The Sectarian Myth in Scotland: Of Bitter Memory and Bigotry

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The Sectarian Myth in Scotland Of Bitter Memory and Bigotry

Michael Rosie

The Sectarian Myth in Scotland

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The Sectarian Myth in Scotland Of Bitter Memory and Bigotry Michael Rosie Lecturer in Sociology School of Social and Political Studies University of Edinburgh, UK

© Michael Rosie 2004 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 1–4039–2167–9 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rosie, Michael, 1968– The sectarian myth in Scotland:of bitter memory and bigotry / Michael Rosie. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–2167–9 1. Christianity and politics—Scotland—History. 2. Scotland—Church history. 3. Religion and politics—Scotland—History. 4. Scotland— Religion. I. Title. BR786.3.R67 2004 305.6′09411—dc22 2004044367 10 13

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

For Emma


Contents viii

List of Tables

ix

Acknowledgements 1

Introduction

1

2

‘Sectarianism’ in Modern Scotland

8

3

Secularisation and ‘Sectarianism’

28

4

Religion and Politics in Contemporary Scotland

49

5

‘The Rising Tide of Paganism’

72

6

‘Dumb Dogs’ and ‘Bonneted Chieftains’

89

7

‘A Happy Solution to a Difficult Problem’

107

8

‘The Reformation must be Fought Again’

126

9

‘Reality is Always a Little More Complex’

144

Appendix: Logistic Regression Models

151

Notes

154

Bibliography

166

Index

178

vii

List of Tables 2.1 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 5.1 5.2 8.1

Social class by denomination, 2001 Scottish Protestant Church membership, 1900–2000 Other Protestant Church membership, 1900–2000 Active Protestant communicants Adult Catholic Mass attendance Comparative church attendance (selected areas), 2002 Perceptions of religious conflict in Scotland Long-term future of Northern Ireland, 2001 Denominational positions on Northern Ireland, 2001 Scottish vote by denomination, UK general election, 2001 Scottish vote by denomination, Holyrood election, 1999 The Moreno question, 1992 and 2001 Claimed national identities, 2001 Church membership, 1900–1950 Church attendance, 1900–1950 Protestant electoral record by ward

viii

25 34 35 35 35 39 41 42 43 51 52 65 66 75 75 132

Acknowledgements

Many individuals have assisted in the writing of this book – thanks go to Ross Bond, Hugo Gorringe, Gill Haddow, Christine Johnston, Tom McGlew, and Sue Renton, amongst others. I owe a debt of gratitude to Steve Bruce, Lindsay Paterson, Frank Bechhofer, Owen Dudley Edwards, Elaine McFarland, and John Brewer for their encouragement and good advice. I am immensely grateful to David McCrone without whose patient support this book would simply have been impossible. The financial assistance of the Economic and Social Research Council (award number R00429634311) funded the original research, and I was helped and encouraged by all the staff and postgraduates, past and present, in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. Finally, thanks go to all those who have listened to my ideas – the half-baked more often than the well-formed – in particular to Emma Davidson, proof reader and formatter per excellence.

ix


1 Introduction

This book examines ‘sectarianism’ in modern Scotland. Relating to division or conflict between Catholics and Protestants, Scotland’s sectarianism is viewed with unease, evidence that the country is unworthy of, or not yet ready for, modern nationhood. Sectarianism, rather myopically, is seen as a peculiarity exclusive to Scotland and Ireland, something other modern nations have outgrown. This question has had particular resonance in recent times given the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament, and a publicly aired debate over the meaning and nature of both Scotland and Scottishness. It has strong implications for those living in, but not born in, Scotland given that the dominant theme of sectarianism has been held to be hostility on the part of ‘native’, Protestant Scots towards Catholic, and particularly Irish Catholic, migrants. For some, sectarianism reveals that Scotland ‘has no capacity for tolerance . .. Scotland is a divisive, bigoted society’. 1 Sectarianism represents a dark underbelly to the forward-looking, self-confident, apparently inclusive civic nationalism of contemporary Scotland; no ghost from the past but a cancer behind the civic facade. Two recent books suggest that this ‘Scottish debate’ belongs within a broader international framework. In his Catholics: Britain’s Largest Minority, Dennis Sewell argues that British Catholicism is still, to some extent, ‘seen as something alien, exotic and culturally distinct’. Whilst the old English Protestant hostility to all things Catholic has all but disappeared into the dustbin of history, Sewell felt it ‘had been replaced by a form of secular incomprehension, shading into suspicion, irritation and a new form of antagonism’. Thus it was appropriate to establish Catholicism as a largely unnoticed ‘minority’, with all the connotations relating to power and powerlessness that implies. 2 With less subtlety, Philip Jenkins in The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice 1

2


argues that American Catholics are on the wrong end of ‘a great deal of startling vituperation’, and that anti-Catholic ‘attitudes are so ingrained as to be invisible’. Whilst Sewell draws a careful distinction between ancient Protestant suspicions of Catholicism and a modern and contemporary ‘secular incomprehension’, Jenkins argues that outright anti-Catholicism now represents ‘a significant component of the new [American] liberalism’.3 Much of this seems all too familiar to Scottish eyes – whilst Jenkins talks of attitudes so ‘ingrained as to be invisible’, commentators in Scotland talk of ‘sleep-walking bigotry’, and see secular suspicion of traditionalist religion as a continuum of age-old prejudices.4 To some degree the resurfacing of accounts of anti-Catholic bigotry reflects a Church and a faith on the global defensive. Recent years have seen a spate of scandals involving a small number of pedophiles within the Catholic priesthood, and a continuing debate around the Vatican’s early twentieth-century relationship with anti-Semitism. Books such as John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII published after considerable publicity in September 1999, and child abuse scandals from around the world put Catholicism on the back foot. These debates have not gone away, and there are recurrent skirmishes between the Catholic Church and those campaigning for gay/lesbian rights, or those involved in sexual health initiatives. Add to this continuing questions with regard to the Church’s role in the development of modern antiSemitism, and it seems relatively unsurprising that Catholics in a number of countries are becoming introspective and, in some cases, downright defensive. 5 This book argues that claims of both ‘anti-Catholicism’ and ‘sectarianism’ in contemporary Scotland offer little more than superficial analysis, their key weakness the absence of any comparative framework. It is assumed that Scotland and Ireland are deviant in that religious differences elsewhere are largely absent. It is to Ireland, particularly Ulster and subsequently Northern Ireland, that most accounts look for comparison. Research into party politics, class, gender, indeed any number of social and political issues, routinely compares Scotland with the rest of Britain, Western Europe and beyond. Popular accounts of religious division, by and large, look little further than Northern Ireland.6 To some degree this myopia springs from the belief that religion and politics should not mix, and that in most parts of the modern world they do not mix. Northern Ireland, where politics and religion are inextricably linked and with which Scotland has very many cultural connections, is seen as the obvious, the only, comparator. A broader view reveals that religious identity is, or has been until recently, a key organisational principle in

Introduction

3

European politics. Religion and politics have mixed, and do mix, in societies generally regarded as outstanding examples of post-war European pluralism and tolerance. In West Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia and the Netherlands, the class politics of left and right have largely mapped onto religious divisions between Protestant, Catholic and secularist. In England, Wales, North America and Australasia a clear political division between Protestant and Catholic, and ‘native’ and ‘Irish’ can be historically traced. There is also a fundamental problem with the terminology with which the debate is conducted. Terms such as ‘Protestant’, ‘Catholic’ and ‘sectarian’ are used without precision, taken as self-evident. Sectarianism in particular is loosely used as a casual, often superfluous, prefix. Sociologically, ‘sectarianism’ denotes a social setting in which systematic discrimination affects the life chances of religious groups, and within which religious affiliation stands for much more than theological belief. It will be argued that, in this sense, ‘sectarian’ is not a sustainable description of contemporary Scotland. Scotland is an increasingly secular society where religious differences are diminishing in social significance. What passes for sectarianism in modern Scotland is better described as bigotry or prejudice – or perhaps ‘secular incomprehension’ – it is not systematic and it does not materially affect the life chances of entire religious groups. This being said, there is a widespread perception that religious bigotry, or even simple religious difference, remains a serious social problem – hence the debate. Bigotry, of course, offers a challenge to any society, but the concern of this study is whether bigotry is a reflection of structured patterns of religious division in Scottish society. In large part, Scots are concerned about religious bigotry because it lingers in one high-profile arena of Scottish life: football. Scottish football is uniquely dominated in the European game by just two clubs – Celtic and Rangers, collectively known as the ‘Old Firm’ – which have appropriated distinctive ethno-religious identities. Celtic ‘represent’ Scotland’s Catholic community and a Catholic Irish immigrant heritage, its fans adopting the symbols and songs of Nationalist/Republican Ireland. Rangers, on the other hand, ‘represent’ a version of Protestant Scotland, its fans adopting the songs and symbols of British Unionism, of Orangeism and of Ulster Loyalism. Rivalry between the clubs is thus given an exotic twist, one that suggests that sectarian divisions have a worrying resonance in wider society. Many studies of sectarianism begin with this rivalry, and many go no further, viewing it as a measure of the vibrancy of religious and political identities. Indeed, football is the only obvious place to begin: where else can one find regular confrontations over religion?

4


This is in itself revealing. Studies of religious conflict in, say, Northern Ireland or Latin America would view the obvious starting point as the political system itself. It would look to Church–State relations; the role of religious identity in political organisation and support; and relations between the Churches themselves. Sport, if investigated at all, would be seen as an interesting, but subsidiary, arena of study. Many studies reverse this process for Scotland, looking at the conjunction of religion and political identities in Scottish football, and then generalising to a societal level. This study barely touches upon football, not because it is seen as unimportant (to many Scots, including the author, it is anything but that), nor because it is seen as unworthy of academic attention, but because it stands as a distorting mirror for broader Scottish society. Football is a voluntaristic realm where partisanship is intrinsic, indeed demanded. Searching for bitterness precisely where we know it exists tells us only what we already know – that some football supporters utilise religious and political symbolism not only to demonstrate loyalty to their team, but also (and just as importantly) to offend, annoy, and infuriate opponents. In other words, the dynamic of the Old Firm may be at heart a footballing, rather than religious, rivalry. This book asks whether religion really ‘makes a difference’ in Scotland. More precisely, it asks how widespread religious activity is in Scotland, and whether religious affiliation in Scotland can be shown to stand for more than theological belief. In terms of religious connections and activities, Scotland is an increasingly secular country. Religious attendance and membership are declining; little more than a half of all Scottish marriages are celebrated religiously; once consecrated buildings lie empty, or have been converted to secular use. Further, it will be shown that on two central issues in the supposed religious divide – Northern Ireland and separate Catholic schools – religion actually plays a fairly weak role; the Scots are not religiously polarised on these core ‘sectarian’ issues. Yet a significant proportion of Scots view the influence of religion, or more precisely of religious antagonisms, as a worrying problem in contemporary Scotland. Such a paradox seems puzzling: the perception of conflict remains although conflict itself has diminished. One concrete result of the Scottish introspection and debate about ‘sectarianism’ was the tightening up of legislation regarding violent crime. The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 made ‘religious aggravation’ a statutory offence, and required that the justice system record the incidence of violent crimes with ‘sectarian’ overtones. Whilst this was a welcome move, what seemed remarkable was the limited focus of concern. Whilst much of the debate often spoke of ‘religious hatred’ as a societal

Introduction

5

problem, specific examples of its expression related almost exclusively to football-related incidents, and specifically to the Old Firm.7 Scotland stands at an important point in its history: the rise of political nationalism, expressed not only in the emergence of the Scottish National Party but also in the broad support for constitutional change, has profoundly changed the political landscape. Have these changes received support from all the religious constituencies of Scotland, or is there an underlying division on key political questions? Has an increasing sense of Scottishness embraced all religious groups, or have some proved more reticent, perhaps fearful of the religious dimensions of Scottish identity? A good deal of the literature highlights these issues as potential problems for Scotland. Scottish Catholics, it has been argued, have historically felt distanced from Scottishness, in part due to the Irish heritage of many Catholics, in part because of the historic connections between Scottishness, Protestantism, and Britishness. It is claimed that Catholics have suspected that constitutional change contained a danger that the ‘new’ Scotland would also be a more vibrantly Protestant Scotland, that an Edinburgh Parliament might have parallels with Stormont. In other words, it has been argued that Catholics stand apart on two of the defining political issues in contemporary Scotland. The weakness of such an analysis is shown in 25 years of social surveys, painfully underused in this area. As this study demonstrates, religion does not provide the marker of political cleavage that much of the literature on modern Scotland would suggest. Most accounts of religious conflict in Scotland – whether concerned with prejudice, bigotry, violence or discrimination – agree on one thing: it was worse in the past. There is a strong sense that the potential for very serious religious conflict – and indeed for a sectarian social system – existed in the Scottish past, and that to some extent it still exists. At its most superficial, such a view is encapsulated in the claim that Scotland is ‘Ulster without the guns’. More sensitive analyses point to apparently deep divisions in the nineteenth century between, and the mutual hostility of, ‘immigrant’ Irish Catholic and ‘native’ Scottish Protestant. Yet again a broader comparative horizon is instructive. Such divisions were not uniquely Scottish and Irish, they existed – often more violently – throughout the receiving societies of the Irish Diaspora, in North America, Australasia, and England and Wales. We cannot simply transplant the concerns of the present into the past: present day religious animosity cannot be understood as ‘the same as in the past, only less of it’, it is qualitatively, not just quantitatively, different. Religious imagery, practice and controversies resonated differently in the past because they mattered

6


more. Religious antagonisms must be seen within the historical context of their time. A key focus of this book, therefore, is an examination of religion and politics in inter-war Scotland, a period witnessing the sharpest modern polarisation between Scotland’s Protestant and Catholic. Yet whilst intra-Christian conflict – in terms of ideas, of political action, and physical violence – was indeed very sharp between c.1918 and 1939, it can only be understood in the extraordinary circumstances of the time. Economic slump coincided with real fears of ‘the end of Scotland’ as a distinctive national community, and the emergence of a new British political dualism, firmly rooted in class cleavage. It was also a period of bullish Catholic confidence and dispirited Protestant gloom – found internationally and not simply in Scotland – which provoked a ‘Protestant’ backlash in many societies. But even in that period of sharp religious conflict, the relationship of religion and politics defies a simple division between Catholic and Protestant. Religious conflicts were secondary to, and depended upon, the seismic social events of the period. Mass-produced poverty followed hard upon the war to end all wars. British imperial confidence was shaken in Ireland, close to the (geographical and ideological) heart of the British sense of world mission. The rise of mass popular entertainment accompanied the universal franchise, the rise of Labour, and radical street politics of left and right. The seemingly inexorable drift back to War; Churches emptied by poverty; the unparalleled freedom and attraction of mass leisure: these were the defining features of the period. Religious conflicts may have mapped on to these transformations, and may have been provoked by them, but they rarely influenced them. Religious conflict was not the defining character of inter-war Scotland – rather, it was an outcome of other, secular and profane, processes. Unlike Northern Ireland, where social and political conflict was conducted through a religious prism, Scottish religious controversies were short, sharp, and with little consequence (except the impression that ‘sectarianism’ was more important than it really was). This is not to say that there were no genuinely religious conflicts, for there were. However, religious controversies produced, at least to late twentieth-century eyes, unexpected alliances – there was, for example, a section of the Scottish left resolutely wedded to Protestantism and prepared to defend it, all the while championing the liberties of Scotland’s Catholics. Such controversies did not always involve a cleavage between Protestants and Catholics. More frequently the controversy stemmed from antagonism between the sacred and the secular, pitching clerical interests against

Introduction

7

that of the religiously disinterested state. In such cases the close tactical association of supposed sworn enemies (Catholic priests and Orange chaplains, for example) reveals the poverty of an analysis which focuses on Catholic versus Protestant alone, and ignores religious versus secular. The past,to a considerable degree,represents a ‘Golden Age’ for sectarianism. Accounts of the present are invariably drawn into history either to explain the decline of sectarian conflict, or to support claims for its contemporary divisiveness. By convention, it would seem to make sense to design the structure of this study in a roughly chronological fashion: examine the past to illustrate the present. However,this study inverts this conventional architecture: the first part examines the position of religion, and of religious conflict, in contemporary Scotland, whilst the second part is concerned with conflict,and its context, in the inter-war period. Such an approach is necessary because, above all, this is a debate about contemporary Scotland, about what Scotland is as it enters a new era. This book demonstrates that Scotland is not a sectarian country (at least when the term is used with care) and, further, that the Scottish past was not sectarian in the way it is often claimed to be. The first part of the study serves two functions. Primarily it reveals that the contemporary absence of a religious cleavage in Scotland’s politics is entirely consistent with the place of religion in Scottish politics during the relatively recent, and highly polarised, past. Secondarily, it circumvents the response that ‘maybe Scotland isn’t sectarian now, but it certainly used to be’, by illustrating that the concerns of the present cannot be simply pushed neatly into a vaguely defined ‘bad old days’. The second part of the study, then, emphasises the argument of the first: modern Scotland is not, and was not polarised between Catholic and Protestant. It seems puzzling that a serious debate on ‘sectarianism’ did not arise until the late twentieth century, by which time Scotland had undergone rapid and deep-reaching secularisation. The study concludes by considering why religious division has emerged as a controversial topic now. The question of sectarianism belongs within a broader debate provoked by constitutional change and the necessity to confront key questions of identity. Who are the Scots, where are we going, where have we been? At the heart of the debate on sectarianism is a question about the place (or the absence) of religion within a new, re-imagined, configuration of Scottishness. National identities are not summoned from the void and neither are they fixed, constant. The debate on ‘sectarianism’, therefore, can be seen as part of a broader debate on the identity of Scotland and the Scots.

