similar levels of death to the later Irish famine, given as about 12% though this may vary by historian. Equally 10-15% of the country migrated, 7000 to America, 20,000 to Europe and England but 80-100,000 to Ireland Coming during the famine particularly from Aberdeen area where the famine was at 25% deaths, surprisingly also from Argyll where a third of the migrants came from, so many were Gaels. Facing continued persecution from both sides, government and Catholics constituting the core of 150 to -300,000 of Presbyterian led nonconformist Scotch-Irish re-migration to pre-revolutionary America in particularly early 1700s but continuing till the revolution. Their numbers boosted by English nonconformists mainly but also French Huguenots, Quakers and even Germans.
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I'm afraid he did, Winston Churchill described King Louis XIV as “a good Catholic who wanted to be his own Pope”. The French king set out to control the Catholic clergy in France. Much to the fury of the Vatican. He wanted the same deal as the English king a state church at his command -without actually declaring himself a protestant. It provoked the 9 years war (that's 680,000 military deaths, twice that of civilians over the niceties of who controlled bishops in France). King Billy's adventures in Britain, a detail in a greater war where he lined up with the Pope as anti-French and Pope Innocent did bless KB's little jaunt into Ireland.
The massacre of Glencoe, I won't go into the detail but the overly honest investigation by the Scottish parliament did not go down well in London and was one of the factors in making the crown think about the incorporation of Scotland.
The Darien expedition again I won't go into the horrid details but basiclly an insane attempt to build a trade short cut where the Panama canal sits now. It bankrupted Scotland, cut off from trade and recovering from a severe famine.
In February 1702 William III sent a message to both houses at Westminster urging consideration of "a firm and entire union" - a union of the two kingdoms with a single parliament. “Here's to the wee man in the grey velvet coat”, 1702 King Billy has his encounter with the mole hill, breaks his collar bone, dies of complications. The throne goes to Queen Anne the last Stuart monarch, a High Anglican, she takes over. Scottish parliament won't cooperate, Scottish opinion overwhelmingly against. The Kirk suspicious, the Scots even threaten to put a new monarch on the throne of Scotland.
They said they would pay our national debts, the ways of the Kirk was supposed to be protected, so they caved in. There were to be 45 MPs (1 more than Cornwall) and 16 for the House of Lords. At that time at 1million we were exactly 20% of the population of England the parliament was 513 MPs, you do the maths.
The bells of St Giles rang out the tune of "why should I be so sad on my wedding day".. On the day the act was passed. As England and Ireland celebrated. Scotland did not
The big Scam
The Alien Act 1705 was passed in the English parliament, designating Scots in England as "foreign nationals" and blocking about half of all Scottish trade by boycotting exports to England or its colonies, unless Scotland came back to negotiate a Union.
But Scotland was in a poor state saddled with the huge Darien debt, excluded from trade, recovering from a famine. We were ripe to fall to Anne's want to destroy Scotland and incorporate it into England.
1707 the act of union. An unelected parliament, was bribed, armies waited at Carlisle and Ulster to invade, Scotland carefully disarmed by Cromwell had a bare 4 regiments. The only democratic part of the process the 97 popular petitions. As the Treaty passed through the Scottish Parliament, opposition was voiced by petitions from shires, burghs, presbyteries and parishes, all against our incorporation and ignored
Westminster, Queensbery, Toothache Hamilton, Queen Anne and the rest stiffed Scotland, much of the deal was reneged on.
The national debt being paid of by England, was reneged on. It took Scotland 30 years to pay the debt.
View from the Kirk post 1707
1711 in the Church patronage act which took from the congregation the power to appoint the minister and handed it to a local landowner of the Parliament’s choice against perhaps the central tenet of Presbyterianism. The Anglican church did not separate church and state it did the opposite, another central principle. The monarch as head of a church was an anathema since it broke the same principle --since the monarch was head of state? In 1733 a group split away called Associate Presbytery and later the United Secession Church, often referred to as Seceders.