2 ‘Sectarianism’ in Modern Scotland

One day in the Abbotsford School playground [. . .] a gang of boys had rushed at us shouting a challenge: ‘Wha’ are yese – Billy or a Dan? Billy or a Dan!’ Fists up, they were going to beat us to a pulp if we gave the wrong answer. This was the first time either of us had heard of ‘Billy’ or ‘Dan’. And we had no idea what faction they belonged to. This was war and no mistake [. . .] we stood a fifty-fifty chance of getting that beating . . . Charlie’s deeply sunken chin moved up a fraction. Undisturbed, he studied the gang one by one as they crowded round us. Red faced, their excitement crackling electrically in the air, they hurled the challenge at us over and over again. In a quiet, enquiring voice, he asked: ‘Whit’s a Billy? An’ whit’s a Dan?’ They were shocked into silence. Then from their midst came a thin, plaintive cry: ‘Och don’t yese know then?’ ‘No.’ The leader, a heavily built, shock-headed boy . . . pushed up close to us and seemed about to explain. And then, as if something snapped in the air around us, all the dynamism of the moment faded. To explain to us a cause whose meaning they themselves almost certainly did not understand, was suddenly too heavy a burden. They had never enquired into it, sanctified by battle as it was. Charlie’s question came to them as sacrilege, and [. . .] left them nothing to oppose, nothing to do battle about [. . .] The gang shuffled and muttered, and in a moment 8


9

streamed away to find some other target, and we were left alone. Glasser (1990: 2–3) In much writing and discussion about modern Scotland the defining motif of the relationship between Protestant and Catholic has been that of conflict. The dominant chord in such writing has been that of discord, the defining images those of football rivalry and the Marching Season. In all this the key referents and the symbolism are provided by Northern Ireland. In 1995 one television documentary broadcast portrayed a post-industrial wasteland saturated with ethno-religious hatred. The film ended with the apocalyptic words of a young Orangeman: ‘The only difference between Scotland and Ulster is there’s no guns on the street . . . that the guns aren’t here yet – and hopefully it will never happen.’1 The theme re-emerged in a controversial lecture at the 1999 Edinburgh International Festival. Composer James MacMillan complained that Scottish ‘anti-Catholicism, even when it is not particularly malign, is as endemic as it is second nature’. 2 The speech was controversial before it was made, Scotland On Sunday reporting ‘Scotland is “Ulster without guns” says composer’ (this was not a parallel MacMillan subsequently drew).3 As interesting as the speech was the reaction it spawned: Scottish front-page news for two weeks, the issues raised were examined by the UK broadcast media and included the bold claim (by an expatriate journalist) that Scotland was ‘a divisive, bigoted society’ with ‘no capacity for tolerance’.4 Significantly, the issue led to a major book5 serialised in one of Scotland’s leading newspapers. The Herald carried three editorials, seventeen articles, and almost 100 letters on the issue in the fortnight following MacMillan’s speech. Intriguingly, the serialisation did not elicit the same kind of interest. The issue, it seems, had faded as quickly as it had arisen. A useful point about the MacMillan’s controversy was made by Graham Walker who noted ‘the fog of anecdote, grievance, claim and counterclaim [and] the absence of much hard evidence’.6 Indeed it can be argued that in the absence of hard evidence ‘sectarian Scotland’ operates as a myth. ‘Myth’ is chosen with care: Like traditions, myths connect with past realities. They do, however, draw selectively from the past, a process which involves selective exclusion as well as inclusion. In doing so, myth becomes a contemporary and an active force providing, in most instances, a reservoir of legitimation for belief and action. 7

10


Such myths are not constructed out of falsehood, but from a highly selective understanding of the past. As such, myths are ‘fairly impervious to falsification’: they represent ‘a truth (or truths) held to be self-evident’.8 Where, then, should a search for ‘hard evidence’ begin? Much of the following chapter will tease out some of the initial problems in addressing the myth, firstly by examining two common-sense starting points, subsequently by noting that common sense – that which is portrayed as self-evident – is itself a central motor of the myth. In subjecting the term ‘sectarianism’ to scrutiny, the need to re-evaluate religion’s place in modern Scotland will become clear. All accounts of Scottish sectarianism have agreed on one general point: it was worse in the past. This consensus informs the basic outline of this study. The first part, using survey data covering 1974–2002, examines the significance of religious identities in contemporary Scottish society. The second part then examines the place of religion in the politics of Scotland’s past, specifically in the inter-war period. Both approaches will give perspective to, and challenge, the notions of ‘Ulster without the guns’ and ‘a divisive, bigoted society’.

Religion, politics and football By and large the starting point for enquiry has been taken for granted. Many accounts begin with (and many do not go beyond) the bitter relationship between Glasgow’s leading football clubs because it seems the obvious, the common sense, place to start. Tom Gallagher rightly argues that ‘The hate and hysteria on display at Old Firm matches does not tumble out of the social void’, 9 but there is danger in assuming that attitudes expressed on the terraces are straightforwardly imported from other areas of life. Joseph Bradley, for example, has argued that research amongst Scottish football supporters ‘gives some validity’ to the view ‘that Conservative Unionism is as strong as ever among Protestants in Scotland’.10 It is difficult to reconcile this claim with the hard fact of Conservative electoral collapse occurring as it was written! The culture of the football terrace need not translate directly into political behaviour – although many accounts of ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland seem to assume precisely that. The problem is to distinguish how far the Celtic–Rangers rivalry is fuelled by the ordinary processes of sporting competition, and how far by wider social cleavages. As Simon Kuper wryly noted a decade ago: ‘the Old Firm rivalry has outlived religious hatred . . . the Old Firm has survived as a phenomenon because the fans enjoy it so much. They are not about to give up their ancient traditions just because they no longer believe in God.’11 Football is theatre, and fans tailor their behaviour


11

as much to antagonise their opponents as to display particular allegiances. It is far from clear that we can take the symbolic claims of football supporters at face value. Football’s lusty expressions echo weakly in Scottish politics. In 1995, during a match at Ibrox around 40,000 Rangers fans expressed their distaste for a proposed visit of Irish Republican leader Gerry Adams to Scotland scheduled for the following evening. Yet only 300 protesters would turn up half a mile away to protest at the Govan meeting. When John Paul II met Kirk Moderator John McIntyre under the statue of Knox at Edinburgh’s New College in 1982 – a meeting rich in symbolic meaning – barely 800 militant Protestants were present to demonstrate, contrasting sharply with the huge crowds (Catholic and non-Catholic) who gathered to welcome. ‘ “No Pope here” said the predictable wall graffiti. “He’s been and gone” a 1982 postscript added’: 12 The final nail in the coffin of Scottish sectarianism was driven in by the Papal visit of 1982, less by His Holiness himself . . . than by the Protestants and agnostics, Jews and atheists and others who welcomed him. The Pope’s visit to Ireland seemed more a reaffirmation of monoculturalism, while in Scotland he symbolised polyculturalism. This may be a starting point for some constructive reflection. 13

Ecumenicism and secularisation The Churches have not offered the most obvious starting point because relations between the major Christian traditions since the 1960s has been characterised not by conflict but by co-operation. Emphasis on sectarianism marginalises the fact of ecumenical co-operation and, more importantly, fails to adequately acknowledge the central process in religion in the late twentieth century: secularisation. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has been described as ‘the whisper that was once the voice of Scotland’. 14 Clerical diminuendo – hardly unique to Scotland – pushed historically hostile denominations together; co-operation replaced competition (and conflict) as religion’s influence waned. Whilst Protestantism has a relatively long history of co-operation, Catholicism viewed ecumenical initiatives with mistrust before c. 1950. Pius XI argued in 1928 that ecumenicism led to ‘indifferentism’ and reminded the faithful that worship alongside non-Catholics was therefore ‘entirely forbidden’. 15 The broad trend since c. 1950 has been towards co-operation and fellowship, in Scotland as elsewhere. In 1962, Protestant bodies were invited to a Glasgow Catholic conference, marking a public

12


break from the cold war of the preceding four centuries. By the early 1970s, Scotland’s Catholics and Protestants were joining in religious services, notably during the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The General Assembly welcomed an official Catholic observer in 1969, issuing a standing invitation two years later. Thomas Winning, the Archbishop of Glasgow, addressed the Assembly in 1975, Cardinal Gray attended in 1977, and Cardinal Winning attended not only the Kirk’s Assembly but also that of the theologically conservative Free Church in 1995. Within a decade, cautious dialogue had led to joint worship and cordial co-operation: since 1989, Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS) has brought together the bulk of Scotland’s Christians in discussion, social initiatives and worship. This is the institutional picture of Catholic–Protestant relations in contemporary Scotland, yet few accounts of ‘sectarianism’ have chosen to acknowledge it. The contrast with Northern Ireland is instructive. In 1999 the Presbyterian Church of Ireland voted against involvement in the Irish Council of Churches, continuing to reject formal links with Catholicism. 16 One can find examples of mutual religious dislike in Scotland, but such instances should not obscure the fact that the Churches have developed a relationship of mutual trust and co-operation that, internationally, seemed improbable as recently as the 1950s. Beginning with the Churches, however, would only partially penetrate the myth of sectarianism. Being a Catholic or a Protestant in Scotland can mean much more, or perhaps less, than attending a particular Church or holding a particular theological view. A fundamental difficulty of getting to grips with sectarianism in Scotland is that of disentangling the meanings invested in seemingly straightforward terms, not least ‘Protestant’ and ‘Catholic’.

‘Protestants’ and ‘Catholics’ In ‘common-sense’ terms the meaning of Protestant and Catholic appears unproblematic. However, ‘religion’ in contemporary Scotland has a variety of meanings restricted not simply to theology, but including cultural practices, ethnic identity, and a range of leisure choices. This complexity is revealed in the informal mechanisms said to ‘identify’ another person’s religion; school attended; place of residence; name; political party supported; and football team followed. If O’Brien, educated at a Catholic school, living in Coatbridge, voting Labour and following Celtic, meets Robertson, non-denominationally educated, living in Larkhall, voting Conservative and supporting Rangers, then the cues are present for each to place the religious identity of the other. Such stereotypes are


13

extremely fallible: Catholic schools are not exclusively composed of Catholic pupils, and many Catholic children attend non-denominational schools; residential segregation is not a social reality in Scotland; and (as we shall see) there is no easy denominational demarcation in political preference. Football cues may seem more robust, in that both the major Glasgow clubs have cultivated a (financially lucrative) identity that stresses an Irish and Catholic (Celtic) or Ulster and Protestant (Rangers) heritage. However, neither support is exclusively Protestant or Catholic, whilst Scotland’s other clubs have long discarded any ‘religious’ identity, or never had one in the first place. It is difficult to place an Aberdonian, a Dunfermline supporter, or a Liberal Democrat. Ascertaining a person’s name is the most basic (and ‘discreet’) way of placing them, but is highly inefficient, not least because of high rates of religious intermarriage. This has not dissuaded some researchers from using men’s ‘Irish’ names as a marker for Catholicism, and Catholic parentage as a marker for Irish descent, 17 blithely conflating Irishness and Catholicism. Williams estimates that ‘in Scotland as a whole around 65 per cent of Catholics – and in Clydeside . . . 80 per cent or more – are of Irish descent’.18 It thus follows that one-third of Catholics are not of Irish ancestry, and since this proportion falls to one-fifth in the industrial west, it is necessarily higher in the rest of Scotland. ‘Irish’ names might work as an indicator of Irish ancestry, but they are a poor marker for Catholicism. Further, not all Catholics of Irish ancestry have identifiably ‘Irish’ surnames: Edinburgh’s Hibernian football club – whose players during the 1870s were, by definition, practising Catholics and almost exclusively Irish or Scoto-Irish – featured players named Watson, Browne, Smith and Clarke, alongside more readily identifiable Irish surnames.19 Such supposed cues create a de facto hierarchy of ‘religious’ identity in Scotland – being a real Catholic or truly Protestant depends on a range of secular characteristics. A politically neutral Highland Catholic possesses fewer cues – is ‘less Catholic’ – than a Lanarkshire Celtic supporter with strong Irish Republican leanings. In a secular society within which many people claim no religious affiliation, this makes the terms Protestant and Catholic very complex indeed. A tension exists between self-definition and ascription, with ‘religious’ identities ascribed on the basis of traits which are, at the very best, only indirectly connected with religious belief and practice.

Scotland and ‘the Irish’ The key issue in Scottish sectarianism was mass emigration from Ireland. From the early nineteenth century the Irish Diaspora created a substantial

14


Irish presence not only in industrial Clydeside but also in Northern England and, subsequently, the English Midlands and South.20 Irish immigration transformed Scottish Catholicism into a sizeable community concentrated in industrial urban centres. Most accounts focus on this aspect of Scottish Catholicism to the detriment of the other influences on its development. Ray Burnett describes the ‘Catholic Gaedhealtachd’s cultural absorption into the Greater Glasgow [Catholic] ghetto’ suggesting that this: highlights the continuing hegemony of the Irish Catholic urban West as the dominant cultural bloc within Catholic Scotland and the continuing insistence that the ‘basic background’ to understanding modern Scottish Catholicism remains the historical experience of this constituency. There is profound irony in the fact that the obstacle to a further understanding of the nature of the contemporary Scottish [Catholic] community is . . . the denial of parity of esteem by an overbearing hibernocentrism.21 In recent years other ethnic components within Scottish Catholicism – Italian and Lithuanian – have received some attention, 22 but as Bernard Aspinwall has recently emphasised ‘the suggestion that Catholicism in Scotland is an Irish phenomenon needs to be challenged’. 23 Tom Devine argues that this ‘almost exclusive concern with the Catholic Irish’ demonstrates a weakness in Scottish historiography given that ‘Scotland . . . was distinctive within mainland Britain because it attracted large numbers of Protestant Irish from Ulster . . . This important and substantial minority has resisted detailed and systematic historical treatment.’24 This may seem surprising given that estimates for the overall proportion of Protestants amongst nineteenth-century migration from Ireland to Scotland vary between one-fifth and one-third and given that at certain times, and in certain places, this proportion was significantly greater.25 Intriguingly this myopia is hardly unique to Scotland, with a similar dearth of histories of the Protestant migrant throughout the Irish Diaspora. Donald Akenson has recently described the lack of research into Protestant Irish migration to North America as ‘a historiographical omission of astounding proportions’.26 Irish migrants carried with them mutual suspicion and a legacy of internecine conflict – expressed for Protestants through the Orange Order. Orangeism arrived in Scotland around 1800, and by c. 1914 had a membership of 40,000. 27 Into the twentieth century the Order provided ‘a focus for the Protestant Irish in


15

Scotland’, its vibrancy revealing ‘that an Irish Protestant community identity was a fact of life’. 28 Irish worshippers ‘formed a significant part of the working-class membership’ of many Protestant congregations in west central Scotland.29 Into a strongly Protestant culture with its own anti-Catholic traditions came large numbers of Irish Catholics and Protestants with a bitter history of conflict. In the 1940s, James Handley complained that ‘the Scottish equation: Irish and therefore Catholic = Catholic and therefore Irish’ denied ‘absorption into the stock’ to Irish migrants and their descendants ‘so long as they remain Catholics’. 30 More recent authors echo Handley’s complaint that equating ‘Irish’ with ‘Catholic’ is denigratory. For Patrick Reilly, ‘The glib, age-old equations – Catholic = Irish, Presbyterian = Scot – will no longer serve, and it is long past time to have done with such perniciously anachronistic labels.’31 For Bradley, ‘Irish and Catholic are clearly not the interchangeable terms they once were, though for those of an explicit anti-Catholic disposition, they remain so.’ 32 It seems strange, therefore, that these writers themselves routinely conflate the terms. Irish Protestants were virtually invisible to Handley, who claimed that the ‘vast majority’ of Irish immigrants between 1798– 1845 were (contrary to the evidence) Catholic. Quoting the claim by one priest in 1834 that ‘a large number of the Irish in [Wigtownshire] are not Catholics’, Handley commented ‘Originally their forebears were, but lost that faith through lack of Catholic pastors and through intermarriage with the natives.’33 The eight Orange Lodges operating within a 25-mile radius of Wigtown in 1835 suggest that many of the Wigtownshire Irish were, in fact, Protestant. Bradley’s conflation is explicitly expressed as ‘Catholic/Irish’ or ‘Irish/Catholic’, with Scotland’s contemporary Catholics termed the ‘Scottish born Irish’.34 James MacMillan repeatedly conflated the terms in his Edinburgh lecture, leading Owen Dudley Edwards to wryly note: ‘Is the Pope Catholic?, asks the joke. Not if he is Italian, MacMillan would seem to answer.’35 The invisibility of Scotland’s Protestant Irish has been explained with reference to the fact that many Ulster Protestants claimed Scottish ancestry, and had maintained a ‘Scottish Presbyterian’ culture in Ireland. Thus such migrants ‘had little difficulty in settling down in Scotland and indeed re-integrating with their kith and kin’.36 Yet aspects of the culture, politics, and religion of these migrants were problematic, indeed alien, to ‘native’ Protestants. Orangeism, the foremost organisational expression of Ulster Protestant emigrant identity from its arrival, faced a

16


Presbyterian bourgeoisie viewing it as ‘an alien import’ of dubious morality.37 One 1850s Orangeman complained that his brethren were ‘shunned’ by Scottish Protestants ‘as they would a mad dog’. 38 Hostility rested in part upon Orangeism perceived national complexion as ‘a mere Irish faction, a foreign import brought to disturb the peace of the country’.39 More tellingly Orangeism faced religious hostility, long viewed by Scottish Presbyterians ‘as essentially an Episcopal or Anglican organisation’.40 The proportion of Irish migrants who were Episcopalian – and who, therefore, do not fit any ‘re-integration’ thesis – is undetermined, but at certain times and in specific places they may have constituted a substantial proportion of the migrant Protestant Irish. An alternative explanation of Protestant Irish invisibility – and one that fits the broader Diaspora experience – is the ideological position that authentic Irishness is Catholic Irishness. Such a position reads ‘Catholic = Irish; and Protestant = alien/British’. Bradley, for example, quotes an elderly Scottish Catholic dismissing Ulster Unionists as ‘impostors from Scotland’.41 Here ‘Irish’, like ‘Scottish’ in the so-called Scottish equation, denotes not geographical origin or ancestry, but a political claim to ethnic authenticity. In Northern Ireland, a historic affinity towards ‘Irishness’ amongst Protestants has been steadily eroded – in 2001 only four per cent of Northern Ireland’s Protestants described themselves as ‘Irish’ compared to 73 per cent who claimed to be ‘British’, whilst amongst Catholics 12 per cent were ‘British’ and 65 per cent ‘Irish’.42 If the ‘Irish equation’ plays well in Northern Ireland, the ‘Scottish equation’ plays very poorly in Scotland. Surveys find that Scotland’s Catholics and Protestants both primarily define themselves as Scottish with only a small minority of Catholics describing themselves as ‘Irish’.43 Indeed in the Scottish Census of 2001 the number of Scotland’s residents who described themselves as ‘Irish’ approximately equalled those born in Ireland, north and south. The issue of national identity simply does not play the contested and crucial role in Scottish constitutional politics as is witnessed in Northern Ireland. 44 Nevertheless, the linking of Irishness and Catholicism has been deployed from two quite different perspectives – to portray Catholicism as essentially alien and ‘disloyal’ to Scottish values and to claim that Catholics suffer from a deep ethno-religious cleavage in Scotland. Bernard Aspinwall argues that: ‘Irish equals Catholic is a useful tool for interested parties on both sides. Unfortunately it was not always true in Scotland. Reality is somewhat more complex.’45


17

‘Alone amongst the nations’? Memories of religious injustice – and the myths that envelop them – linger long: Catholics still labour under the heavy weight of the bitter memory of non-acceptance in a society overwhelmingly and self-consciously Protestant . . . Despised as foreigners of low-grade stock . . . they early developed the minority defensiveness that led them to withdraw into their own ‘ghetto’ with a rankling sense of grievance and to divide the world into ‘we’ and ‘they’ . . . These feelings of rejection, exclusion and grievance, though they no longer correspond to the facts of . . . life, and though they are deplored by more thoughtful Catholics, are still a real force among the great mass of Catholic people in this country. It takes a long time for such wounds to heal. 46 Such wounds ran deep between c. 1870–1914: Protestants regarded Catholics as lazy, as primitive and superstitious in their religion, as slavishly submissive to pope and priests; they believed that Catholicism was associated with economic and technological backwardness; . . . and . . . regarded Catholics as being generally unpatriotic . . . Of course, Catholics were equally uncomplimentary about Protestants, but the concentration of economic, and often political, power in Protestant hands . . . meant that Protestants were far more often in a position to put their prejudices into practice. 47 Whilst these passages could pass as descriptions of Scotland, they in fact describe the United States and Germany. In North America, like Scotland, Catholicism’s immigrant heritage made it potentially ‘alien’, but German sectarian suspicions had no clear ethnic component. The bitter legacy of the Reformation echoed wherever Protestants and Catholics mixed. Comparisons between Scotland and Northern Ireland seem obvious, common sense, but wider comparisons are revealing. One reason that Ireland is deemed the most obvious comparator lies in the perception that politicised religion belongs firmly in a backward past and that ‘whenever they have been mixed the result has generally been explosive’. 48 ‘Sectarian’ loyalties, in this view, are a throwback to practices mature and civilised societies have discarded. However, a broader view is instructive – religion was until recently at the very heart of western

18


European politics, with confessional parties key players in every western European state except the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. Religious identity long provided a key organising principle in Western European democracy, extending far beyond the electoral realm. John Whyte described two poles of religio-political structure, ‘open’ and ‘closed’. Closed structures feature parties dominating, and drawing support from, a particular religious community, complemented by ‘confessional’ social organisations (such as associations of workers, employers, farmers, youth and women), leisure, media and education systems. Open structures are precisely the opposite: there is no specifically religious party, nor one which draws exclusively from one particular religious group; social organisations are generally secular; and the Churches play a subordinate role within the political system. For Whyte, a clear division exists between ‘Continental Europe’, tending towards a closed system, and the ‘AngloAmerican’ countries tending towards the open: ‘In Continental Europe, it might be said that a closed Catholicism has been faced by a closed socialism, a closed communism, even a closed Protestantism.’49 The closed system reached its zenith in the Netherlands where confessional parties took half the popular vote as late as 1967, and religiously based economic, social and leisure organisations, educational structures and media commanded the loyalty of their communities. Political and social life was organised in distinct ‘pillars’ (verzeilung) expressing social and political cleavages in vertical (denominational) rather than horizontal (class) terms. This produced a remarkably stable form of democracy, rigidly isolating religious and political communities while elite groups from each pillar pursued a ‘politics of accommodation’. 50 In the 1950s, 95 per cent of Dutch Catholics belonging to a women’s, youth or farmers’ organisation belonged to a specifically Catholic one. Similarly, 90 per cent of Catholic primary-schoolchildren were Catholic-educated; and 79 per cent of Catholic newspaper readers bought a Catholic daily. ‘Pillarisation’ permeated the most intimate aspects of Dutch life: 91 per cent of Catholics marrying in 1957 married a fellow Catholic, and a majority named only fellow Catholics as their ‘closest friends’.51 Such rigid separation led not to religious conflict but to an elite-dominated ‘regime of peaceful though unfriendly co-existence’. 52 Although Dutch pillarisation exceeded that found elsewhere – Switzerland and Germany for example – a thoroughgoing fusion of religious, political and social behaviour has produced cultures generally admired for their pluralism and tolerance. Specifically Catholic parties exist in overwhelmingly Catholic countries – Spain, Italy, Portugal – and this should alert us to a major aspect of religion and politics in the modern world. Religious conflicts have often


19

been at their most fierce when waged between Churches and the secular state. Conflicts over education, family law, and the constitutional role of the Church were defining questions across Europe until c. 1914. Bismarck’s Kulturkampf against German Catholicism had strong echoes elsewhere in Europe, even in ostensibly ‘Catholic’ societies such as France, Italy and Portugal. The increasing role, indeed dominance, of the secular state in the realm of education led to the emergence or consolidation of autonomous systems of Catholic education throughout Europe, North America and Australasia. Scottish Catholic schools have proved a focus of debate on ‘sectarianism’ and it is symptomatic of the narrow, even parochial, focus of much of this debate that some commentators argue that this is largely, or exclusively, a Scottish phenomenon. For Reilly, ‘Alone among the nations, we are allergic to Catholic schools.’ 53 Again, a broader view is instructive. Since 1918 the state has funded, administered and extended the Scottish Catholic school system. In Scotland’s Catholic state schools religious instruction is guaranteed; and the Church enjoys a religious veto on all teachers and other staff employed. No other religious body enjoys such extensive state support anywhere else in Britain – peculiar evidence indeed for an ‘allergy’ to Catholic education. As Chapter 7 demonstrates, the Catholic ‘struggle for the schools’ was an international phenomenon, and Catholic schools remain politically sensitive in many countries. One might also note that even in ostensibly Catholic societies the Church has maintained its own schools: ‘the Church has sought, wherever possible, to develop its own structures of Catholic . . . education independent of the secular power of the state’. 54 Neither does one have to search too far to find religious violence in societies to which Scotland is all too rarely compared. Scotland experienced nothing on the scale of US Catholic–Protestant communal violence during the nineteenth century. As Aspinwall notes, ‘Unlike American sectarian savagery, the Scottish variety never developed into burning down convents or firing cannons on bigoted opponents.’55 In England the re-establishment of the Catholic Hierarchy in 1850 fuelled serious disturbances leading to deaths in Liverpool and Stockport. In 1862, Catholic attacks on pro-Garibaldi rallies led to rioting in West Yorkshire, London and Birkenhead. In the 1860s the anti-Catholic orator William Murphy provoked riots across the English Midlands and North ending only with his violent death. Orange–Green violence was common in Northern English areas of Irish settlement into the 1900s and in Liverpool, ‘Britain’s sectarian capital’, until the Second World War. 56

20


Scotland experienced considerable sectarian violence, particularly in the mid-nineteenth century. Coatbridge was home to ‘a particularly vicious riot’ in 1857 after Catholics attacked an Orange parade. Shots were exchanged and ‘After routing the Orangemen, the mob took control of the town, assaulting anyone and everyone at will . . . Order was not restored . . . until the military arrived from Glasgow’. 57 In 1859, Catholic Irish miners attacked a provocative march by Paisley Orangemen, leading to one death, and troops being sent to the town.58 Partick saw Scotland’s ‘most notorious’ sectarian riot in 1875. During three days of disturbance the Riot Act was read and 90 arrested.59 In 1883 there was serious violence following Orange and Irish Nationalist parades in Coatbridge and Motherwell, and after shots were fired by rioters the authorities read the Riot Act in both towns. 60 Whilst such disturbances represent a very serious level of violence, it can be seen that their scale and ferocity were equalled in England and surpassed elsewhere. The same pattern extended to broader protest: the restoration of the Scottish Catholic Hierarchy in 1878 occasioned no dissent comparable with the English ‘Papal Aggression’ scare of 1850. Indeed, the Scottish Restoration ‘was received with civilised tolerance; the few exceptions were predictable and they made little impact on public opinion’. 61 Strangely the point that Scotland was outdone in violent sectarian controversy is hardly a new one – it was made by a leading Catholic historian two decades ago, but has been largely ignored as, presumably, an inconvenient truth: Recent work on Catholic/Protestant conflict in England shows that it was not a phenomenon peculiar to industrial Scotland but one which could flourish just as vigorously, perhaps even more so, in areas like the north-west of England which witnessed serious outbreaks of large scale disorders in the 1850s and again in the later 1860s . .. Therefore, given the Scottish reputation for religious extremism, one is tempted to wonder not at the many incidents of communal friction as such but, given the scale they could take in England, that they were not worse.62

‘Ghetto’ Another concept deserving international comparison is the emotive notion of the Catholic ‘ghetto’. The term is used here to denote the careful separation of Catholics from non-Catholics in terms of culture, religious ideology and institutional and personal life. The creation and


21

buttressing of the Catholic ghetto in Scotland involved three central, interrelated, factors. The first was desire to protect the faith from corrosive contact with Protestants and agnostics. The second was the immigrant character of many Catholics in Scotland and their desire to maintain a distinct identity. Lastly, there was hostility from the wider society both towards Catholicism and the expression of these immigrant identities. The ghetto was thus fortified from within and without. The ghetto concept has been criticised, Bradley arguing that its use ‘means that the Irish are frequently seen as being in some way broadly responsible for limiting their own life chances and in becoming victims of prejudice’.63 Rejecting that social isolation was self-imposed, Bradley shifts ‘culpability’ onto hostility from the wider society. Such hostility, both towards Catholics of all origins and Irish of all religions, is well documented. But it is also clear that lay and clerical Catholic leaders saw isolation as an appropriate response to the lower moral tone of the non-Catholic community. One Catholic Irish newspaper in Victorian Scotland warned of ‘dangerous association’ with non-Catholics: ‘so sure as we associate with them, so sure will we be defiled; their very breath is enough to do it . . . If we do not gather ourselves from among them, they will corrupt the hearts of even the wise and good amongst us.’64 Similar views were expressed in England by Irish Nationalist Hugh Heinrick, who insisted that ‘Isolation so far as possible, is the safety and salvation of the Irish’ resident in England. Of the English urban working class, ‘Their example is evil, their contagion moral ruin . . . Christendom does not produce anything lower or worse.’65 For Heinrick, integration diluted the community’s Irishness and its ‘Irish’ political loyalties, and he thus regretted any reduction in anti-Irish and antiCatholic hostility: ‘the destruction of the barriers of prejudice promotes a social intercourse which is a curse rather than a blessing to the Irish people’.66 The broader point is that the Scottish Catholic ghetto represented one outpost of a global Catholic movement behind defensive walls. In face of the dislocations of the nineteenth century, Catholicism retreated into the certainties of dogma: For the Catholic Church the initial response to the new environment in which it found itself was to denounce modernity . . . The Church encouraged detachment and isolation . . . [and] promoted a ‘ghetto Catholicism’ in which Catholics were encouraged to forge their own institutions and organisations which stressed Catholic autonomy from political institutions.67

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Viewing itself ‘as the divinely appointed embodiment of true religion’, Catholicism insisted that the ‘isms’ of modern life were transitory, ephemeral: By choice the Church became an isolated fortress surrounded by an alien world made up not only of other Christian churches and other religions but also of atheists, secular scientists, and governments that had overthrown . . . traditional values . . . in the name of liberalism and democracy. The Church developed what has been aptly called ‘a state of siege mentality’.68 A key point in this process was the ‘Syllabus of Errors’ (1864) in which Pius IX denounced: freedom of religious conscience and worship; salvation outwith Catholicism; secular public schools; and the separation of Church and state. The final condemned Error was that ‘The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself . . . with progress, liberalism and modern civilisation.’69 The ghettoisation of Britain’s Catholics did not develop politically as it did over much of Europe. It did, however, develop socially and culturally. Scotland is by no means unique in possessing a culturally defensive Catholic community. Indeed one need only look southwards where only in the latter twentieth century was there ‘dissolution of the boundaries which defended a distinctive Catholic sub-culture from contamination in a basically secular society’.70

Problematising ‘sectarianism’ The term ‘sectarianism’ is, in its everyday usage, so pejorative that there are grounds for avoiding it altogether. Boyle and Lynch suggest: ‘Rather than the emotive use of sectarianism with all its historical baggage, the simple terms of prejudice, bigotry, dislike, and at certain times discrimination would be perhaps a more useful lexicon.’71 Likewise, Gerry Finn notes that ‘sectarianism is a coy term . . . Its very use allows the accuser, for that is the intent behind the speaker’s action, to make the accusation without the need to substantiate the case with anything resembling evidence.’72 Bradley notes that the term sectarianism ‘is appropriate in a number of instances; certainly when applied to narrow mindedness, bigotry and intolerance’.73 But Bradley curiously limits such instances to bigotry against Catholics: ‘there is no anti-Protestant history in Scotland and there are no specifically anti-Protestant bodies that sectarian Catholics can join. Indeed, there is no demand for such bodies from Catholics.’ 74


23

As Chapters 5–8 of this book reveal, an anti-Protestant history is not difficult to unearth. In many accounts meanings are treated as self-evident and definitions remain implicit. Bill Murray, for example, claims that Hibernian ‘were the first sectarian [football] team in Scotland’, as it was initially open only to Catholics – and histories of the club agree.75 Whilst Finn accepts that single-religion bodies such as choirs are ‘By definition, a sectarian body’, this should not ‘identify the choir . . . as sectarian in any pejorative sense’. Confusingly, however, Finn rejects that Catholic-only Hibs were sectarian, as they were: ‘not anti-Protestant. Participation by Hibernian in Edinburgh football was seen to be a means of mixing with Protestants and breaking down barriers and prejudices.’76 Thus Finn finds it acceptable to define a choir as ‘sectarian’ on the grounds of religious exclusivity, but not an equally exclusive sporting body. This reflects normative views about the ‘proper’ position of religion in modern society. Exclusivity in organisations operating only in the religious arena is accepted, indeed expected. In other contexts religious exclusivity is not acceptable because such contexts are widely viewed as ‘properly’ secular. Steve Bruce insists that certain issues associated with ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland more accurately represent continuing expressions of ‘religious’ difference. A more focused discussion of ‘sectarianism’ would recognise the core issue as ‘the extent to which private prejudices are acted upon in the public sphere so as to affect the lives of those who do not wish to be affected’.77 Much of what passes for sectarianism in Scotland could be better understood as ‘separation’, a desire to maintain a distinctive religious culture or identity. As this study demonstrates, this is an extremely useful distinction.

Defining sectarianism It is clear that sectarianism remains under-theorised, although a general model has been developed by John Brewer. For Brewer, sectarianism is ‘more nebulous’ than racism, its ‘social markers are more opaque and less deterministic, and are much more context-bound to the beliefs of the people involved’. There are important ‘points of convergence’ between racism and sectarianism – both produce ‘inequality in a structured manner rather than randomly’ and: Both also describe a set of social relations which permeate through all levels of society, rather than refer simply to a set of individual attitudes or prejudices . . . Thus, there is similarity in the way that

24


they are experienced at the levels of ideas, individual action and the social structure. Both are expressed, in various forms, as negative and pejorative beliefs, inequality, discrimination and harassment.78 Brewer provides the definition for sectarianism used in this study, and offers an illuminating point of contrast between Scotland and Northern Ireland. Sectarianism is here defined as: ‘behaviour, policies and types of treatment that are informed by religious difference’; where ‘sectarianism describes a set of social relations that are codified into a stratification system which religion causes or comes to represent’. Thus sectarianism ‘involves recognisable social patterns of inequality, some of which are predicated on discrimination’. 79

Square holes and round pegs Contrary to much of the orthodox historiography, recent research concludes that ‘the Catholic Irish in the west of Scotland . . . were not as isolated and despised as some historians have claimed’, and that Catholic workers were an integral part of Scotland’s labour movement. 80 Indeed the political resonance of Protestant–Catholic relations in Scotland and Ireland could hardly be more different. The rise of Irish Nationalism forced hitherto antagonistic Protestant traditions together, polarising Irish politics between Catholic/Nationalist and Protestant/Unionist. Ireland’s Protestants found themselves in a serious conflict over the meaning of Ireland and Irishness itself. Religio-national loyalties did not map onto conflicting views of the meaning and future of the Scottish polity. Along with most voters, Scotland’s Catholics supported the Liberals until c. 1918. Whilst this support has been largely attributed to Liberal policy on Ireland, it was also consistent with the broader socioeconomic interests of Scotland’s urban Catholics.81 Where religio-political schism entrenched a sectarian political culture in Ireland, the Scottish political reality – Liberal hegemony – severely limited the potential of religious antagonisms. Scotland’s relationship with the British state was never seriously questioned in the nineteenth century, and Catholics remained a small minority, regionally concentrated and of limited economic power. Further, whilst Irish Protestantism spent the nineteenth century drawing into defensive alliance, Scottish Protestants were fighting between themselves. Catholics did not pose sufficient threat to reverse Protestant fragmentation and fission in nineteenth-century Scotland. Indeed, ‘Scottish Protestants spent most of the nineteenth century arguing


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with each other, rather than with Catholics, and produced a de facto pluralism which hastened secularisation.’ 82 Bearing these differences in mind, where does Scotland fit into Brewer’s model of sectarianism? Crucially, sectarianism ‘involves recognisable social patterns of inequality, some of which are predicated on discrimination’.83 If Scotland is sectarian in a sociological sense, we would expect to find religious identity materially determining life chances – yet it has proved difficult to substantiate religious disadvantage in Scotland. The evidence resists any neat division between ‘middle-class’ Protestants and ‘working-class’ Catholics, with no immediately striking differences between the groups. Take, for example, the Scottish Household Survey of 2001 – here the differences in social class of the ‘highest-income householder (HIH)’ are remarkably consistent across denominational group (Table 2.1). Despite the evidence regarding the contemporary situation, almost all accounts agree (though few critically) that discrimination was widespread in the past and largely directed against Catholics. Fundamental shifts in the labour market reduced the capacity for discrimination, as small, locally owned industrial concerns gave way to multi-national employers operating merit-based employment policies. 84 Such policies rely upon educational credentials, and a number of studies conclude that Scottish Catholic schools outperform the nondenominational sector in this respect. Lindsay Paterson found that Catholic schools had ‘a clear advantage’ in the proportion of their pupils entering Higher education and that ‘the occupational status of both younger Catholic men and younger Catholic women is now close to that of non-Catholics’. 85 The key problem in this respect is the scarcity of data. No consensus has formed other than that the disadvantage Table 2.1

Social class by denomination, 2001

Social Class of HIH Professionals etc. Managerial and technical Skilled non-manual Skilled manual Partly skilled Unskilled Base

All

Church of Scotland Catholic No religion

7 33 16 26 14 4 8807

Source: Scottish Household Survey (2001).

6 32 17 28 14 4 4012

6 32 16 28 14 6 1255

8 33 14 26 15 4 2679

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experienced by the Catholic community has declined in the late twentieth century. Williams and Walls, in their interpretation of the occupational data used by Paterson, insist that Catholic disadvantage is still measurable, although declining: it ‘is indeed going but it is not yet gone’.86 Disadvantage and discrimination are not the same thing, although if discrimination was widespread one would expect to find rather more evidence of disadvantage. There is a perception within the Catholic community that it suffers from discrimination, and Patrick Reilly argues that the simple presence of this perception (even when countered by other evidence) ‘proves’ the social reality of discrimination: ‘The fact that some people pretend to be victims doesn’t mean that there are no real victims: there have to be real ones, otherwise why bother to pretend?’87 In response one might ask how much anecdotal evidence about any phenomenon, how widespread a perception of it, is required before we can assume that there is an underlying and significant social reality? The lack of convincing empirical evidence – despite considerable contemporary interest on sectarianism – casts significant doubt on any claim that Scotland’s social stratification system fits with Brewer’s definition of sectarianism. Whilst accepting that economic change has removed religious discrimination from the occupational sphere, Reilly maintains a pessimistic note: Crucially important though employment is, it is not the only thing that counts. And the trouble is that sectarianism does not disappear, but simply moves to other lodgings. That a cancer moves from lung to colon is not really a cause for celebration. It is pointless to look for discrimination where, by definition, it can no longer exist. Reilly’s argument begins bullishly: ‘To ask if there is anti-Catholicism in Scotland is like asking if there are Frenchmen in Paris.’88 It seems highly significant that once he concedes that sectarianism no longer infects the occupational lung the only convincing candidate he can provide for the colon is football.

Conclusion ‘Common sense’ has often served to perpetuate ‘the fog of anecdote’ around sectarianism in Scotland. 89 The central terms of the debate – Protestant, Catholic, discrimination, prejudice, disadvantage – have frequently been taken as self-evident. The lack of clarity adds to the mythology of religious division in Scotland, as does the tendency for


27

the debate to degenerate into a grievance-fuelled swapping of generalities. A more critical approach – and one that considers broader comparative horizons – illustrates the poverty of such generalities. The adoption of Brewer’s definition of sectarianism reveals the need for a careful account of religion’s place in contemporary Scotland. As Aspinwall notes, the question deserves ‘some substantial, intelligent debate rather than the 15-second sound bite. Reality is more complex’. 90

3 Secularisation and ‘Sectarianism’

If the last chapter demonstrated that empirical evidence for religious disadvantage, let alone discrimination, in contemporary Scotland has proved remarkably elusive, claims that Scotland is ‘sectarian’ run up against another problem. Although sectarianism is founded upon, and around, religious difference, Scotland is an increasingly secular society. Can we reconcile a sectarian Scotland with the evidence of deepening secularisation? We cannot unless we accept that what passes for ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland is, in fact, better understood as non-systematic reservoirs of bigotry, and the continued existence of religious differences. This is not to claim some easy connection between religiosity and sectarianism, but that a sectarian society depends upon sustained religiosity and the continued salience of religious differentiation. This chapter, therefore, investigates the relationship between sectarianism (focusing on its antiCatholic form) and popular religiosity. Whilst popular religious connections remain high in Northern Ireland, Scotland fits into a broader international pattern with a sharp decline across a number of indices of religiosity since the 1960s. In this ‘objective’ sense, religion is declining in social significance in contemporary Britain, but not in Northern Ireland. However, there is a widespread perception that religious conflict remains a problem in Scottish society. In this ‘subjective’ sense, many Scots seem to believe that religion still matters in a negative and divisive way. This lies at the heart of the question in Scotland: Scotland is not a sectarian country (at least when that term is used carefully) but concern about religious conflict and religious difference seems widespread. Consideration, therefore, is given to the form of such conflict, and concludes that public concern is based on media reports rather than direct personal experience. The chapter concludes by examining attitudes on two cornerstones of the alleged religious divide: Northern 28


29

Ireland and Catholic schools. It is here that we might expect to find sharp attitudinal differences between Scotland’s Protestants and Catholics. The absence of religious polarisation underlines that ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland is more a matter of perception, of myth, than of tangible social division.

Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland In order to understand ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland, it is necessary to recapitulate Brewer’s view of sectarianism in the light of its operation in Northern Ireland and, in particular, the role of anti-Catholicism. For Brewer, sectarianism produces structural inequalities and involves ‘social relations which permeate through all levels of society, rather than . . . simply . . .a set of individual attitudes or prejudices’. Sectarianism operates in the three realms of ‘ideas, individual action and the social structure’ and may be expressed variously ‘as negative and pejorative beliefs, inequality, discrimination and harassment’.1 Anti-Catholicism has systematically ‘permeated the social and cultural structures of Northern Ireland’ and acts as a resource ‘which achieve[s] some purpose in society’. Ulster Protestants have mobilised this resource to establish, defend, and legitimise their (relatively) privileged socioeconomic and political position. It has proved an effective mechanism in demarcating group identities, and for sustaining ‘Protestant’ solidarity. Anti-Catholicism operates as a ‘sacred canopy . . . thrown around Protestants when their unity is essential to their interests. It has helped to overcome divisions between Protestants and to heal past conflicts between them.’ The effectiveness of this anti-Catholicism explains ‘its continued resonance’: it reinforces group boundaries and ‘plays a major sociological role in producing and rationalising political and economic inequality’. Crucially, anti-Catholicism ‘fits seamlessly with [Northern Irish] society and its patterns of cleavage and conflicts. Without this seamlessness, there is no sociological dynamic to facilitate its reception amongst those who listen to it, believe it, and who use it.’ 2 This seamlessness exists partly because of the limited extent of secularisation in Northern Ireland, and also (and relatedly) ‘because religion stands in place for ethnic identity and thus represents the patterns of differentiation in an ethnically structured society’. Since ethnic cleavage in Northern Ireland is reducible to religion, and since religious identity remains of key social importance, there are serious structural obstacles facing those wishing to pursue a non-sectarian politics. Attempts to

30


mobilise class in Northern Ireland have foundered ‘because of the saliency of ethnic differences as marked by religion’. 3 Anti-Catholicism is not monolithic in character. Brewer describes several modes, making an important distinction between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ forms. Passive anti-Catholicism is ‘imbibed unreflexively, without thought or systematic formulation, and reproduced unthinkingly in language with no malicious or discriminatory intent’. Conversely, in its active form, anti-Catholicism ‘represents a fully formulated structure of ideas, language and behaviour’. Brewer outlines three modes of active anti-Catholicism, differing in ideological motivation, rhetoric, and articulation. Two of these modes – ‘covenantal’ and ‘secular’ – can be used ‘as a resource in social stratification and closure’ whilst the third – ‘Pharisaic’ – ‘has no implications at the social structural level’. The Pharisaic mode is rooted in the belief that Catholicism is founded upon doctrinal error, and articulated through ‘irenic language’ – love for the sinner but not for the sin. It is characterised by its theological content and the absence of a political agenda. Covenantal anti-Catholicism fuses theological and political concerns, and articulates itself through prophetic rhetoric. Catholicism is ‘baptised paganism’, the Pope the predicted Antichrist. ‘Rome’ exists as a political conspiracy bent on obliterating political and religious liberty, with Republicanism as (and secularism) its instrument in Ireland. The religious struggle against ‘Rome’ is identical to the political struggle against Irish Nationalism, hence the historic slogan: ‘Home Rule is Rome Rule.’ Secular anti-Catholicism is primarily political, its key focus the defence of Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom. Here ‘Protestantism’ is used in a political sense with little reference to theology: ‘the intent is political, the context secular’. Yet this political ‘Protestantism’, with its idee fixe the defence of the Union, is paradoxically dependent on continued high levels of religiosity, and thus the salience of ‘religious’ demarcation in the wider society.4

Anti-Catholicism in Scotland In Northern Ireland there is a close alignment between ethnic (‘indigenous/ Planter’), religious (‘Catholic/Protestant’), and political (‘nationalist/ unionist’) cleavages. In Scotland, however, in part because Irish migrants were both Protestant and Catholic, ethnic (‘Irish/Scot’) and religious (‘Catholic/Protestant’) cleavages were not closely aligned. Steve Bruce emphasises the consequences of the uneven development of Scotland’s Reformation: by the time the Highlands were ‘Calvinised’, Lowland Scotland was relatively secularised ‘and the dominant form of Protestantism, for


31

those who still had any, was moderate, rational, and ecumenical’. Industrial Scotland did not possess the conditions for ‘sustained ethnic tension’ by the time the Irish began to arrive in numbers. Conservative Protestant evangelism – the ‘sacred canopy’ for Ulster Protestant cohesion – gave Highland Protestants the ideological basis for ethnic conflict, but the Highlands were untouched by Catholic Irish immigration. Conversely, Lowland, urban Scotland saw Catholics and Protestants competing for the same low-status jobs, but few Lowland Protestants adhered to the kind of Protestantism ‘which could have given a sustainable legitimate basis’ to ethno-religious conflict.5 Secularisation, therefore, played a key role in the decline of anti-Catholicism in Scotland, revealing a sharp contrast with Northern Ireland: Scottish society was . . . experiencing secularisation, with reduced levels of religiosity, a declining social role for the Church in politics and a reduction in the salience of religious affiliations within the social structure . . . Patterns of differentiation gave religious difference no resonance ...there was no specifically Protestant politics, no recognisable set of political or economic interests for Protestants, and no cultural stress on Protestantism as an ethnic boundary marker in the competition for scarce resources. Precisely the same processes can be found in other societies historically marked by anti-Catholicism, such as England or North America, where ‘Catholicism becomes less objectionable, if only because religion no longer provokes strong emotions’.6 For James MacMillan, Scottish anti-Catholicism is ‘as endemic as it is second nature. Scotland is guilty of “sleep-walking” bigotry’. 7 Such ‘unconscious’ bigotry closely matches Brewer’s ‘passive’ anti-Catholicism, ‘a cultural backdrop, rarely articulated and enacted’.8 For the most part, Scottish anti-Catholicism exists at the level of ideas: unsystematic and unstructured and only rarely reflected at the level of individual action. How do Brewer’s ‘active’ modes of anti-Catholicism play in Scotland? The theological modes do not play well at all. Some (mainly Highland) Protestants continue to insist on Catholicism’s ‘unscriptural’ character, and it is possible to find obscure organisations opposed to ‘Rome’. However, the dominant form of anti-Catholic expression is saturated by politics rather than theology. In its symbolism, Scottish anti-Catholicism is resolutely secular: the Union Flag; the Red Hand; the initials of Loyalism – UDA, UVF, UFF; the Sash and Derry’s Walls. The politics are not those of Scotland, but of the historic conflict in Ireland. The flags, the symbols,

32


the songs, the concerns are effectively that of ‘Protestant Ulster’ expressed in a Scottish setting. However, there are crucial differences between ‘secular’ anti-Catholicism in the two locales. In Northern Ireland, antiCatholicism is embedded in the social structure, expressed within important social, paramilitary and political organisations, and focused upon the defining political issue in Northern Ireland. It also interconnects with a powerful covenantal anti-Catholicism pursuing identical political goals within a theological framework. Additionally, Northern Ireland is a society where religion and religious identity matters, even to those who are not particularly religious. In Scotland, on the other hand, theological disputes have lost popular resonance. Anti-Catholicism (or, for that matter, anti-Protestantism) is articulated within strictly limited arenas, namely through support for particular football clubs and through Marching organisations with origins in the Irish conflict. The argument thus far is that sectarianism describes a system of structured inequality permeating a social system, rather than ‘simply . . . a set of individual attitudes or prejudices’.9 Prejudices can be found everywhere – what sets sectarian societies apart ‘is not the level of religious bigotry but the sociological purpose to which it is put’. 10 It is striking that what passes for ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland is largely ‘individual attitudes or prejudices’. Anti-Catholicism takes a ‘passive’ form, a set of pejorative beliefs existing – unsystematically – on the level of ideas, only rarely manifested in behaviour. Further, such behaviour is focused upon episodic ‘showpiece’ events – the Orange Walk or football fixtures – and expressed in political terms, the frame of reference being Northern Ireland. A key question is how religious is Scotland? Has it higher rates of religiosity than the rest of Britain, and how does it compare to Northern Ireland? Equally important is the way in which Scots view religion, the importance they invest in it. As we shall see, a significant constituency views ‘religious conflict’ in Scotland as a serious problem, and some view the influence of religion in Scottish life as undesirable. There is a disjuncture between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ answers to the question of religion’s place in Scotland, and a useful way to proceed is to ask whether religious affiliation can be shown to have an effect on political attitudes and political behaviour.

Secularisation in Scotland A necessary condition of sectarianism in Northern Ireland is the continuing high level of religiosity. By sharp contrast, religious connection has declined dramatically in Britain. A range of statistics usefully illustrates


33

the trends in popular Church connection, with the overall picture in the United Kingdom since c. 1950 one of sharp decline. 11 One-third of UK adults in 1900 were ‘members’ of a Christian Church. By 1950 this had declined to one-quarter, by 1975 to less than one-fifth, and by 2002 to under one-tenth. Since the early 1960s the number of UK Church members has fallen by over four million despite general population increase. Between 1960 and 2000 the number of active Church of England communicants halved, and Catholic Mass attendance across the UK fell by 39 per cent. In 1900 over half of Britain’s children were enrolled in Sunday Schools; the proportion for 2000 was just four per cent.12 In 1900, 85 per cent of marriages in England and Wales were solemnised in a consecrated religious building; by 1950 this had fallen to 69 per cent; by 1975, 52 per cent; and by 1999 stood at 39 per cent in England and 44 per cent in Wales. 13 This mirrors an international phenomenon across most parts of the ‘First’ World. Although the velocity and extent of change may differ between societies ‘the direction of change in all indices of involvement in institutional religion is the same: downwards’.14 Secularisation is, of course, a contested concept. Critics, while accepting institutional decline, point out that religious beliefs remain widespread. For Grace Davie, people are ‘believing without belonging’, the key issue a ‘drifting of belief . . . nominalism remains a more prevalent phenomenon than secularism’.15 However, whilst belief in God remains high throughout Western Europe, it too is falling and disbelief rising. 16 Secularisation has impacted upon the culture of religious institutions themselves, many reducing ‘the specifically supernatural in their product’ and downplaying major aspects of traditional Christian orthodoxy. 17 A 1987 ‘lifestyle survey’ of Church of Scotland members found that 13 per cent did not describe themselves as ‘Christian’; 13 per cent did not state a clear orthodox belief in God; and 47 per cent did not believe in, or were unsure about, ‘life after death’.18 A key critic of secularisation, Peter Berger, rejects the notion of a ‘secularised world’ arguing that our ‘world today, with some exceptions . . . is as furiously religious as it ever was’. Central to our purpose is Berger’s key exception: ‘In Western Europe, if nowhere else, the old secularisation thesis would seem to hold.’19 Whilst Scotland is not wholly secular, it is certainly deeply secularised. One problem with the available data is that they mask underlying demographic trends. In particular, the actual numbers of Church members, communicants and so on declined over a period when the general population increased. The population of England, for example, rose by 27 per cent between 1900 and 1950 and by 17 per cent between 1950 and 2000; over the same periods the Scottish population rose by

34


12 per cent and one per cent. As our concern is with the rate of religious decline, the following tables have indexed positions in 1950 at 100 so that broad historical change can be grasped. The figures for 1900 and 2000 have been adjusted to take into account overall population change relative to 1950. Taking first membership of Protestant churches, there is clear evidence that ‘secularisation as a widespread breach of popular church connection. .. occurred only from about 1963–1965. From then until the present, the slide in all indices has been very severe for most Protestant churches.’20 The main Scottish Protestant Churches have seen a sharp decline in members since 1950. Until c. 1965, Church of Scotland membership remained broadly stable, constituting 24–26 per cent of the population. By 2000 this proportion had fallen to 12 per cent.21 Episcopalian and Methodist decline set in slightly earlier (during the 1950s), and whilst the Baptists have been more successful in maintaining their membership, there is evidence of the beginnings of a sharper downward trend (Table 3.1). Protestant membership decline in Scotland is very similar to that in England (and Wales). Northern Ireland strikingly bucks the trend. Scottish Protestant membership has declined more slowly than in England, but more rapidly than in Northern Ireland. With Northern Ireland, where successive Censuses have recorded religious identity, we can trace demographic effects more accurately. Here the key change is an increasing Catholic population: between 1951 and 2001 there was a 15 per cent decline in the number claiming to be Presbyterian, a 27 per cent decrease in Church of Ireland identifiers, and a 44 per cent increase in self-described Catholics.22 A good deal of the membership decline amongst Northern Ireland’s main Protestant denominations, therefore, reflects broader demographic changes (Table 3.2). Remarkably similar patterns are found if we consider active Protestant communicants23 – again Scottish decline fits well with the rest of Britain, and Northern Ireland stands apart (Table 3.3).

Table 3.1

Scottish Protestant Church membership, 1900–2000

Year

Church of Scotland

Episcopal Church

Baptist

Methodist

1900 1950 2000

104 100 47

121 100 44

98 100 72

65 100 41

Source: Adapted from Brierley (1989, 1999, 2003a,b) and Brierley & MacDonald (1995).

Secularisation and ‘Sectarianism’ Table 3.2

Other Protestant Church membership, 1900–2000

Year

England

Northern Ireland

Church of United Methodist Church of Presbyterian England Reform Ireland Church in Church Ireland 1900 1950 2000

35

127 100 38

161 100 26

140 100 38

99 100 64

107 100 67

Methodist

139 100 73

Source: Adapted from Brierley (1989, 1999, 2003a,b).

Table 3.3

Active Protestant communicants

Year

Church of Scotland

Scottish Episcopal

Church of England

Church in Wales

Presbyterian Church in Ireland (NI)

1900 1950 2000

109 100 43

94 100 59

139 100 47

108 100 42

94 100 79


Institutional decline is not exclusively Protestant: adult Catholic Mass attendance in Scotland has almost halved since 1950, a decline only slightly lower than that found in England and exceeding that of Wales (Table 3.4). Northern Ireland is once more exceptional with the level of Mass attendance falling only slightly. Marriage data also support the case that Scotland closely fits a British pattern of secularisation. In 1900, 94 per cent of Scottish marriages were

Table 3.4

Adult Catholic Mass attendance

Year

Scotland

England

Wales

N. Ireland

1900 1950 2000

93 100 54

100 100 51

95 100 61

101 100 94


36


celebrated religiously, compared to 85 per cent in England and Wales, and 98 per cent across all Ireland. By 2001 they stood at 60 per cent in Scotland, 36 per cent in England and Wales, and 74 per cent in Northern Ireland.24 In Northern Ireland the lowest rates of religious marriage are found in North Down (54 per cent) and Carrickfergus (52 per cent). 25 These districts share two other distinctive features – they contain Northern Ireland’s lowest proportions of Catholics, and the highest proportions of those claiming no religious affiliation. This suggests that where Protestantism is numerically dominant, and less immediately ‘threatened’, there is a greater degree of secularisation. More generally, it would seem reasonable to assume that the continuing strong popular connections with institutional religion in Northern Ireland are in some part a consequence of sectarianism. Steve Bruce argues that ‘modernity undermines religion’ except where religion possesses social roles beyond the ostensibly religious. One such role is that of ‘cultural defence’ where ‘religious identity . . . can acquire a new significance and call forth a new loyalty as church affiliation becomes a way of asserting ethnic pride.26 Comparison between Northern Ireland and Scotland is illuminating. In Northern Ireland both religious traditions are mobilised in cultural defence of their respective communities and weakening commitment to the faith may be seen as disloyalty. Whilst ‘marrying out’ in Lanarkshire may, at worst, lead to estrangement from family and friends, in Northern Ireland it may lead to harassment, intimidation, and murder. ‘Mixed marriage’ provides an important glimpse into inter-communal relations at their most intimate level. Bernard Aspinwall notes that the ‘surprising numbers’ of mixed marriages since the nineteenth century undermine the ‘hitherto unquestioned assumptions’ of ‘feverish bigotry until recent times’. 27 Whilst the overall proportion of marriages involving ‘mixed’ religious partners is unclear, between 1966 and 1977 the proportion of marriages solemnised by Catholic ceremonies which involved a non-Catholic increased from one-third to one-half. The lowest rate was found in the Diocese of Motherwell, but even here some 37 per cent of Catholic marriages in 1977 were ‘mixed’. 28 Recent figures are difficult to find, but 43 per cent of Catholic marriages in the Diocese of Motherwell in 1998 were mixed. We might estimate that over half the Catholic marriages in the West of Scotland and a very sizeable majority elsewhere are religiously mixed. The highest rate of mixed marriage in Northern Ireland is found in Down and Connor (which includes Belfast) where, in 1991, just 20 per cent of Catholic marriages were mixed. In strife-torn Armagh the proportion was four


37

per cent. 29 This suggests that ‘cultural defence’ influences Northern Irish religion at the most intimate and personal level, and that ideas that Scotland’s Catholics and Protestants are embroiled in anything like the same kind of conflict, or the same kind of social segregation, require serious revision.