The Jacobites
I'll be very brief here I think. The king across the water, the risings, 89, 15, the 45, the kings in London usurpers to the god chosen house of Stuart. The Highlands Sympathetic Episcopal and Catholic, their source of soldiers for their ambitions to take back the crown of the 3 kingdoms. They had their moments, sweeping the fields at Kilikrankie and Falkirk Muir. But then Culloden, the ending of a culture, no quarter even to the wounded, the burnings, killings and rapes as the Highlands was pacified with fire and sword -”they are less than the common level of human”. Weapons banned, the language banned, wearing Highland clothing illegal, even the pipes banned. The coward nobles fled, where the small folk could not, those remaining nobles becoming British sycophants and clearing improvers..
The Agricultural Revolution and the Lowland clearances.
The reason for Scotland's poor agriculture was found, a clay substrata that allowed for flooding. The solution very big ploughs to cut it up, suddenly we had top quality land. The land owning aristocracy seen money to be made. Improvements in agricultural techniques, principally enclosure and crop rotation as well as new farm machinery were implemented. Agricultural production soared. In this tenant farmers were either tied to the new larger farms by debt -a bit like peonage in South America. Or hundreds of thousands thrown off the land in the Lowland clearances, their labour and skills surplus to requirement.
The industrial revolution
Scotland was at the apex of the revolution, It's slow success in imperial trade through lack of capital stymied Scotland's trade. However modern banking was innovated -the over-draught being as an instance a Scottish invention basically an unsecured loan -had capital looking for investment. Suddenly innovations in manufacture notably the division of labour and innovations in production technology along with increased agricultural output to feed readily available cheap labour from the clearances -made for a boom in factory production and population levels. Linen cloth led the way in the 18th century as an export commodity and American Tobacco as a traded commodity -every Scottish city sat on a port. By the mid 18th century Scotland was starting to become wealthy.
The place urbanised, Glasgow 1755 32,000 people, by 1855, 360,000, Edinburgh, 57,000 to 207,000, same period, by 1800, the most urbanised nation in the world. Textiles expanded into cotton, silk and Jute production. But was always more diverse than in England, then iron, then ship building, then steel and coal that by 1914 sucked in 1million workers, nearly half the labour force. The cost to the people, terrible conditions, of housing, health and poverty. To the better off part of society wealth and power.
The Edinburgh enlightenment or Science against Religion.
Adam Smith founded the science of economics, James Hutton geology, David Hume one of the cornerstones of Western philosophy, innovating the idea of critical and historical examination and Atheism -they were mostly atheists. And no they didn't think much of the Bonnie Prince when he came calling talking about the divine rights of Stuart kings to the 3 crowns, not much of the Presbytery either, the Catholics eeehhm -puff of the cheeks and an exhale of air? To most of them, humanity was explicable by science not god or religion.
head of the church. They too began to decline in numbers in the highlands, being mostly replaced by the Kirk at the laird's behest.
The Catholics were technically illegal until 1781, disenfranchised and faced discrimination for public office -other than the army where they did well fighting for the king? A series of Catholic relief bills, finally the catholic emancipation act in 1829 and the Scottish Catholic church was back in business. At this stage the religions in Scotland worked together to the extent of several Catholic schools even Chapels being paid for by enlightened protestants. All that philanthropic activity without self interest? Nope the French Revolution terrified them and they were in need of Catholic allies. In all of this you will notice nothing for the Kirk
So a strange quiet peace developed as they all had serious gripes with the status quo. In the early 19th century the Liberal party emerging from the Whigs began to dominate in Scotland reaching 85% representation. They campaigned for Catholic emancipation and for reforms for the Kirk particularly in relation to the issue of appointment of ministers to a parish
Religion post the union in Scotland.