Church attendance in contemporary Scotland The 2002 Scottish Church Census found 570,130 Scots, 11 per cent of the population, in Church on the last Sunday of October. Whilst a substantial proportion of Scots are churchgoers, their numbers are in accelerated decline. Between 1980 and 1990 the number of Scottish churchgoers declined by over 70,000: over 1990–2002, the decline exceeded 240,000. Between the Church Censuses of 1994 and 2002 the decline represented a loss of about 425 worshippers each week, the equivalent of a very large and vibrant congregation. It has become a commonplace over recent years that the Church of Scotland is in a state of inexorable decline, and attendance figures seem to bear this out, Kirk attendance declining by 38 per cent between 1980 and 2002. 30 But the latest figures suggest that the Catholic Church is now fully feeling the chill wind of secular decline. Whilst Mass attendance declined by 5 per cent over 1980–1990, the decline over the period 1980–2002 has been 45 per cent with further sharp falls projected. 31 Although Scotland’s rate of church attendance remains higher than that of England, it remains lower than in comparable societies.32 Within Scotland the Church Census reveals significant regional variations. Proportionately almost six times as many people in Western Isles, Skye and Lochalsh were found in Church than in Angus; whilst double the proportions attended Church in Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire than in the Lothians or Fife. Much of this variation reflects the geographical distribution of various denominations. For example, West Central Scotland accounts for approximately 42 per cent of the Scottish population, but contains 70 per cent of Catholic churchgoers. More than two-thirds of the smaller Presbyterian Churches’ attenders were found in the rural north, with 43 per cent found in Western Isles, Skye and Lochalsh, an area containing less than one per cent of Scotland’s population. Fewer Episcopalian churchgoers were found across all of West Central Scotland than in the City of Edinburgh alone. Catholics formed a majority of attenders in five of the eight areas comprising West Central Scotland – in three of these areas the ratio of Catholic to Kirk attenders was two-to-one – and Catholics were the largest

38


single denomination in three other areas of Scotland. This seems to be a long-standing pattern – one 1954 survey found one-fifth of Glaswegians in church, Catholics contributing twice as many worshippers as the Church of Scotland.33 Do those areas of Scotland usually associated with ‘sectarianism’ show higher levels of attendance than elsewhere? Outside the Western Isles the highest rates of attendance are found in Inverclyde (17 per cent) and North Lanarkshire (16 per cent). Both areas have been historically associated with sectarian tensions and it is here, if nowhere else, that we might expect to find that ‘cultural defence’ imbues religious connection with added importance. Rates of church attendance are comparatively high elsewhere in West Central Scotland, the region most associated with a ‘sectarian’ past. It should be stressed, however, that the rates of attendance across this region have declined very markedly since the Church Census of 1994. Relatively high attendance rates in urban Scotland have a simple explanation: the presence of Catholics. Catholics, internationally, remain significantly more likely to attend church than Protestants, so we would expect – quite independent of any local factors – to find comparatively high rates of attendance wherever there was a sizeable Catholic population. The 2001 Census of Scotland introduced a question on religion, and for the first time we have a comprehensive picture of self-described religious identity in Scotland. By marrying together the official Census and the Church Census we can compare the approximate proportion of self-identified Protestants and Catholics attending church throughout Scotland. Assuming that ‘cultural defence’ was elevating religious activities where ‘sectarianism’ was strongest, we would expect to find particularly high rates of attendance – for both Protestant and Catholic – in such areas. In fact we find little evidence for this. In two areas Catholic attendance seems unusually high – Falkirk (37 per cent) and Renfrewshire (38 per cent) – and both are amongst those we might have associated with ‘sectarian’ friction. However, similar areas such as Dunbartonshire and South Lanarkshire have relatively low levels of Catholic attendance. The Catholic picture hardly supports the notion of widespread ‘cultural defence’. What though of Protestants? It is striking that Church of Scotland attendance rates vary within quite limited parameters. In the two areas where Catholic attendance is unusually high, Kirk attendance is unusually low – 11 per cent in Renfrewshire and just seven per cent in Falkirk (Table 3.5). In other words there is no evidence of any symmetry between Catholic and Kirk attendance rates – and nothing that would suggest that either Protestants or Catholics have maintained higher levels of attendance in those parts of Scotland associated with religious division.

Secularisation and ‘Sectarianism’ Table 3.5

39

Comparative church attendance (selected areas), 200234

Area of Scotland – Council area

Scotland Mid-Scotland Falkirk Stirling and Clackmannanshire North East Aberdeen City Lothians and Fife City of Edinburgh East Lothian and Midlothian West Lothian Fife West Central Inverclyde North Lanarkshire Renfrewshire and E Renfrewshire East Dunbartonshire Glasgow Ayrshire (North, South and East) West Dunbartonshire South Lanarkshire Tayside Dundee City

Catholic attendance rate (%)

Church of Scotland attendance rate (%)

25

11

37 24

7 12

15

10

16 12 25 20

12 6 7 9

26 26 38 20 29 25 19 20

14 11 11 13 12 12 8 8

18

19

Source: Adapted from Brierley (2003b) and Census of Scotland (2001).

Where religion possesses social characteristics beyond the ostensibly religious we would expect erosion of church connection to proceed relatively slowly. Whilst this is precisely what we find in Northern Ireland, Scotland has seen a steep decline in popular church connection since the 1960s, a trend shared with much of Western Europe. There is little evidence that religious connection is any higher in those areas of Scotland historically associated with Protestant–Catholic tensions. When we add to this the lack of convincing evidence that religion materially affects people’s life chances through systematic discrimination or disadvantage, there is no case for arguing that Scotland is a sectarian society. However, there is evidence that the perception of ‘sectarianism’ remains a feature of contemporary Scotland.

Public perceptions of ‘religious conflict’ Against the background of the Scottish Executive’s ruminations on religious hatred, Glasgow City Council ran a comprehensive survey into

40


Glaswegian attitudes towards sectarian conflict. The Council study highlighted a stark disjuncture between ‘experience’ and ‘perception’. Many respondents thought that certain phenomena were ‘very’ or ‘quite’ common in Glasgow, notably ‘sectarian violence’ (66 per cent); ‘sectarian threats’ (57 per cent); and ‘sectarian intimidation or harassment’ (55 per cent). Fewer believed that sectarianism was common in employment discrimination (25 per cent); treatment by the police (20 per cent); or treatment by other public services (15 per cent). Yet respondents rarely reported personal experience of sectarianism. Although two-thirds had felt ‘sectarian violence’ was common, less than 1 per cent reported having been the victim of such violence. Similarly, although a quarter felt that employment discrimination was common, just 1 per cent reported that they had been turned down for a job, and 1 per cent that they had been treated unfairly at work, because of their religion. Whilst a majority felt there was ‘a great deal’ or ‘some prejudice’ against Catholics (59 per cent) and Protestants (55 per cent) in Glasgow, rather more identified prejudice against Blacks and Asians (79 per cent) and against Asylum Seekers (85 per cent). When respondents were asked if they would be ‘concerned’ if certain types of people moved into a neighbouring house or flat, very few said they would be ‘very’ or ‘fairly concerned’ if their new neighbour was Protestant (1 per cent) or Catholic (2 per cent). By contrast, respondents reported more concern in terms of Muslims (16 per cent), homosexuals (31 per cent), asylum seekers (45 per cent), the ‘emotionally unstable’ (55 per cent), and drug addicts (93 per cent). The Council’s report concluded that ‘action against other forms of prejudice may be as necessary, if not more so, than action against sectarian attitudes in Glasgow’.35 Intriguingly, despite the long-standing complaint that there was a desperate need for data on this subject, the Glasgow survey elicited little academic interest. Although one critic unconvincingly condemned the report as ‘loaded and skewed’ 36 few rose to the challenges posited by the study. In fact, given the longer perspective offered by large-scale social surveys, the disjuncture between perception and experience is not surprising. Since 1979 the Scottish Election Surveys, and more recently the Scottish Social Attitudes Surveys, have been asking respondents about ‘conflict’ between Protestants and Catholics in Scotland. 37 Strikingly, perceptions that religious conflict is ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ serious appear to have risen during the 1990s to a peak by 1999, and promptly dipped back by 2000 to a level comparable to that of the earlier surveys. Only in the 2000 survey was there statistically significant variation across religion, with 50 per cent of Catholic respondents believing that


41

conflict was ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ serious. Reported church attendance proved significant in three surveys (1992, 1997, 1999), with non-attenders much more predisposed to a perception of serious conflict than regular churchgoers. To find those groups most or least likely to believe that religious conflict was either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ serious, a logistic regression analysis was conducted on the 1997 data. This confirmed that religion was not a significant predictor of believing that religious conflict was ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ serious (Table 3.6). 38 Given that few argue that actual religious conflict in Scottish society is growing, how can we explain the apparent rise in the perception of conflict across the mid-1990s? The likely answer is the context in which people answer this question; given that for an increasing number of Scots, knowledge of religious controversy is gleaned from the media rather than through direct experience. The 1997 and 1999 surveys were conducted against precisely that background leading to MacMillan’s speech and the legislation on ‘sectarian-aggravation’. In particular, Old Firm rivalry was unusually tense and violent, and many of the incidents referred by MacMillan in his 1999 speech, and in the later debates over legislation, were intimately related to football.39 The resignation of Rangers vice-chairman Donald Findlay (filmed singing sectarian songs), and two football-related murders, provided MacMillan with a powerful and contemporary motif. For MacMillan, Findlay’s resignation undermined ‘the sanctimonious Scottish myth that all bigots are uneducated loutish morons from the lowest level of society’ – as, indeed, did his own (‘joking’) drawing of ‘interesting parallels between Mao Tse-tung and John Knox, Pol Pot and Andrew Melville’.40 These surveys, therefore, were conducted against a media background in which football-related violence, bigotry, and prejudice were prominent. Once the media had moved on to other topics the perception faded, although more slowly

Table 3.6

Perceptions of religious conflict in Scotland

Perceptions Very serious conflict Fairly serious conflict Not very serious conflict There is no conflict Don’t know Base

1979

1992

1997

1999

2000

16 20 41 21 3 660

9 25 49 14 2 957

12 27 48 11 2 882

15 36 40 8 2 1482

11 27 49 12 2 1663

Source: Scottish Election Surveys, 1979–1997 and Scottish Social Attitudes Surveys, 1999–2000.

42


amongst that group (Scotland’s Catholics) touted as the key victims of sectarian conflict. It might be noted that these surveys also asked respondents about ‘conflict’ between the Scots and the English – and there are even greater shifts on this question. Between 1979 and 1999 the proportion believing there was a ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ serious Scots–English conflict rose from 15 to 43 per cent, although in 2000 this figure had dipped to 38 per cent (unfortunately more recent surveys have not asked these ‘conflict’ questions). Notably there has been a consistently strong overlap between the two questions, with half of respondents in each survey offering identical answers to both. It seems, therefore, that changes in the perception of religious ‘conflict’ have less to do with religious conflict itself, and more to do with media-led concerns about ‘divisions’ in contemporary society.

Sectarian questions: Northern Ireland Northern Ireland provides the dominant motif of religious conflict in modern Scotland. Finding three quarters of Rangers supporters taking a ‘unionist’ position on Northern Ireland, and a similar proportion of Celtic fans supporting a united Ireland, Bradley concluded that, compared to England and Wales, Scottish opinion (and, in particular, Scottish Protestant opinion) took ‘a more partisan view of the problem/solution’.41 Here the football terrace is taken as a barometer for Scottish opinion: as Rangers are popular, the unionist position must be strong in the broader population. In fact, surveys suggest that Scottish opinion is fairly close to that of England and quite distinctive from Northern Ireland. There is little evidence that Scottish opinion is religiously ‘partisan’. Scottish Presbyterian support for continued union is stronger than that of English Anglicans, but English Catholics are more likely than their Scottish co-religionists to support a united Ireland (Table 3.7). In both

Table 3.7

Long-term future of Northern Ireland, 2001

Opinion Remain United Kingdom Reunify Ireland Base

Scotland (2001) England (2001) N. Ireland (2001) 26 45 1605

Source: Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (2001).

25 56 2786

50 28 1800


43

countries the non-religious (whose ‘partisan’ positioning is unclear) are strongly in favour of unification. In both countries Catholic support for reunification is about as strong as in Northern Ireland where 59 per cent of Catholics favoured reunification in 2001. Protestant support for continued union seems stronger in Scotland than England, but it might be noted that in other recent surveys the differences are less pronounced (Table 3.8). Crucially, British Protestant support for continued union is far below the levels among Northern Irish Protestants, where 77 per cent of Church of Ireland identifiers and 83 per cent of Presbyterians support the union. In 1992 the Scottish Election Survey asked those favouring continued union or Irish unification to describe how important that policy was to them. Whilst 36 per cent of Scottish Presbyterians described the continued British–Northern Irish union as ‘very’ or ‘quite’ important, the same proportion (34 per cent) regarded Irish unification as ‘very’ or ‘quite’ important. Presbyterian support for continued union is, however, largely a function of demography rather than of denomination. Logistic regression analysis on whether or not respondents favour continued union in the 1997 survey reveals that, other factors being equal, being Catholic is a highly significant negative predictor of that outcome. Although the effect is considerably weaker, being Presbyterian also proves a significant predictor of not supporting continued union.42 In other words there is no denominational polarisation on this issue, no symmetry between Catholics as Catholics opposing union and Presbyterians as Presbyterians supporting it. It is difficult to sustain the argument that Scottish opinion is any more religiously divided on this issue than the rest of Britain. Again what is

Table 3.8

Denominational positions on Northern Ireland, 2001

Opinion

Scotland Catholic

Remain United Kingdom Reunify Ireland Base

England

Church of Scotland

No Religion

Catholic

Church of England

No Religion

17

36

20

19

27

24

57

38

49

66

49

60

225

598

591

284

924

1122

Source: Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (2001) and British Social Attitudes Survey (2001).

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striking is the way that football culture stands as a distorting mirror of Scottish opinion. This issue is at the very heart of the sectarian myth in Scotland, the very touchstone of a ‘sectarian’ identity. That Presbyterian Scots do not position themselves on Northern Ireland according to their religion demonstrates the marginality of sectarian politics in Scotland.

Sectarian questions: Catholic schools The existence of state-funded Catholic schools has long provided a focus for religious friction. MacMillan complained of an ‘anti-Catholic-schools industry’ in Scotland ‘slavering at the mouth’ in the hope that the Scottish Parliament would undermine Catholic schools.43 Bradley frames a discussion of the ‘antagonists of Catholic schools’ under the heading ‘The Constant Threat’;44 and Finn describes the ‘repetitive, near-obsessive’ criticism of Catholic schools.45 The late Cardinal Winning complained that ‘Catholic schools exist all over the world yet only in Scotland are they seen as socially divisive’.46 Such perspectives rarely move beyond the presentation of an undifferentiated bloc of opponents to Catholic schools implicitly united by anti-Catholic prejudice. Little or no attempt is made to differentiate those who oppose Catholic schools for their Catholicism, and those who are uneasy about state sanction for any religion. Secular critiques are thus merged with Calvinist and Loyalist attacks upon ‘Rome on the rates’. Finn argues that opposition to Scotland’s state-funded Catholic schools is evidence of the continuing influence of anti-Catholic prejudice, and his concession that ‘some opposition’ springs from ‘secular humanism’ is relegated into the obscurity of a footnote.47 The Church itself is defensively entrenched. In 1998, faced with rapidly declining pupil numbers, Glasgow Council decided to close two Catholic schools. The Catholic Church attacked the decision as ‘unfair and discriminatory’, making no comment on the simultaneous decision to close four non-denominational schools.48 James Conroy, writing in the Oxford Review of Education (ORE), one of Britain’s premier education journals, argued that the ‘continuing antipathy’ to Catholic education possessed ‘a very particular colour’ in Scotland: ‘Refracted, as they are, through the particular lens of Scottish religious and political history’. For Conroy this lens consists of ‘strong overtones of Protestant supremacy and righteousness’.49 Oddly, however, Conroy’s article, and a subsequent response to a ‘rejoinder’ criticising it, 50 failed to address an indisputable yet often overlooked fact. Since the 1918 Education (Scotland) Act ushered in the era of Catholic education funded and guaranteed by the state in Scotland, Catholic schools have


45

f lourished. In the same issue of the ORE, Gerald Grace could write that Catholic schools in England and Wales had won an ‘exceptional educational settlement’ from the state between 1870 and 1970 which exceeded ‘many Catholic systems of schooling internationally’.51 As Chapter 7 demonstrates, the English settlement from the perspective of the Catholic Hierarchy in England itself was outshone by the settlement in Scotland. Whilst Highland Calvinists and Orangemen may believe that state subsidy to transmit ‘false religion’ is fundamentally wrong, most critiques are couched in secular terms, focused upon the contentious relationship of State and Church. For such critics the complaint is that religious beliefs belong in family and church, not in state-provided schools. Some reject this distinction: for Bradley the ‘almost non-existent hostility’ towards Scotland’s Episcopalian schools ‘bear out the argument that it was Catholics who remained the target’. 52 This rather misses the point. There are over 400 state-funded Catholic schools in Scotland, two or three Episcopalian primaries (the very definition of an ‘Episcopalian school’ has become vague in Scotland), and one Jewish primary. 53 Any ‘targeting’ of Catholic schools springs from the fact that they form virtually the entire Scottish denominational school sector. Notably the Catholic system has expanded and flourished since 1918, and the Episcopal system has all but disappeared. Whatever its dynamic, social surveys demonstrate the extent to which Scottish opinion is uneasy about the existence of a separate Catholic sector within Scottish state-funded education. In a number of surveys respondents have been asked whether the present system of separate Scottish Catholic schools should be retained or phased out, with large majorities (77 per cent in 1997; 81 per cent in 2001) favouring the latter view. Opinion is largely divided on denominational grounds, with Catholics alone likely to favour the retention of separate Catholic schools. There are minor differences among non-Catholic groups, although it is the non-religious (and not Protestants) who are least supportive of separate schools, suggesting that secular opposition is particularly strong. More interesting is the surprisingly substantial proportions of Catholics who wish to see separate schools phased out. This view was taken by a very large minority of Catholics during the 1990s (47 per cent in 1992; 45 per cent in 1997), and has constituted a recent majority (52 per cent in 2000; 59 per cent in 2001). Some have argued that an implicit timescale explains this: some Catholics may favour change, but only in the long, and distant, term.54 However, surveys have also asked, without any time dimension, whether or not the Government should maintain Catholic schools, and the results are very similar. Here too we

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find strong opposition to the status quo, one-third in 1974 and 1979 believing that it was ‘very important’ that the Government should not maintain separate Catholic schools, and (with a slightly different range of options to the same question) 40 per cent in 1999 believing that the Government ‘Definitely should not’. Notably, Catholic respondents in 1999 split in the ratio of 48:42 on whether or not present policy should continue: broadly similar to the results on the question of phasing out. As many Catholics believed that the Government ‘definitely should’ maintain Catholic schools (25 per cent) as those who believed that they ‘definitely should not’ (23 per cent). Claims that ‘most informed research points towards an overwhelming support for [separate] schools amongst Catholics’, 55 are not substantiated here. Indeed, opposition to Catholic schools amongst Catholics themselves is long-standing and welldocumented. One 1994 poll found 60 per cent of Catholic Scots believing that ‘Catholic and Protestant children should go to the same schools.’ In 1979 a Church-commissioned poll described ‘overwhelming practical support for Catholic schools wherever they are available’, although ‘a sizeable minority [of Catholics] thought that Catholic schools should not continue’. 56 A key factor in Catholic opinion would appear to revolve around church attendance. As we have seen, some 59 per cent of self-described Catholics in the 2001 survey advocated the phasing out of Catholic schools. This proportion, however, fell to 47 per cent amongst those Catholics claiming to attend church on at least a monthly basis, but accounted for 65 per cent of those claiming to attend less often, and 73 per cent amongst Catholics who said they ‘never’ attended. A similar pattern is found in the other surveys. This seems to reveal that those most attached to, and involved with, the Catholic Church are relatively supportive of Catholic schools. However, even within this ‘core’ group, those who support the phasing out of separate schools (49 per cent) are as many as those who support their retention (47 per cent). Inevitably, some have interpreted Catholic opposition as directly attributable to anti-Catholic prejudice. For Finn it represents a ‘crossgeneration Catholic cringe’, whilst for Conroy it represents a need for Catholics in Scotland to keep their heads below the parapet and to appear uncontroversial, indeed ‘normal’.57 Such interpretation may imply that Catholic opponents of Catholic schools are deficient in their Catholicism (real Catholics support their schools); and that the 1918 settlement is beyond reasonable criticism. Are those who question the educational status quo anti-Catholic bigots or weak Catholics? Certainly


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the split in opinion even within the most regular Mass attenders seems to contradict such a view. One way of approaching this is to discern to the extent to which there is an underlying secular concern over religion’s place in Scottish society, and the extent to which there are ‘sectarian’ connections in attitudes.