Post the Jacobite scare after 1745, which had the Kirk thinking of the killing times. The problems in the act of union touched on above started to assert it's self. The peoples church of Knox was now in the hands of a non-secular state and king, the ministers tools of the rich land owning class. The Episcopal church seen those divinely appointed kings use then betray them. (Charlie's army for the rebellion was 70% Episcopal, 30% Catholic). The royal houses of Hanover and Orange usurpers, so they dropped the monarch as
The Disruptions
In 1834, a group called Evangelical party attained a majority in the General Assembly. They passed the Veto Act, which gave parishioners the right to reject a minister nominated by their patron. This was illegal, and set it on a collision course with the government. The first test of the Veto Act came with the Auchterarder case of 1834. The parish of Auchterarder unanimously rejected the patron's nominee – and the Presbytery refused to proceed with his ordination. The nominee, Robert Young, in 1838 appealed to the Court of Session. He won They declared Church of Scotland was a creation of the state and derived its legitimacy from acts of Parliament.
It took 132 years but but finally the Kirk had enough of the 1707 settlement. They weren't going to wait for governmental change and took matters into their own hands. In 1841 it split neatly 50- 50 in 2. A new Kirk was formed the Free Church of Scotland, shorn of the Episcopal idolatry and Popeish ways forced on them by 1707 and the 1711 Church patronage act. It was no longer tied to the British state and it's kings, laudably the congregation now chose it's own minister. 474 of about 1,200 ministers left the Church of Scotland for the Free Church along with just short of half it's membership. The Kirk according to John Knox was back -the spirit of the Covenanters was reborn. The holy vitriol flew in the press as stern faced, white knuckled Scotch Presbyterians in their plainest black suits pointed long bony fingers of treasonable accusations at each other.
But despite fracturing into several divisions the Wee Frees thrived. It was 1921 before Westminster caved in, in the Church of Scotland act and they started to reunify. But by then the authority of the Kirk had been irreparably damaged and it had been heavily infiltrated by the masonic Orange Lodge bringing it's Irish Episcopal monarchical leaning and virulent Anti-Catholic ways into the Kirk admittedly for a minority mainly in the South West.
The Free Kirk was popular in the Highlands as standing against the clearances where the Laird appointed Minister from the state church did little but give a blessing to those boarding the typhus ship for Canada.
The Great Irish famine & Scotland
In the early 19th century there was seasonal migration for harvest collection in 1820 this was 8,000 by 1840 this was 25,000 most permanent migrants were skilled textile workers mainly from Ulster. The was also Irish immigration as manual labourers in farms and the textile industry. These seem to be mainly Catholic but seem to have included a protestant element. However their religious hostility is not seen in a good light and are cold shouldered by native Scottish Episcopal and Catholic churches who had been achieving greater political and religious freedoms. Asking them to go to separate churches and so on.
The Irish famine 1846- 51 12% of Irish die, 12% migrate during this period. About 1 million die, due to the staple potato crop failing. 1 Million forced into migration. Continued migration reduces Ireland population 8.5 to 4.6 million by 1901. 1966 before Ireland’s population starts to increase. Falls most heavily on the 80% of Ireland that was Catholic.
Leads to mass migration to Scotland 80- 100,000 migrate during this period, with total migration about 180-200,000.
Irish arrive in terrible conditions there is a large typhus outbreak the poor relief system is overwhelmed, but fever hospitals are set up and some help given. 13 medical personnel and 4 priests ministering to their flock also die. However there seems to have been no large scale unrest outside the 1850 The Anti-popery movement” anti catholic disturbances, led by the still small LOL quickly abated (the re-establishment of the Catholic church in England. Scotland waited till 1876, just in time for the LOL to arrive in force).
The situation was partly alleviated by also large scale Scottish migration leaving lower paid jobs to the Irish. Manly mining, steel and shipbuilding. 1851 Irish Catholic migration tails off. The migrants spread about the Glasgow and Lanarkshire principally to represent 20- 30% of the population employed mainly in the heavy industries of the Industrial revolution.
However the strong hostility to Protestants of the Irish catholic church as the now more numerous Irish Catholic hierarchy asserts it's self. And they try to section off the migrants and their
descendants from the Scottish population. They place adverts on papers warning that socialising with them would lead to their “denationalisation” and the dangers of being tempted away from the faith by such interaction, by people "poisoning and corrupting their hearts". Universally Irish nationalists The priesthood oust the local Scottish hierarchy of the church as soon as they die off and systematically replace it with the identity of the much larger Irish church –to the extent of knocking the thistles of the stonework of Chapels and replacing them with shamrocks. Religious Apartheid? Indeed in these early decades of the migration, the main objection was not religious. After all the Scottish protestants were fighting like two Kilkenny cats in a bag (to used an Irish metaphor) over the Disruptions in the 1840's. It was that the capitalists ever seeing an opportunity used the desperate position of the migrants to undercut the wages of the well organised Scottish workers with the that of they would “bring in the Irish”. Even then the reaction seldom spilled over into violence.
Relations though strained at times remain a nervous peace. Jobs in the expanding Scottish industries pay far better than a farm labourer in the fields of famine stricken Ireland. In general conditions in Scotland were better than England where Anti Catholic riots and killings broke out the immigrants herded into the worst conditions -Angel Fields in Manchester being a particular point.
“The race that lives in these ruinous cottages, behind broken windows, mended with oilskin, sprung doors and rotten door-posts, or in dark, wet cellars, in measureless filth and stench, in this atmosphere penned in as if with a purpose, this race must really have reached the lowest stage of humanity. This is the impression and the line of thought which the exterior of this district forces upon the beholder.”
Friedrich Engels
Protestant Irish Migration & the Orange Lodge
Founded in Ireland 1795
First Lodge in Scotland 1807
First 12th in Glasgow 1821
1835 The Cumberland scandal an attempt to oust queen Victoria from inheriting the throne banned
1836 reconstituted as the Loyal Orange Lodge.
1830's Protestant Irish migrants important as skilled textile worker in the expanding Industrialisation of Scotland. Orange Lodge heavily associated with Protestant migration to Scotland 1836-45 4 rising to 12 lodges in Glasgow there is also no Lodge building in Scotland. Scotland actually dominated by the Liberals in this era who were in favour of Catholic emancipation. The Lodge is not a significant presence at this point and remains very closely associated with Irish Protestant Migrants. Much of the at this stage sporadic trouble however reflected this group, who were militantly anti-catholic. The native Scots less so, they for instance provoked a riot in Airdrie in 1836 and were banned by he council from marching. Orange parades were banned in many towns in Lanarkshire in the 1850's.
The main problem was that fraternal organisations such as the Masons often excluded Catholics however they simply set up their own. This also may have affected this group who though protestant were very much rough trade so turned to the LOL. Also the Protestant Irish are equally considered with the Catholic unruly, EG in 1848 29% of Irish people in jail in Airdrie were Irish Protestants. Unlike the stereotype they were recorded as having a similar 40% semi-literate or illiterate profile.1845- 51 The Irish famine and the migration of the Catholic Irish to Scotland, oddly there seems little growth in The LOL. And there is little increase in trouble as a result of the migration.
Mainly there is an outbreak in 1850 but this was part of a UK wide reaction to the re-establishing of the Catholic church in England. This pattern continues till the 1870's
1871 The first physical Orange Lodge building built in Scotland equates with the rise of Protestant migration replacing Catholic as the primary Irish group migrating to Scotland. 80% of the Irish migrants Ulster Protestants during this period. 1870-1900 45- 60,000, with them is comes an exponential increase on the Orange lodge, indeed it is suggested in some quarters the standard 25% may be nearer a third. With this comes more prevalent militant Anti-Catholicism and anti-home rule politics.