Secular and sectarian connections There is clear evidence in the 2001 survey that those Catholics who believe that separate Catholic schools should be phased out take a more ‘secular’ position than their co-religionists who advocate the retention of Catholic schools. The former are considerably more likely than the latter to believe that ‘religious leaders’ should not speak out on issues such as abortion, world poverty, sexual behaviour, the environment, and education; and that religious leaders should not attempt to influence the ways people vote or the formation of government policy. A similar pattern of opinion was found on a range of questions about religion in the 2000 survey. It is more difficult to discern whether a similar trend exists amongst non-Catholics, given that so few support the maintenance of the present system, but there was some indicative evidence that those Presbyterians who did not advocate the phasing out of separate schools took a less ‘secular’ view on these questions than the majority of their co-religionists. So there is strong evidence that a broadly secular worldview may inform opinion – Catholic and non-Catholic – on Catholic schools. What though of ‘sectarian’ connections? Strong overlap between the schools issue and opinion on Northern Ireland and religious conflict would confirm that this issue was a strongly ‘sectarian’ one. But are there such connections? Regardless of views on religious conflict in 1999, a clear majority of respondents believed that the Government (definitely or probably) should not maintain Catholic schools. But opposition in 1999 proved highest amongst those who believe that religious conflict in Scotland is very serious – over half (52 per cent) of this group believed the Government ‘definitely’ should not maintain separate Catholic schools, compared to 36 per cent of those who believed there was no conflict. But even amongst those who thought there was no conflict, a majority (58 per cent) opposed the continuation of separate schools. Yet in 2000 any seeming relationship between perception of conflict and the Catholic schools question had evaporated – overwhelming majorities regardless of their views on conflict wished separate schools to be phased out. So there is

48


little evidence that concern (or ambivalence) about religious conflict has an influence on attitudes to Catholic education. Neither do we find strong connections with attitudes towards Northern Ireland. In 2001, responses to the schools questions were virtually identical among those who advocated continued union and those supporting a united Ireland. A statistically significant relationship between these questions is found amongst Presbyterian respondents, but intriguingly this works against the sectarian ‘common sense’. Presbyterians supporting Northern Ireland’s continuing position within the United Kingdom are more likely to favour retaining separate Catholic schools than Presbyterians supporting a united Ireland. Although, at 14 and 6 per cent, these proportions are small this hardly suggests that there is a significant constituency within Scottish Presbyterianism (or any other group), supporting the Ulster Unionist/Loyalist cause and ‘slavering at the mouth’ at the prospect of scrapping Scotland’s Catholic schools.

Conclusion Scotland, then, has undergone rapid and far-reaching secularisation, sharing the experience of the rest of Britain and other comparable societies. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, has proved exceptionally resistant to secularisation. This is only the first point of departure between Scotland and Northern Ireland. On issues central to the debate over religious conflict in Scotland – Northern Ireland and Catholic schools – we find that religion barely resonates. Opposition to separate Catholic schools is widespread, including almost half of the most-frequently attending Catholic churchgoers, and this opposition is only very weakly connected to concern about religious conflict in Scottish society. Scotland is not religiously divided over Northern Ireland – Presbyterians, far from taking a partisan line, are fairly evenly split on the issue. Neither do Catholics have a monopoly on support for Irish reunification. None of this fits particularly well with the Scottish myth of sectarianism, but it does fit rather well with the picture of a largely secular Scotland with which this chapter began. We find a Scotland sitting uneasily with its self-perception as a society bedevilled with religious conflict.

4 Religion and Politics in Contemporary Scotland

Religious affiliation plays a significant role in predicting voting behaviour in Scotland, although it is by no means unusual in this respect. This chapter investigates whether Protestants, Catholics, and the irreligious differ in their attitudes towards defining questions in contemporary Scottish politics. These issues comprise: Conservative decline; the rise of the Scottish National Party (SNP); increasing Scottish ‘national sentiment’; and the Constitutional Question. These issues have been at the heart of Scottish politics since the late 1960s, and are likely to be so for the foreseeable future. To what extent has religious affiliation impacted on these issues? In particular, can we substantiate claims that Scotland’s Catholics have remained cool towards Constitutional change, the SNP, and a sense of their Scottishness?

Religion and the vote In an important study of Scottish politics, James Kellas noted the ‘considerable acceptance of the view that religion or quasi-religion divides . . . parts of Scotland along Catholic–Labour and Protestant–Conservative lines’. Kellas further noted the lack of survey evidence in this respect and urged caution: ‘the disunity which such religious cleavages bring about should not be exaggerated’. 1 Despite such warnings simplistic accounts of the links between religion and politics percolate into academic research. Finding half of his loosely constructed Presbyterian sample favouring the then constitutional status quo (Scottish affairs to be dealt with at Westminster); three quarters viewing the monarchy as ‘very important’; and one-third supporting the Conservatives, Bradley concluded: 49

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Church of Scotland attenders are perceptibly unionist. The evidence does not differentiate between a unionism emphasising Royalty, the Northern Ireland connection, ‘class’ oriented politics, or even in terms of the constitutional position of Scotland within the United Kingdom. It does stress the links between factors which in other social settings are considered to be . . .characteristics of a strong ‘Protestant’ identity. . . the Conservative identification of many members of the Church of Scotland is not simply related to class but is rather an aspect of a broader Protestant identity.2 Ignoring that only a minority of his sample were Conservatives, Bradley felt confident he had found a ‘Protestant identity’ in Scotland that (but for the absence of Orange sash) stood as an exact description of Ulster Unionism. We have already seen that Presbyterian support for a unionist position in Northern Ireland is relatively weak, and it might be noted that in the 1992 Election Survey only 11 per cent of Conservative-voting Presbyterians believed continued union between Britain and Northern Ireland was ‘very important’. Almost as many Presbyterian-Conservatives (8 per cent) viewed Irish reunification as ‘very important’. These initial comments highlight the need for precision in investigating the links between religion and politics. Religion is not an inconsequential factor in Scottish elections, remaining a significant predictor of the way in which one particular religious group vote. Brown et al. found that being Catholic was a significant predictor of Scottish voting behaviour in 1997 independent of other variables such as age, gender, or class. Being Protestant or non-religious, on the other hand, had no significant effect. Scottish Catholics were more likely to vote Labour than can be explained solely in terms of their socio-economic position, and were (to a weaker degree) less likely than non-Catholics to vote for the SNP. A similar Labour–Catholic relationship holds true in the rest of Britain. 3 However, the absence of symmetry must be stressed – it is amongst Catholics that religion appears to have an electoral significance, not amongst Presbyterians or the non-religious. Associations between religion and voting are by no means an exclusively Scottish phenomenon. Crewe et al. summarised an Anglican– Conservative and Catholic–Labour relationship in English politics into the 1990s, and more recent work has challenged the view that religion has a weak effect on contemporary British voting behaviour.4 Similar effects are found in the United States, and in Canada where the electoral religious cleavage remains ‘quite vital’.5 It is necessary, therefore, to view


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the continuing role of religion in electoral politics as something that Scotland shares with other countries, rather than something that sets it apart. In the last UK general election in Scotland a differential pattern of religious voting was apparent although it should be stressed that Labour proved most popular in the three major groups (Table 4.1). Amongst those who voted, the overwhelming majority of Catholics, and half of both Presbyterians and the non-religious, favoured Labour. There are a number of important points here, not least that a very significant minority across all groups (one-fifth of Presbyterians; one-third of Catholics; two-fifths of the non-religious) did not vote. Variations in this respect are related to the age profile of the religious groups; considerably more of the Church of Scotland sample (54 per cent) were aged 55 or over, than among Catholics (30 per cent) and the non-religious (20 per cent). This has clear consequences in terms of voting behaviour (older groups are far more likely to vote than younger groups), and highlights a crucial aspect of secularisation. Age profiles reflect higher ‘dropout’ rates amongst young people from a Protestant background: Presbyterian samples in surveys are disproportionately drawn from older groups. We must be cautious, therefore, where there appear to be religious differences, as these may in fact reflect age differences. In addition, high levels of abstention illustrates that voting is just one aspect of political behaviour, and one in which a significant minority do not participate. With these caveats in mind, what does the table tell us? The Conservatives find almost no support from Scotland’s Catholics, and garner only as much support amongst Presbyterians as the Liberal Democrats and the Nationalists. Protestant support for the Conservatives may be relatively high, but we find only 17 per cent of the Church of Scotland sample voting Conservative: this hardly suggests that ‘Protestant Conservatism’ is a potent force in the electoral equation. It should be

Table 4.1

Scottish vote by denomination, UK general election, 2001

Party Conservative Labour Liberal Democrat SNP Base

Church of Scotland

Catholic

No religion

17 50 16 16 450

1 81 6 9 143

9 50 16 20 329


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recalled that Brown et al. did not find that being Protestant was a useful explanatory variable for voting Conservative (or for any other party) in 1997. In other words, the relatively high Conservative vote in the Presbyterian sample is explained by its demographic rather than its religious profile. We also find 81 per cent of Catholic voters favouring Labour, which sets Catholics apart so much not in the direction of their behaviour, but in its strength. In the Scottish Parliament election of 1999 a religious differential was also apparent, although there were some differences (Table 4.2). The SNP vote was higher across all three religious groups, although Labour voting was remarkably high, and SNP voting relatively low, amongst Catholics. Before investigating the ways in which the connections between politics and religious affiliation cast doubt on a ‘sectarian’ analysis of Scotland, it is necessary to delineate how reliant the different parties have been over the last 30 years on each religion. For example, whilst Labour wins a majority of Catholic voters, Catholics remain a minority within Labour’s vote. Conversely, whilst we cannot argue that Scotland’s Protestants are Conservative, we can say that Conservatives are largely Protestant. The Conservatives remain reliant upon Protestant support, with around threequarters of their vote in 1974 and 2001 drawn from Protestant electors, and are under-represented amongst Catholics and the non-religious. The Liberal Democrats (and 1974 Liberals) also rely on Protestants, although more so on the smaller denominations (which constituted a quarter of their 2001 vote). The denominational profiles of Labour and SNP voters, on the other hand, has been closer to that of the population overall. Shifts in party fortunes have cut across religious boundaries. There is no evidence that Conservative decline has made the party more reliant on Protestant voters. The relationship between Protestantism Table 4.2

Scottish vote by denomination, Holyrood election, 1999

Party Conservative Labour Liberal Democrat SNP Other Base

Church of Scotland

Catholic

No religion

24 33 17 25 2 397

3 60 8 20 8 147

12 38 13 35 2 381



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and Conservatism requires further examination. For Kellas, the presence of a substantial Catholic (and Labour-voting) population in the west of Scotland gravitated many working-class Protestants towards the Conservatives.6 In fact, this remains unclear. In the 1960s, Budge and Urwin reported strong correlations between religion and voting in Glasgow’s Cathcart and Govanhill: ‘Catholics vote disproportionately for the Labour Party, while among Protestants there is a less marked tendency to support the Unionists.’ However, they also found that this ‘tendency’ amongst Protestants was a largely class-related factor.7 Just as apparent voting patterns may in fact mask age differentials, so might it be that other factors are also at work quite independently of religion. More recently Seawright and Curtice argued that Scottish Conservatism has not suffered from any ‘de-alignment’ of religion and voting. They argue that the Conservatives are ‘more of a Protestant party now than they were in the 1950s’ only ‘no longer a successful one’.8 Their conclusion, however, is based upon a comparison between only Labour and Conservative voters – using a different interpretation of their data we find that 89 per cent of Conservative voters in 1959 were Protestant compared to 79 per cent in 1992. In terms of reliance on any given religious constituency it is difficult to argue that the Conservatives are now more ‘Protestant’ than in the 1950s. This, though, supports the point Seawright and Curtice wish to make. The Conservatives have not suffered unduly from any decoupling of religion and politics in recent decades, and their decline cuts across religion: ‘Conservatism may no longer dominate the affection of Protestants but Protestantism remains an important social base for the Conservative Party.’9 The nuances of this point have been lost on some commentators: Seawright and Curtice are not arguing, as Bradley claims, that ‘Conservative Unionism is as strong as ever amongst Protestants in Scotland’. 10 In 1974 the Conservative vote stood at 30 per cent amongst Presbyterians and 11 per cent amongst Catholics. How far was this explained by variations between the samples in terms of age, class, gender, and so on and how far by religion? Logistic regression analysis supports the view of Budge and Urwin noted above. Other factors held constant, being Catholic or non-religious had a significant negative effect on voting Conservative, while being Presbyterian had no significant effect either way. In other words, being Catholic or non-religious, regardless of age, class, or class identity was a strong predictor of not voting Conservative in 1974. Being Presbyterian, on its own, had no significant predictive value on voting, or not voting, Conservative.11

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Catholics and Scottish politics: the received wisdom One long-standing view of Scottish politics is that Scotland’s Catholics maintained unusually strong Labour loyalties because of deep distrust of other parties. That Catholics have been relatively unlikely to vote for the SNP has been taken as evidence of anti-Nationalist sentiment. Further, it is said to reveal low levels of Scottish sentiment amongst Catholics, as well as fears over what Scottish independence might entail. Examination of this issue is crucial to understanding the political position of Catholics in modern Scotland. If this received wisdom were accurate, there would be very strong grounds for suspecting that religious divisions were crucial in Scottish politics. After all, the rise of Nationalism, the demand for constitutional change, and the emergence of a strong and politicised sense of Scottishness are key, and interlinked, processes in Scotland’s political landscape since c. 1960. If Catholics have not shared in these crucial phenomena we need to explain it. In the 1970s, noting the low Catholic SNP vote, Jack Brand argued that in identifying Nationalist support ‘we would not expect to find it in strength amongst Catholics. We would expect Scottish sentiment to exist in the Church of Scotland since this institution bears much of the tradition of Scotland.’12 As well as equating ‘Scottish sentiment’ with Presbyterianism, Brand argued that Catholicism’s ‘universalistic tradition’ mixed with suspicion that an independent Scotland might be ‘more intransigently Protestant’ and that the ‘experience of Ulster would alienate Catholics from this solution’. 13 Despite the dubious linking of ‘Scottish sentiment’ with support for a particular party, this became the orthodox explanation of Catholic reluctance to vote SNP, their supposed failure to support constitutional change, and their hesitation at embracing a Scottish identity. For Graham Walker, Nationalism ‘was identified as a Protestant phenomenon by Catholics who largely steered clear, fearful of a Stormontstyle Parliament in Edinburgh. In the 1979 devolution referendum this was one factor in the substantial “No” vote.’14 Likewise, Tom Gallagher has argued that the main opposition to ‘Home Rule’ has come from ‘Orange’ and ‘Green’ sections of the working class, as constitutional change represented ‘too much of a leap into the unknown for Catholics, and a betrayal of the Unionist heritage for Protestants’.15 The SNP reacted sensitively to perceived Catholic misgivings with considerable success. The Church’s pastoral letter prior to the first Holyrood election seemed sympathetic to the SNP’s social-democratic policies (which ‘New’ Labour was thought to be abandoning), and was interpreted as a clerical warning that the Catholic–Labour alliance was conditional.16


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By 2000 Tom Gallagher discerned a ‘swing to nationalism among Catholics’, and believed Catholic fear over constitutional change ‘seems to have receded’.17 How can we explain this remarkable turnaround? For Gallagher, the experience of Thatcherism was key in the Catholic reconciliation to ‘Scottishness’, in revealing their fellow-Scots ‘divested of their imperialist, military and ultra-Calvinist livery and as people thinking and acting like underdogs’.18 This has been the orthodox view in recent years: until some point in the Thatcherite 1980s the Catholic relationship with the SNP, with constitutional change, and with Scottish identity, was an uneasy one. Such an orthodoxy fits well the notion that religious divisions were, until relatively recently, of considerable significance in Scottish politics. There is, however, a problem: this orthodoxy is challenged at every point by the available survey evidence.

Catholics and the SNP: a revision The orthodox view is largely based upon evidence (not disputed here) that Catholics were, and to some extent still are, less likely than other religious groups to vote for the SNP. For Mary Hickman, Catholics were fearful of Nationalist advances, ‘as it could give expression to the antiCatholicism and anti-Irishness with which Scottish nationalism has long been associated’. 19 From such a view, non-SNP voting amongst Catholics is hardly surprising. However, few offer evidence for this supposed fear of constitutional change beyond the low Catholic vote for SNP. The indisputable evidence of one phenomenon is assumed to be a consequence of, and evidence for, the others. The vote, however, is but one measure of political sympathies, and under a majoritarian system with ample evidence of tactical voting it may in fact be a poor one. Strikingly, across a wide range of survey questions in the period 1974–1999, Scottish Catholics have not shown any marked antipathy in their attitudes towards the SNP. In 1974, a quarter of Labour voters said they had ‘thought of [voting for] another party’ during the election campaign, and most of these had considered the SNP. There were no statistically significant variations across religion: Catholic Labour voters were just as (un)likely to have considered voting SNP in 1974 as non-Catholic Labour voters. In the 1990s, around half of Catholic Labour voters (48 per cent in 1992; 53 per cent in 1997) named the SNP as their second choice. Catholics as a whole were more likely to name the SNP as their second choice, in part a reflection of the high levels of ‘first choice’ loyalty to Labour. Given

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respondents were free to answer that they had no second choice party, it seems remarkable that a religious group which has been characterised as antipathetic towards the SNP should be so likely to name them as their second choice party. There is further evidence that Catholic antipathy has been grossly inflated. When respondents were asked in 1979 and 1999 whether they were ‘in favour of’ or ‘against’ the Nationalists, Catholics were not markedly hostile, offering little to commend the thesis that Catholics were particularly opposed to the SNP prior to Thatcher’s election in 1979. To gauge the influence of underlying variables such as gender and age, a logistic regression analysis was used on the 1999 data to discern which variables proved significant in predicting a response of ‘against’ or ‘strongly against’ the SNP. Age proved a significant predictor of opposing the SNP, as did being in a non-manual occupation or regarding oneself as middleclass. Religion, on the other hand, had no significant value. Catholics, as Catholics, are no more or less likely to oppose the SNP than other religious groups. 20 In 1979 (before, as the received wisdom would have it, Catholic antipathy and suspicion began to dissipate) respondents were asked whether they trusted the political parties in several policy areas. There were statistically significant religious variations on all three questions with regard to the Conservatives, but none regarding either Labour or the SNP – Catholics were just as likely to trust, or distrust, the Nationalists as non-Catholics in 1979. Neither, on a separate question, were Catholics any different to non-Catholics when asked if a future SNP government could be trusted. Likewise, there were no significant religious differences over the question of whether or not the SNP had ‘been good for Scotland’. How, then, are we to explain the persistent belief that Catholics were, and to some extent remain, antipathetic towards the SNP? Much can be ascribed to sensitivity towards the ‘Scottish equation’, described in Chapter 2, reading ‘Protestant = Scottish, Catholic = alien’. If one accepts that the Scottish equation holds force, or at least did so until fairly recently, then it seems only reasonable that Catholics would not be drawn towards Scottish Nationalism. Less contentiously, if one assumes that Protestantism is a key variable in the construction of Scottish identity, and that the SNP is a politicised expression of that identity, then one might conclude that Catholics (and the non-religious) would find the SNP less attractive than Protestants. Such conclusions are supported, superficially at least, by the relatively low SNP vote amongst Catholics – but not by the relatively high SNP vote among the non-religious. There


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is much here that can be criticised, not least that national identity is more malleable than such positions imply, and that national identities and political behaviour do not so neatly intersect. 21 These points will be returned to. Before doing so, it is worthwhile examining attitudes towards the Conservatives to whom Catholics were, and are, undeniably hostile.