It also coincides with migration from Ulster during the 1870 to early 20th century of over 1Million. By 1901 there were about 35,000 members of the LOL in Scotland, rising to 40,000 in the inter-war years, dipping during the war but recovering by the mid 1950s and rising to 60-80,000 during the late 70's to the late 80s buoyed by the troubles, then declining steeply to about 5000 at present. The LOL has always had a strong female presence in Scotland indeed in the 1930- 50s period may represent the majority of members. Throughout it's history it has and maintains strong connections including familial to Ulster in 1881 72% of office bearers were Irish born even up to the 1930s the vast majority had Irish antecedence, either Irish fathers or grandparents this obviously has thinned out in modern times as Ulster migration has declined. They have attempted to assimilate a version of Scottish culture probably as the Irish element dissipated. (We are the people) Burns nights the Covenanters and so on. Fareweel even to our Scottish name, Sae famed in martial story, Now Sark, rins over the Solway sands an Tweed rins tae the ocean, to mark where England's province stands...??
However they remain far more linked to Ireland by dint of the annual visit for the 12th and are far more connected to Ireland by family than the Catholic minority. They remain looked as as extremists by most protestants and bigots by many more. Though just claiming protestant views they push heavily the links to the monarchy and are more Episcopalian and unionist than the standard Scottish Presbyterian view.
Political implications
They both follow Irish politics, the Catholic group follow nationalist politics Irish home rule movement in the 1870s to the early 20th century initially under under Charles Stuart Parnell also the Fenian brotherhood the attempted rebellion of 1848 and 1867, bombs on the London underground 1883- 5, Phoenix park murders, home rule crisis in the early 1900s. Obviously on the home rule side of the Irish question, in direct opposition to the Orange lodge. Irish politics was of course very violent on both sides.
The protestants follow unionist politics, they aligned with the Conservatives and Unionist parties helping to depreciate the working class vote toward reform even Socialism and helped deliver Unionist votes even in strongly working class constituencies and opposed the early stirring of nationalism in Scotland. violently against Home Rule and with "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right" Lord Carson and his Volunteers. Orange leaders preaching against Bolshevism and it's link to Catholicism -how they reached that conclusion is a complete mystery. Irish politics was of course very violent on both sides. With frequent clashes with the LOL and Catholics identifying with nationalist politics. It brings in also a generalised attitude to bigotry toward people for simply being of a different religion.
The late 1800s was the heyday of the empire, Glasgow claiming to be the second city of that Empire. It was also the time of the Irish question, in that country a few hours over the water. Stuart Parnell, the development of Irish politics along sectarian lines, the Catholic south wanting home rule, the end to the Ascendancy, angry now at the famine. The Protestant loyalist north, economically strong and tied to the Empire, fearing for their rights under a catholic dominated Ireland. The days in the late 18th and early 19th century where the Protestants dominated radical Ireland, long gone. The Orange order, The Fenian brotherhood, the home rule question were now the order of the day.
Politically under these influences Scotland was changed, helped by the extension of the franchise to all male householders. Which surprisingly shifted the political
colour from Liberal dominated Scotland, where they might garner up to 85% of the vote toward conservatism. At the heart of that conservatism, religion loyalism, the time of the Unionists which went on till the 50s. Exacerbated by events in Ireland, the partition of Ireland, the Free state, the fall out from the great War. The Easter rising. The establishment of Irish home rule passed by the House of Commons in 1914 was forgotten, as was the sacrifice of many Catholic Irish in the Great war. The decimation of the Ulster division on the Somme was not. They were many Lord Carson’s volunteers and the only time the Orange parades have been cancelled was in 1916. Scotland 135,000 died 10% of the UK population, 20% of the casualties, nearly as high as France actually higher than Russia as a percentage of WW1 dead, mostly ignored. As was a Scottish home rule bill which was at the Lords in 1914. A huge 400,000 mass migration mostly to Australia, imposed on the Scottish people.
The growth of the Labour movement as a radical even revolutionary force in Scotland. The terror of the Peti-bourgeois shop keeper and the foreman equally, the minister and the priest in it’s atheist views. And how the George Square incident must have scared them. The police read the riot act at 60,000 workers from Clydeside protesting in the Square who got beaten up. The authorities panicked and sent 10,000 troops to Glasgow complete with tanks to stop a phantom revolution. Russia and the revolution scared more than it pleased, and the religious conservatism of the Chapel and the Kirk, wanted the status quo. The Liberal party's 1918 education act further fossilised the divisions in Scotland, recognising the already prevalent Catholic education system and funding it.
The Unionist party dominated politics, despite the Legends of John MacLean, the Red Clydesiders and the Labour party and kept thing just how they liked it. The 1918 education act brings the pre-existing separate Catholic schools which were underfunded and failing in Scotland under government control. The English do not however do this and integrate their education system. It maintenance becomes the central promise however to Labours Catholic vote. Not of course Socialism that went long before Gordon Brown got his paws on anything
The Unionists ran Scotland with the help of the LOL during this period and much of the more radical activities were more often to do with the Communists who
were very strong particularly in Red Clydeside. And the Labour party remained timorous and seldom in power until the post war era, and even then rule of course came from London. Indeed the catholic part was counter to the social side of reformism, particularly the issues of divorce, women's rights and contraception, membership of socialist organisations discouraged by a conservative clergy. Even showing reluctance to oppose Franco in the Spanish Civil War seeing the Republicans as anti-catholic. Indeed the Scottish catholic press ran numerous articles claiming the Republic was run by an anti-Catholic Jewish/Masonic Bolshevik cabal. The view from the LOL I have noted above?
Ireland the disappointing Revolution
The Irish revolution may have been founded under the leadership of James Connelly (actually from Edinburgh), a radical socialist but it fell into the hands of De Valera who emphatically wasn't.
The Republic was extremely socially conservative, under De Valera particularly in relation to women. The catholic church became a surrogate state church and was out of control. Controlled schooling and many of the social services. Terrible incidents of repression, The Magdalene Laundries. The death between 1925 and 61 of 796 new born children by members of the Bons Secours order at Tauma Galway. Women forbidden to work in industry, no married women could work for the Govt. Divorce and contraception banned. A huge issue of paedophilia and the priesthood emerged involving hundreds. Large scale censorship, 1600 books banned, The committee for evil literatures. A strong Fascist movement (the Blue Shirts) that claimed 48,000 members developed, (Mosley had 40- 50,000 in the whole of the UK). They were considered the largest Fascist group in Europe that didn't form the government. Who tried 2 coups and were later central in founding Fiana Gael Ireland's principle party of opposition -as say the Labour party is in the UK is the party of opposition. Sent a brigade to fight for Franco, the O'Duffy brigade. De Valera, discussed sending Irish army troops as part of a catholic alliance against Communism. Refused an offer of a united Ireland during WW2. It was started by radical Socialists but ended up in the hands of extreme Catholic Conservatives and even Fascists -little wonder there are reports of Celtic fans giving fascist salutes and making pro-Nazi chants in WW2 at Prarkhead.
Why did sectarian hatred did not happen in England?
Similar percentages of Irish Catholics fleeing the famine arrived in Liverpool and Manchester. Why no long term problems on the level there is in Scotland? Firstly at the restoration, the English non-conformists headed north away from the new monarch into an area that had maintained a strong tradition of of Catholicism. Meaning the English catholic church was better established in an area less dominated by the state church and refused to allow the Irish church to take over. In the 1870's for instance in Lancashire and Cheshire there were only 90 Irish priests out of 391, with It's Bishops haranguing Home Rule from the pulpit. It's view of Victorian England was more on the lines of a place where religious freedoms for Catholics were vastly improved and England a nation where they had their own place -resulting in them being far less militant. The protestant Irish Immigrated there just like Glasgow and indeed ended up effectively running the city through political corruption to a far larger extent than Scotland. But they were not confronted by the hard-line Catholicism the politicised Irish Nationalist priesthood brought to Scotland -resulting in them being far less militant. Orangemen even helping Irish Catholics establish unions taking pity at their conditions? There was Nationalist and Unionist sympathies on both sides. In 1920's there was even a rally in favour of Irish home rule that attracted 200,000 that went off peacefully and an Irish Nationalist MP elected in the city. But the violence was a shadow of Glasgow.