Anti-Conservatism in contemporary Scotland The final quarter of the twentieth century witnessed a striking growth of anti-Conservative sentiment in Scotland. In 1974, respondents were asked whether they trusted the two main UK parties – whilst Presbyterian trust was invested equally in Labour and Conservative, Catholics and the non-religious were rather more trusting of Labour, and less so of the Conservatives. However, the position in 1974 should not be overstated: only one-third of Catholics and the non-religious claimed that they ‘rarely’ trusted the Conservatives. By the 1999 survey, on the other hand, a substantial proportion (42 per cent) of the entire sample felt that the Conservatives could never be trusted to ‘work in Scotland’s interests’. Even amongst the Church of Scotland sample – that constituency Bradley described as ‘perceptibly unionist’ – far more (39 per cent) felt the Conservatives could never be trusted in this respect, than those who felt they could be trusted at least most of the time (22 per cent). A majority of Catholics (58 per cent) felt the Conservatives could never be trusted to work in Scotland’s interests marking them as different, again, not in the direction of their attitudes but in their strength. How did the other parties fare on this question? Respondents were considerably more trusting of the other parties, with around half the sample trusting Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the SNP to ‘always’ or ‘mostly’ work ‘in Scotland’s interests’. There were two slight deviations – Catholics were more likely to invest most trust in Labour (60 per cent trusting them always or most of the time), and the non-religious reported a similar degree of trust (64 per cent) in the SNP. The crucial point is that religion seems to play a secondary role in broad patterns of trust, and there was little evidence, on the eve of the first Holyrood election, of Catholic unease towards any party other than the Conservatives. Indeed, marginally more Catholics ‘just about always’ trusted the SNP on Scottish issues (18 per cent) than ‘always’ trusted Labour (15 per cent). It can be seen that whilst religion does play a significant role in mediating the ways people behave in the polling booth, it has a less significant role in terms of attitudes towards the parties. The crucial point is that religion does not divide the Scots in political terms. The

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rise of the SNP and the decline of the Conservatives occurred across the boundaries of religious affiliation. Whilst the over-representation of Catholics amongst Labour voters, the non-religious amongst SNP voters, and Presbyterians amongst Conservative voters remains apparent, it is difficult to sustain the argument that these are, in any way, religious (or, in the case of the SNP, irreligious) parties. When the focus moves beyond voting this view is confirmed. That religion continues to matter in Scottish party politics does not make Scotland unusual: evidence of its role in English and North American elections was noted above. Once more, comparison with Northern Ireland is instructive. In that country, religious affiliation maps closely onto political affiliation, and the defining political question (the constitution) is clearly expressed as divided between Protestant Unionist and Catholic Nationalist. In Scotland, a constitutional question has also been a defining political issue: how does religion play here?

‘The devolution decade’ As noted earlier, the orthodox view has been that Catholic suspicion of the SNP was evident in the 1970s, crumbled over the 1980s, and was largely overcome by the 1990s. That orthodoxy has been shown to be wrong in terms of party support; it will now be challenged on the constitutional question. As we have seen some accounts explain Catholic suspicion of ‘Home Rule’ in terms of worries that a self-governing Scotland would have unsavoury parallels with Northern Ireland. Others have stressed the links between Protestantism and Scottishness and/or Britishness, arguing that Protestantism informs both support for, and opposition to, constitutional change. In 1974, respondents were asked for their preference in terms of the ‘governing of Scotland’ and were offered options ranging between ‘Scotland should completely run its own affairs’ to ‘keep much as it has been’. Two-thirds chose either that Scotland should run its own affairs or that more decisions about Scotland should be made in Scotland. There were only small differences between Catholics and Presbyterians, with the non-religious most likely to favour the greatest degree of devolved powers. The received wisdom about Catholic fears over constitutional change ring rather hollow for 1974 – 20 per cent wanted Scotland to ‘run its own affairs’, and a further 42 per cent wanted ‘more decisions’ made in Scotland. A large majority of respondents, including 79 per cent of Catholics, were either ‘very much’ or ‘somewhat’ in favour of a Scottish Assembly. As early as 1974, in the first available survey of sufficient size,


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we find evidence running wholly counter to the view that Scotland’s Catholics were relatively cautious about – never mind opposed to – constitutional change. We can go one step further. It will be recalled that central to the orthodoxy was the relatively low electoral support amongst Catholics for the SNP. Respondents were asked for their party preference purely on the question of Scottish Government. Whilst Catholic affection for Labour is quite evident in the 1974 survey, a quarter of Catholics preferred the SNP, twice the proportion who said they had voted for the party. It might be objected that such figures mask underlying differences in how religious groups viewed the importance of this question. Might not Catholics, because of their ambivalent feelings towards constitutional change, have seen this issue as largely irrelevant? There are two problems here. First, this would undermine the argument that Catholic mistrust of the SNP was, at least partly, based on a fear of a ‘Scottish Stormont’ (a fear that would make the question of Scottish government very relevant). Secondly, although Catholics were slightly less likely to regard the constitutional question as the most important issue in the 1974 election, they were no more likely than non-Catholics to regard it as unimportant. As early as 1974, Catholics were no more opposed to the SNP or to constitutional change than non-Catholics. Indeed, Budge and Urwin found no evidence of religious difference on Scottish Home Rule in 1964, and – although their sample size was small – this suggests that the Catholic view of constitutional change has been wrongly taken for granted for some considerable time. 22 The question remains, however, as to whether those Catholics opposed to constitutional change were motivated by the same concerns as non-Catholic opponents. Might Catholic opposition have been centred on fear of the religious impact of an Assembly whilst non-Catholics were concerned about more secular disadvantages? Whilst this would hardly rescue the orthodox view, it would certainly help to explain it. The 1974 survey asked respondents to name potential disadvantages of an Assembly and, although the low response rate on this particular question makes detailed analysis difficult, there is little evidence that Catholics had a different set of concerns than non-Catholics. Two concerns stood out clearly: the financial cost of the Assembly (50 per cent of those who answered this question cited these as the main disadvantage of an Assembly), and the risk that devolution would lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom (cited by 27 per cent). Only one respondent – a non-Catholic – believed an Assembly might foster ‘religious trouble’.

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Neither do the surveys suggest that Catholics contributed in great part to the ‘No’ vote in the 1979 Assembly referendum. The 1979 survey suggests that Catholics were more favourable to the proposed Assembly than Presbyterians: 49 per cent of Catholics said they had voted or favoured ‘Yes’ compared to 41 per cent of Presbyterians. However, Catholics were less likely to vote in the 1979 referendum – 25 per cent of the sample overall had not voted, a proportion rising to 36 per cent amongst Catholics. Gallagher has argued: ‘It is impossible to ascertain to what extent working-class Catholics with reservations about devolution turned out to vote “No” or merely stayed at home.’ 23 Whilst small sample sizes in the 1979 survey make analysis by class difficult, we can view the extent of Catholic abstention as a whole. Amongst all those who favoured the Assembly, the rate of Catholic abstention (24 per cent) was twice that of Presbyterians (12 per cent) and the non-religious (10 per cent). Amongst opponents of the Assembly, on the other hand, the Catholic abstention rate (35 per cent) was higher than amongst Presbyterians (20 per cent) but far lower than amongst the non-religious (48 per cent). In other words, what really needs to be explained is why Catholics – regardless of their opinion – did not vote. To some extent this can be explained by the confused political message on the question from both Labour and the SNP. In contrast to a bitterly divided ‘Yes’ camp, the ‘No’ campaign had a simple message, better funding, and the impetus of an Opposition galvanised by a weak and faltering Labour Government. ‘No’ campaigners insisted that the issue was not the principle of devolution, but of the proposal at hand: the Conservatives promised a more substantial Assembly should they take power.24 There are good reasons, therefore, for a high rate of abstention in the 1979 referendum. Given Catholic loyalty to Labour, and Labour’s deep divisions over devolution, it is not surprising that Catholic abstention was particularly high. Catholics received mixed messages on how they should vote, with some Labour anti-devolutionists ‘capitalising on residual and atavistic fears’ amongst Catholics.25 That the Orange Order backed a ‘Yes’ vote in 1979 (as part of their strategy to re-activate the Stormont administration) gave superficial credence to such claims. A quite different message emanated from the Church itself. Motherwell’s Bishop Devine urged a Catholic ‘Yes’: ‘As a Catholic, I belong to an international church, but internationalism flourishes best when rooted in a keen sense of one’s nation, culture and identity.’26 It must be emphasised that most Catholics favoured reform, and this desire survived the referendum debacle. The 1979 survey asked respondents for their preferred constitutional option. Three-quarters of Catholics and the non-religious supported


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change (that is, some form of devolution or an independent Scotland) compared to two-thirds of Presbyterians, suggesting that the 1979 referendum was not a judgement on the principle of constitutional change, but of one particular proposal. The 1979 survey also investigated attitudes towards Scottish independence and again the received wisdom is seriously undermined. Belief that independence was a ‘very bad’ proposal (the view of 25 per cent of respondents overall) was, relatively speaking, very low amongst Catholics (15 per cent), while Catholics were just as likely as other groups to view it as ‘very good’. Respondents were also asked why they held their particular view: amongst those who viewed independence as a ‘very bad’ or ‘bad’ prospect, the most popular reasons were that Scotland ‘lacked capability’ (15 per cent), or was ‘too small’ (14 per cent). Only a tiny handful of respondents, mostly Protestant, worried that Scotland might ‘get like Ulster’.

1997 and all that By the late 1980s the constitutional question had returned to the centre stage of Scottish politics, largely because very many Scots felt ill-served by Conservative governments rejected by Scottish electors. By the mid 1990s most favoured some form of constitutional change, and most voters were deeply suspicious of Westminster. In the Scottish Referendum Survey of September 1997 (conducted some months after Labour’s election victory) respondents were asked the extent to which a UK Government and a Scottish Government could be trusted to act in Scotland’s interests. Mistrust of UK Government was evident, even with Labour in power: 71 per cent said they would trust a Scottish Government ‘just about always’ or ‘most’ of time compared to 35 per cent who placed the same degree of trust in Westminster. How did constitutional change play across the religious groups during the 1990s? The short answer is that support for change accounted for a substantial majority across religion by 1992: overall one-quarter favoured independence; half favoured a devolved body in Scotland; and the remaining quarter wanted no change. Crucially, there was striking similarity across religion. Those slight religious differences, whilst secondary to a consensus for change, are interesting. Presbyterians were most supportive of continued direct administration from Westminster (that is, they were most likely to be ‘unionists’) but this view accounted for only one-quarter of the Church of Scotland sample. Amongst Catholics and the non-religious, only one-fifth favoured the then status quo with

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around 30 per cent favouring some form of independence. Thus in 1992, as in 1974, a broad consensus for change embraced all three religious groups. However, that consensus was characterised by what it opposed – Westminster rule – rather than what it endorsed. By 1997 some interesting religious variations had emerged. Catholic support for independence seems to have weakened and support for devolution strengthened between 1992 and 1997 whilst, by contrast, non-religious support for independence appears to have grown at the expense of devolution. The fluidity of opinion on this question – in terms of the nature of constitutional change, rather than on whether change should occur – can be seen in the Referendum Study conducted four months later. In that study, support for no change remained at the same low level but support for independence had grown across all three groups (to 29 per cent of Presbyterians; 35 per cent of Catholics; and 46 per cent of the non-religious). The result of the 1997 referendum was as decisive as 1979 had been confused. With the ‘No’ campaign largely confined to the unpopular and discredited Conservatives, 74 per cent supported the establishment of a Parliament and 63 per cent supported tax-varying powers for that body. The Referendum Study found that 72 per cent of Scots cared ‘a good deal’ about the outcome of the referendum, and that support for the proposed Parliament was substantial across all religious groups. In sharp contrast to 1979 there was no significant variation by religion in the rate of abstention. If one religious group stands out in 1997 it is Scotland’s Catholics – because they were particularly supportive of both the proposed Parliament (in the Referendum Study, 90 per cent of Catholics who said they had voted claimed to have voted ‘Yes’) and the granting of tax-varying powers to it (83 per cent of Catholics claimed to have voted ‘Yes’ on this second question). However, differences between religious groups were those of degree rather than direction, with Catholics in the vanguard of the ‘Yes-Yes’ vote. Subsequent surveys have found strong Catholic support for strengthening the powers of the Parliament. The 2001 survey found 69 per cent ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ that Holyrood should have more extensive powers, a view taken by 75 per cent of Catholics. Catholic support for more radical change – in the form of independence – is still evident. In 2002 around 30 per cent of all respondents desired an independent Scotland, a proportion which rose (to 35 per cent) amongst Catholics. Scotland’s Catholics, if anything, are in the forefront of Scottish opinion, being highly supportive of the Holyrood parliament and relatively likely to favour more radical change. In terms of the orthodox view about Catholic fears over ‘Home Rule’, independence and the Nationalist


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movement this may seem like an unimaginable turnaround. In fact, as we have seen, the orthodox view was seriously misplaced. Catholics have been committed to constitutional change for at least 30 years, and they are now at the forefront of belief in further change. Where does this leave the last aspect of the received wisdom, that of Catholics and Scottishness?

Religion and national identity According to Tom Gallagher, as ‘the Catholic Irish in Scotland’ became less immediately ‘Irish’, as Ireland became an ‘emotional heirloom’, they faced an identity crisis – ‘it was not quite clear where they belonged’. However, ‘Scottishness’ was not a viable identity option given that ‘the corporate identity of Scotland which singled out as achievements religious and historical events that the Catholic Irish regarded as defeats, sometimes of a catastrophic kind, was not readily appealing’. Additionally: Working-class Catholics in particular found it difficult to relate to the symbols of Scottish nationhood (and many still do). The custodians of Scottish national identity have tended to be bourgeois institutions like the law, the Presbyterian religion, and the higher reaches of education which are uncomfortable entities to many working-class Catholics. In a footnoted comment to this passage Gallagher argues that ‘it should not be surprising’ that Brand’s analysis of the 1974 election found Catholics demonstrating ‘the greatest resistance towards voting Nationalist’.27 Catholic ‘resistance’ to Nationalism in the 1970s resided in their lesser propensity to vote the SNP, and not in attitudes towards the SNP or constitutional change. What though of Catholic attitudes towards Scottish national identity? Before examining the evidence of the election surveys it is important to stress the limitations of viewing identity through a framework of ‘corporate identity’, ‘historical achievements’, and institutional ‘custodians’. We might reasonably expect that working-class atheists would find the so-called ‘custodians of Scottish national identity’ as alien to their lives as working-class Catholics. As to a ‘corporate’ Scottish identity based on key historical events, one can construct Scottish pasts quite different from the one that Gallagher proposes. In place of Presbyterian partner-in-Empire, we might choose the Scotland of ‘Red Clydeside’, of the Highlands, or of progressive social democracy. The ‘custodianship’ of Scottish identity has long been contested and to focus on its formerly

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dominant, bourgeois claimants obscures those progressive, radical movements drawing on other popular versions of ‘Scotland’. Nevertheless, the historical currency of Scotland as ‘British’ and ‘Protestant’ is undeniable. The inter-war Presbyterian churches attempted to fuse Scottishness with reactionary anti-Catholicism, whilst some early twentieth-century Nationalists peddled anti-Catholicism (although others were anti-Protestant). For many Catholics during this period there was ‘not much encouragement for them to feel Scottish while . . . preserving their religion and their pride in their Irish heritage’.28 This strand of anti-Catholic history, taken together with the relatively low SNP vote amongst Scotland’s Catholics, has formed the justification of the orthodoxy about Catholic suspicion of ‘Scotland’. Two pillars of that orthodoxy have already been shown to be hollow: what of the third? The 1974 survey contained an optional question on which nationality respondents felt best described them. Less than half the respondents answered and the small sample sizes should be emphasised. Two-thirds described themselves as Scottish, one-third as British, with very few giving another answer. There are two interesting differences in the 1974 data. First, Catholics are only slightly less likely than the sample overall to describe themselves as Scottish, although if the small proportion (six per cent) describing themselves as Irish are omitted the figures are remarkably similar. More striking, however, is the response amongst the ‘Other Christian’ sample, who are less likely to describe themselves as Scottish (51 per cent) and more likely to see themselves as British (43 per cent). The 1979 survey garnered virtually the same result. Again Catholics were only marginally less likely to describe their nationality as Scottish, and again if the small minority (nine per cent) who described themselves as Irish are omitted the figures are remarkably similar. In 1979 the differences between the ‘Other Christian’ group and the rest of the sample were not repeated. It is noticeable that, over the whole sample, the balance between British and Scottish identity shifted in favour of the former – this may plausibly have been a function of a heightened sense of Scottishness in 1974, given the rise to prominence of the SNP. If this were the case then it seems that Catholics shared in the fluctuations in Scottish and British sentiment. During the 1970s, therefore, there was little difference in the ways in which Catholics and non-Catholics described their nationality. Catholics appear to have shared in a slight decline in Scottishness and rise in Britishness over the latter 1970s, as support for the SNP ebbed, and as devolution became mired in confusion. A small proportion of Catholics, no more than ten per cent, felt that ‘Irishness’ best described their


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nationality. By 1992, however, there was a considerable rise in the proportion describing themselves as Scottish, and a fall in those choosing British. Again Catholics shared equally in this process – 72 per cent of the whole 1992 sample described their nationality as ‘Scottish’, including 74 per cent of Presbyterians and 71 per cent of Catholics. Again, only a small proportion of Catholics (five per cent) described their nationality as ‘Irish’. In 1992 the ‘Other Christian’ group again showed a relatively low level of Scottishness, and a relatively high level of Britishness. This was due to the heterogeneity of this composite group. Much of it was made up of those describing themselves as ‘Christian – no denomination’ (numbering 49 in 1992) and as ‘Episcopalian/Anglican’ (35). In the former, the pattern of nationality matches that of the sample as a whole, whereas a majority of the latter (57 per cent) describe themselves as British. Many of these ‘British’ Episcopalians may, in fact, be English-born, and from a Church of England background, perhaps going some way in explaining the different patterns of nationality. There are more subtle strategies for teasing out the complexities of national identity, and one important measure is that widely, if inaccurately, known as the ‘Moreno’ question.29 This is designed to measure national identities in ‘stateless nations’ and multi-national states by offering options balancing identity between that of ‘nation’ (e.g. Scotland) and that of ‘state’ (e.g. Britain). How has the question played in Scotland? Comparing ‘Moreno’ between 1992 and 2001 reveals the growing salience of Scottishness, and the perceptible fading of Britishness, and illustrates the multiple and complicated nature of ‘national identities’ (Table 4.3). Almost twice as many people in Scotland described themselves in exclusively

Table 4.3

The Moreno question, 1992 and 2001

National identities

Scottish not British More Scottish than British Equally Scottish and British More British than Scottish British not Scottish Other/don’t know Base

1992

2001

CoS

Cath

NR

CoS

Cath

NR

17 41 37 2 2 * 442

26 37 30 1 1 5 148

23 45 28 2 2 – 235

35 31 27 3 2 1 538

40 34 19 1 1 4 222

38 30 20 3 4 6 601

Source: Scottish Election Survey (1992) and Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (2001).