In terms of the football thing, Everton were founded by a group of English Catholic businessmen and indeed had a traditional Catholic (bah Katlic) following. But this was never more than a part of their support, protestants also followed Everton. Prody-dogs more likely to support Liverpool but also with a catholic following.
The Secret Societies
The Irish find exclusion from Scottish fraternal societies, so set up their own. There was a very strong tradition of associationalism and secret societies in Ireland. The Orange Lodge I have covered earlier. Whether the Masons excluded Catholics or because of religious prohibition could not join? I have heard both versions.
The main early political movement from the late 19th century was the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a deliberate imitation of the Orange order in Ireland, violently for home rule only for people of Irish decent, it's own flute band culture, it had in 1917, 10-11,000 Scottish members from 50,000 total. It fell by the wayside after finding it's self on the wrong side of the Republican versus Home rule issue in Ireland and died out in the mid 30's.
In 1919 the Knights of St Columba formed, who were more an imitation of the Masons, but exclusively catholic and male. Modern numbers 10,000. Involved in the Monklands council scandal, some suspended from the Labour party for corruption and Nepotism. They of course deny everything. As does Pat Lally in Glasgow.
the queens church, or the chapel. The nation, which nation Britain, Ireland, if Ireland, which Ireland, Scotland where you lived? A confused identity emerged, abit Scottish a bit Irish a bit British in different measures and religious affiliation. Secret Societies, the Masons, the Orange lodge the various and numerous Irish societies, the Knights of Columba, the Ancient order of Hibernians. All questionable, the Fenians, heroes or cowardly terrorists, the Orange lodge banned several years back for sedition by parliament for trying to overthrow Queen Victoria, in the Cumberland plot now posing as ultra loyalists. Those societies and churches bullied you into line.
The normal process of communities blurring through contact and intermarriage was stunted. The two groups were kept apart and friction grew particularly the Old Firm became a visible focus for the groups. Orange bands flourished, Hibs bands multiplied in reaction. Violent clashes were numerous. Yea stayed wi yer ain, you had to. In Scotland the religious protection racquet was in full swing, and loyalty the Vig
Swinging Scotland
Spread of the liberal values of the Sixties and early Seventies was looked on with suspicion by the Catholic Church particularly. It had issues with, Divorce, Contraception and Abortion particularly. Along with greater degrees of self expression and individual choice. Though they are far from alone, Protestant and Conservative extremists are equally up in arms. Along with the removing of much of the censorship in entertainment. The Scottish people vote with their feet and embrace the new freedoms of the swinging Sixties -one of which is that Catholic and Protestant sectarianism has had it's day and start to mix socially. Socialism and the left were in vogue and the old order questioned. Donovan, Lulu, Marmalade, Sean Connery, The Alex Harvey band, Billy Connelly, Chick Murray, the revival of the Scottish Folk scene nobody gave a damn which School you went to -Billy Connelly brought up Catholic was excommunicated for one of his sketches. Free love? Morag it's that time oh the month, prepare the sheet wi the wee hole in the middle. The priesthood had different ideas unfortunately and in many cases this involves little boys.
The reactionaries strike back
The council house redevelopment started to integrate the two groups and the bigots found themselves with neighbours of a different faith. The segregated School system scrutinised and seen wanting Catholic schools performing poorly and letting down those educated there.
Amid rumours they will be integrated, sudden appearance of large numbers of Catholics in the Labour party. Labour through the mid Sixties and Seventies becomes more under RC influence. Endorsing the Roman Catholic Church as in effect a second state church. Religious sectarianism becomes a route to the corruption of Pat Lally and his corrupt Catholic group In the Glasgow council -determined to stem the tide of integration by public housing. The Knights like to imitate the ways of the priesthood one of which is being celibate?
Mary Whitehouse was a popular figure damming the new freedoms all the way and had her adherents. But generally Scotland is seen as liberal and even one of the centres of the arts of the Sixties, particularly the Edinburgh festival
The sectarian Society
So the witches brew of sectarianism was developed in Scotland, segregated communities, ancient religious divisions, split and confused national loyalties. What was loyalty? To Britain, Empire,
religion, the kirk, was it the Presbytery or
The Church of the Old Phogies
Conversely the Church of Scotland’s influence starts to wain. Associated with the Tory party and Protestant bigotry all a gift of the LOL. It in fact embraced the changing culture, Divorce, Contraception, Abortion, Ordained women back in the 70's, allowed gay marriage and the ordination of gays more recently -but one look at an Orange Parade and why bother. One has to wonder did this organisation’s influence on the Kirk prevent a situation where the Kirk was seen as a powerful liberal socially modernising influence on society by the influence of Orange Ulster bigotry.
Religion on the slide
Indeed the presence of religion as a force for good is increasingly questioned. By 1981 a survey is published by the Glasgow herald indicating Protestants are no longer a majority of Scottish society. 42% of the population was now Atheist, 16% Catholic, 31% the Kirk, 10% other protestant, 1% other religion. Atheists are now the largest group, Protestants even combined not close to a majority for this to be at he level it was they must have lost their majority probably a decade previously, possibly more. Those practising religion regularly 9%.
The Old Firm of course keep the flag of Religion and it's sectarianism flying with a series of riots and hate crime chanting for the brain washed of the old culture Orange and Catholic, Bread and Circuses. But even this is challenged by many as in need of reform.
Catholic politics the liberal mask for Social Conservatism
During the 80's into the 90's Scottish Catholic culture went in for a bit of a make-over. The rose tinted view of that other Eden, across the water, the land of Saints and poets. U2, Rock and Rollers presented to the very Pope. (Not of course Bob Geldof's who was banned by the government for a "denunciation of nationalism, medieval-minded clerics and corrupt politicians" in a memorably controversial 1977 interview /performance on Ireland's The Late Late Show with Gay Byrne. Compared the Easter Rising to Islamist suicide bombers and saying it was the Original sin of the Irish republic. The song Banana Republic addresses a backward Ireland stuck in the Politics of conservative religion in the late 20th century). And the man from Rome himself in Scotland twice.
Apparently a bohemian artsy culture in bleakly Presbyterian Scotland. New Labour, with it's army of Glasgow Catholic MPs shedding a crocodile tear to clause four -also organised in London. So goodbye to Socialism and it's horrid atheism. Very popular -well at first. Of course the Good Friday agreement why the English were so busy forcing their Glasgow Irish ducks in a row -everybody in the communities shoulder to the plough now. Lots of use of the word peace and community, jaunts to Faslane with a CND banner.
A liberal mask for conservative politics social and economic. Behind the liberal mask lay political corruption. Socialists and liberals do not deny people the right to divorce or use contraception, the do not hound vulnerable women who have had an abortion or deny it in the first place -Catholic members of even the Labour party and indeed other parties claiming to be on the left and of course Celtic fans do, I have seen it done and not just once. They do not endorse right wing economics, they do not systematically select people of only one religion as their representatives. The do not complain about Masonic corruption then employ it themselves -the Knights of Columba are associated to international Masonic groups. For repeating the difficulties this group/church have with aspects of it's behaviour or so much as suggesting the segregated schooling system is wrong, extremists systematically attack people. To do this requires them to destroy peoples legal and human rights to privacy, fair treatment and natural justice -or employ acts of violence. Work place bullying the most common symptom. Much of their political effect is achieved by entryism particularly in the Labour party and hounding anybody who is not one of them, I've seen it done.
The bigots wining formula
The Orange/Catholic religious conservative extremism, bigotry and discrimination foisted on the community by the symbiotic relationship of these two groups. One justifies the others behaviour, they both got their conservative way. Liberal minded Scotland frog marched into social conservatism and religious apartheid.