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Scottish terms in 2001 (36 per cent) than in 1992 (19 per cent); and there was a substantial fall in the proportion assigning themselves any level of British identity from 79 to 60 per cent. It is striking that in both surveys Catholics, if anything, are more likely than Presbyterians to prioritise their Scottishness (i.e. to claim to be ‘Scottish not British’, or ‘more Scottish than British’). Far from displaying any residual ambivalence towards a Scottish identity, Catholics in 1992 and 2001 seem to have been at the forefront of a strongly Scottish identity. Another interesting aspect is that, to some extent, the orthodoxy about Catholics relies on a series of assumptions about Protestants – for example, that Scotland’s Protestants retain some kind of unionist-British identification. Whilst a large majority of Presbyterians (82 per cent) assigned themselves some level of British identity in 1992, by 2001 less than two-thirds (63 per cent) did so. Again religious differences are in the realm of strength rather than direction – in 1992 some 69 per cent of Catholics and 79 per cent of the non-religious gave answers including some level of Britishness, declining by 2001 to 55 and 57 per cent respectively. It can be appreciated, therefore, that national identities are not absolutes: a majority of Scots have, at least, a plurality of national identities in that they feel, to different degrees, both Scottish and British on the ‘Moreno’ scale. Feeling Scottish does not require that an individual surrenders their feelings of Britishness, Englishness, Irishness, or anything else. The multiple nature of national identity is revealed in a set of questions first asked in 1997. Respondents were presented with a range of national identities and asked ‘Do you see yourself as X’. Very large majorities in all the surveys describe themselves as Scottish, with narrow majorities claiming to be British. Table 4.4 notes the responses on this question in 2001. Table 4.4

Claimed national identities, 2001

National identities

Church of Scotland

Catholic

Other Christian

No religion

Scottish British English Irish European Base

92 57 1 1 12 583

90 38 1 7 10 222

73 63 11 – 16 177

85 45 3 1 12 601



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Across the three main groups we find Scottishness claimed by very large majorities, with Britishness representing, at most, a small majority. Although only a minority of Catholics in 2001 regarded themselves as British, in other surveys around half have done so. The group which stands out is the ‘other Christian’ group, and this merits further exploration. The bulk of this heterogeneous sample consisted of Episcopalians (n = 44) and those describing themselves as ‘Christian – no denomination’ (n = 73). There is some indication here, and although the small sub-samples require caution this is repeated in other surveys, of a distinctive pattern of identity among Episcopalians, of whom less than half (45 per cent) claim to be Scottish and a large majority (77 per cent) claim to be British. Further, a relatively large minority (26 per cent) of Episcopalians describe themselves as English. Another notable point is the relatively small proportion of Catholics (seven per cent) who describe themselves as ‘Irish’ – indeed in all the surveys which have posed these questions, the highest proportions of Catholics claiming to be Irish were in the 1997 Referendum Study, when 16 per cent of Catholics claimed to be Irish (and 92 per cent claimed to be Scottish). This suggests two things. That the Referendum may have accentuated feelings of both Scottishness and other identities, and that for most Catholics any sense of Irishness coexists with a very strong sense of Scottishness. There is little evidence here to suggest that Scotland’s Catholics are any less likely to express a Scottish identity than other religious groups and, indeed, compared to Scotland’s Episcopalians they are considerably more likely to describe themselves as Scottish. It is important to disentangle the influence of religious affiliation and other demographic factors. To do so, two regression models were constructed from the 1999 survey data on the question posed to respondents ‘What nationality best describes you?’ In terms of choosing ‘British’ on this question the only significant religious predictor was being Catholic. Being Catholic, other factors being equal, was a significant negative predictor. In other words, there is some evidence that Catholics are ambivalent towards Britishness as Catholics and when other things are held constant. When the model was repeated in terms of choosing Scottish as a ‘best nationality’, religion proved not to be significant: no major religious group was any more or less likely to describe themselves as Scottish. Those small differences in the levels of Scottishness between Presbyterians, Catholics, and the non-religious noted above are thus explained by the demographic, rather than religious, differences between the samples.30

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‘A landscape of the mind’ We can conclude that on all three counts – national identities, the SNP, constitutional change – the received wisdom about Scottish Catholics is strangely misplaced. How can we explain its persistence despite the contrasting view of 30 years’ worth of survey evidence? To a great extent it is founded upon two misconceptions. It is the Irish identity of many Scottish Catholics that forms the basis of both the ‘Scottish equation’ and the misconception it encapsulates. Such a view treats Irishness and Scottishness as mutually exclusive – one is one or other, never both. We have seen that Scots hold a variety of identities contemporaneously. Such identities are not mutually exclusive, although they may be mobilised in different ways, for different purposes, and at different times. Joseph Bradley’s research utilised reactions to ‘identifying symbols’ of Scottishness and Irishness. He found that few Celtic fans felt ‘attraction’ towards bagpipes, the thistle, the (long defunct) Corries folk-band, Robert Bruce, or Robert Burns. By contrast the harp, shamrock, Padraic Pearse, the Wolfetones folk-band, and St Patrick were symbols ‘Celtic fans positively identified with’.31 The choice of symbols is infinitely more revealing than the claimed findings, and one has to wonder whether other ‘identifying symbols’ of Irishness (the red hand?) or Scottishness (the saints Margaret and Columba?) were considered. Bradley does two things to ‘national identity’: the nation becomes reducible to highly selective and stereotypical images, and ‘identity’ is predicated on how one ‘relates’ to these images. In place of Norman Tebbit’s infamous ‘cricket test’ by which the loyalties of ethnic minorities were judged by which international side they favoured, cultural identity in Scotland is thus reduced to a folk-music test. A similarly inflexible and reductive view of national identity was demonstrated by Scottish philosopher H.J. Paton in the late 1960s. Paton noted of ‘the Irish invader – the Orange and the Green’: Few reasonable men, and certainly few reasonable Scotsmen, will regard it as an unmixed blessing that an unusually homogenous nation should be split up into two nations. Yet if the native stock is doomed to decline, Scotland may yet be considered fortunate in so far as the Irish invaders belong to a race not wholly alien to her own. Provided their numbers were not too great, there would be some hope of their becoming assimilated in the course of time – there are already signs of their being affected by some of the traditional Scottish


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ideals. Some of them have shown themselves men of ability, and they have strengthened Scotland in the field of sport. 32 Leaving aside notions of ‘stock’, ‘race’, and patronising references to sporting abilities it seems quite clear that Paton viewed nationality as an absolute category – one could be either ‘Irish’ or ‘Scottish’, or, at best, on the way from being one to being assimilated in the other. National identity, however, is a much more complex phenomenon. Scottish familial connections with Ireland go far beyond the Catholic community. The 1979 Election Survey asked whether respondents had ‘any family connections with Ireland’. Whilst 60 per cent of Catholics answered positively, so too did 14 per cent of Presbyterians, 14 per cent of ‘Other Christians’ and 11 per cent of the non-religious. Although this highlights the Irish heritage of many Scottish Catholics, it also reveals its limitations. Many Catholics (40 per cent) have no family connections with Ireland and, crucially, of all in Scotland with such connections a majority (60 per cent) were non-Catholic. For Benedict Anderson,33 nations are ‘imagined communities’, ideological constructs, which can be, and are, re-imagined and re-constructed. We can conclude this review of national identity by asking why people say they feel Scottish. For the vast majority in the 1992 survey (88 per cent) the first reason they gave was simply that they were ‘Born in Scotland’, with the second most cited reason being ‘Live in Scotland’ (47 per cent), and ‘Just love Scotland’ (39 per cent). Respondents were given the opportunity to give as many reasons as they wished, although only 17 per cent gave more than three, and none more than five. There was no variation across religion in the reasons respondents gave for feeling Scottish. The practicality of Scottishness is striking – it predominantly relates to coming from Scotland, being born there. Only around a quarter gave ‘Scottish culture’ as a reason for feeling Scottish, and this accounted for only two per cent of the first reasons given. This lends credence to David McCrone’s argument that Scottish nationalism (here understood as a sociological rather than political process): ‘Has developed without the encumbrance of a heavy cultural baggage. It is as if, having looked to see what was on offer, the Scots have decided to travel light.’34 In other words, Protestantism and Empire may have been decisive to the shaping of modern Scottish history, but they are not widely regarded as defining and essential components of contemporary Scottishness. On the contrary, an important element in late twentieth-century Scottishness seems to be ‘that a feeling of “Scottishness” goes along with left-wing values’:

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The deliberate linking of nationalist and left-wing values by both the SNP and the Labour Party in Scotland have led to a linkage of these two dimensions in the political ethos of the society. This leads to a situation in which to say one is Scottish is also to say one has left-wing views, and conversely to say that one is British, rather than Scottish, is to assert right-wing views. No such link between these dimensions is visible in the rest of Great Britain and it is this linkage which explains Scottish distinctiveness.35 In place of a Scottishness predicated upon Gallagher’s ‘corporate identity’ or Bradley’s ‘identifying symbols’, McCrone offers up a ‘landscape of the mind . . . notions of the essential Scotland are what people want it to be’.36 If contemporary Scottishness is understood as a landscape of social justice, of welfare provision, and of collective responsibility for the weak, then is it really any surprise that Catholics, Protestants, and the non-religious are united in a sense of themselves as Scottish?

Conclusion: a puzzle The last three chapters have illustrated some of the major problems in applying the ‘sectarian myth’ to a Scottish social and political reality. If Scotland is really divided along ethno-religious lines then why are religious divisions marginal in the life of institutional religion, in terms of social structure, religious practices, and in political attitudes and behaviour? Or, put another way, why does the myth persist? To a large extent its persistence can be explained using Steve Bruce’s ‘iceberg’ metaphor: concern about ‘sectarianism’ exists because the Scottish past is seen, in many respects, as a ‘sectarian’ one. Indeed, it is notable that the literary landmarks in this area are thoroughly historical. Handley’s histories were joined four decades later by Bruce’s No Pope of Rome, predominantly concerned with Scotland before c. 1950, and Gallagher’s two volumes, the first largely concerned with the period 1819–1914, the second with 1930s Edinburgh. 37 Subsequent commentaries have all accepted the premise that ‘things were worse’ in the past, although not all have shown a willingness to contextualise that past. David Lowenthal brilliantly demonstrated that ‘The Past is a Foreign Country’,38 but many accounts of ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland regard Scotland-past as all too familiar. To find that religion and politics mixed much more in the past is not the same thing as finding sectarianism, nor prejudice, nor bigotry. Rather it is to find that the past was more religious. The


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remainder of this book thus describes a Scottish past in which religion and politics mixed in Scotland without the connotations that our secularised values might seek to impose on them. The period chosen was the inter-war decades, primarily because many commentators in the field view this period as witnessing particularly severe ‘sectarian’ friction.

5 ‘The Rising Tide of Paganism’

This study demonstrates that contemporary Scotland is not, in any sociological sense, a ‘sectarian’ society. But what of Scotland’s past – can it justifiably be described as ‘sectarian’? There has been a broad consensus that the period between the world wars represented the sharpest point of modern ‘sectarian’ conflict. The orthodoxy has been that economic slump conjoined with quarrels over education and heightened tension in Ireland destroyed the religious détente of c. 1878–1916. Such a view has come under revision but many studies still identify the inter-war period as a defining epoch in Catholic–Protestant relations. What this study will now show is that even during a period of intense dislocation, religious rivalries provided a very limited means by which to mobilise opinion and action in Scotland. In other words, inter-war Scotland was not a ‘sectarian’ society.

The ‘acrid fog of anxiety’ The effects of unemployment, poverty and economic uncertainty during the inter-war decades were immeasurable: ‘[The] acrid fog of anxiety was the atmosphere which men and women breathed during a generation. Its effect cannot be statistically measured, but, equally, it cannot be left out of any account of these years.’1 Unemployment in west central Scotland averaged 25 per cent over the 1930s and provoked fears of a ‘southward Drift’ of capital and of the ‘End of Scotland’ as a distinct nation, a particular national twist to the anxiety.2 A nascent mood of nationalism influenced activists and intellectuals – Unionist John Buchan noted pessimistically: ‘We do not want to see Scotland become merely a Northern Province of England . . . We must save our national identity while there is still time.’3 Emigration, long part of the 72

‘The Rising Tide of Paganism’ 73

Scottish experience but now reaching unprecedented heights, was viewed as the defining proof of Scotland’s ultimate decline. Net loss through emigration peaked in the 1920s – almost 400,000 leaving – and produced the first recorded drop in Scotland’s population. Against this background of economic dislocation came a complete (and Britain-wide) transition from the century-old Conservative–Liberal contest to a Conservative–Labour dualism. This had particular consequences in Scotland because of long-standing Liberal dominance. This had ensured Scotland an influential position at the heart of British Liberalism and, therefore, in many British Governments. Liberalism was a ‘painfully contrived coalition’ of disparate interests, and in Scotland religio-political differences were blunted by – and subsumed within – Liberal hegemony.4 Liberal decline may well have removed informal mechanisms for containing and bridging potential religious divisions.

Religion in inter-war Europe: crisis and confidence The inter-war period was one of profound religious anxiety and realignment. Internationally Protestantism felt itself in crisis, both in terms of its confidence and in its organisation. This was acute in many parts of Europe, and in an uncompromising book the liberal German theologian Adolf Keller and an American Presbyterian George Stewart described ‘the serious impairment of the spiritual side of either Protestantism or Catholicism . . . as a major disaster [for] all who love European culture’. The socio-economic turmoil of post-war struck particularly hard at Protestantism while ‘the Vatican [grew] ever richer’: Across the dinner tables of Europe one often hears the statement that from a military point of view France won the war; from the political, England; from the economic, America; from the cultural, the Jew; from the racial, the Slav; from the religious, the Roman Catholic Church. In common with nearly all such generalisations, exceptions could be made to these claims, but there is enough truth in them to cause the serious student of European culture to reflect. Catholicism, however, was understood as a Christian ally, not as a ‘Romanising’ menace to liberty. They argued Europe ‘must choose between Christianity and chaos’, between spiritual morality and the secular materialism. Facing this ‘deadly embrace of materialism’ a common Christian understanding was essential: ‘Bigotry now, on the part of

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either Protestants or Catholics, in the midst of appalling spiritual need, is falseness to Christianity. There is ample room for the best efforts of both.’5 This sense of material–spiritual struggle was hardly new, but was keenly felt in all denominations and outlooks. With hindsight the ‘crises’ of spirituality can be seen as an intensification of secularising processes with deep roots in the modernisation of Europe – to contemporaries the emptying churches and the decline of religion’s moral authority were bewildering. In 1922, Pius XI’s first Encyclical bemoaned ‘the dense fog of mutual hatreds and grievances’ enveloping Europe. Class conflict was ‘a chronic and mortal disease . . . eating away the vital forces of the social fabric’. Pius lamented ‘the morbid restlessness . . . the general spirit of insubordination’ and warned that: ‘In the face of our much praised progress, we behold with sorrow society lapsing back slowly but surely into a state of barbarism.’ The only defence, Pius argued, was the ‘true faith’: as Catholicism was ‘the sole depository and interpreter of the ideals and teachings of Christ’, only Catholicism offered ‘a true, sound spiritualism’. In 1925, Pius highlighted the ‘deplorable consequences’ arising from ‘the rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ’, which resulting in ‘society, in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin’.6 For many conservative Protestants, far from offering a defence against atheistic materialism, Rome was a central cause of Europe’s woes. Likewise, many conservative Catholics looked on Protestantism – an earlier ‘rebellion against Christ’ – as part of the problem. Whilst traditional Protestants clung to notions of the Pope as Antichrist, traditional Catholics were reminded by the 1914 revision of the Church’s Catechism that ‘Protestantism . . . is the corollary of all heresies which have been before, after, or shall come to corrupt the soul.’7 Certain points in the remainder of this study must remain fixed. The inter-war period was stamped with uncertainty for all classes in Scotland. A massive political reorientation was occurring, with an increasingly politically confident (though economically anxious) left faced by a wary and defensive right. Economic misery for the poor contributed to acute uncertainty for the employed and fearful apprehension for the privileged. As economic orthodoxy perished, the authority of religion was under serious pressure from secular (‘materialist’) forces antagonistic (or oblivious) to the spiritual needs of European civilisation. Whilst many Christians felt ecumenical co-operation was crucial in the face of ‘barbarism’, many preferred and retreated into the familiar comforts of historic enmity.


Religion in Scotland between the wars To what extent did Scotland share in this Protestant ‘crisis’ and the revitalisation of Catholicism? It is useful to examine the evidence available between the wars, as it helps to explain the pessimism and optimism of the period. In terms of church membership, the dominance of Presbyterianism (in particular the Church of Scotland and United Free Church who were to merge in 1929) was striking, accounting for about 60 per cent of ‘mainstream’ Christians (Table 5.1). Equally apparent is the growth of Scotland’s Catholic community: over 1900–1950 the 12 per cent increase in mainline Presbyterianism was slightly below that of overall population growth, whereas the Catholic population rose by almost 60 per cent. A rather more sensitive picture is provided by attendance data, graphically highlighting Presbyterian decline and Catholic advance over the period (Table 5.2). If further reason was needed for Protestant concern, it came with the massive expansion of Catholic infrastructure when Presbyterianism was undergoing drastic rationalisation. Between 1900 and 1950 the number of Presbyterian churches fell by one-third while the number of Catholic churches almost doubled. The Catholic increase was at its most rapid during the 1930s, when as many new churches were built as in the previous 30 years. Similarly, whilst the number of Presbyterian ministers declined by a fifth over this period, the number of Catholic priests doubled between 1900 and 1940, with a further substantial increase

Table 5.1

Church membership, 1900–1950

Church of Scotland/UFC Other Protestant Catholic

1900

1930

1950

1,155,000 193,600 469,000

1,271,000 245,400 607,000

1,271,000 230,800 745,000

Source: Adapted from Brierley (1989, 1999).

Table 5.2

Church attendance, 1900–1950

Church of Scotland/UFC Catholic

1900

1930

1950

968,000 341,700

860,000 386,600

863,000 420,100

Source: Adapted from Brierley (1989, 1999).

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by 1950. Although Presbyterian contraction for the most part reflected rationalisation following the unions of 1900 and 1929, church closure and parish amalgamation tempered the joys of reunion and brought Catholic expansion into sharp relief. Catholic expansion was not limited to Scotland: mass attendance increased more markedly in England, and English and Welsh Catholics saw a comparable increase in churches and clergy. Between 1900 and 1950 Catholic clergy increased by 132 per cent in England, 133 per cent in Wales, and 132 per cent in Scotland.8 One English Catholic noted: ‘No other religious denomination . . . could even contemplate such steady expansion anywhere in England & Wales. Most of them were facing a continuous and demoralising decline in their numbers.’9

Scottish Presbyterianism between the wars The differences – in theology, liturgy, culture – between Protestant Churches are outwith the scope of this study but recognising the internal differences in Scottish Protestantism is absolutely crucial in understanding ‘sectarianism’. The greatest challenge to Presbyterianism (the dominant form of Scottish Protestantism) between c. 1750 and c. 1930 came not from Catholicism but from Protestantism’s ‘inherent fissiparous’ nature. ‘Scottish Protestants spent most of the nineteenth century arguing with each other, rather than with Catholics, and produced a de facto pluralism which hastened secularisation.’10 A concerted front against Rome was impossible – and not sought – whilst Presbyterians were immersed in complex and bitter wrangles over property and finances. We must be wary, therefore, of pursuing a simplistic Protestant–Catholic dichotomy, in which the Protestant population effectively consists of little more definite than ‘non-Catholics’. As late as the 1950s bitterness and suspicion lingered between Protestant denominations. It will be appreciated, therefore, that the following analysis is far from a comprehensive account. However, it does offer a broad picture alongside the crucial caveat that the Protestant experience, institutionally and politically, is far more varied than has generally been allowed for. The central Presbyterian issue in the later nineteenth century was reunion, an aspiration significantly advanced with the formation of the United Free Church in 1900. The remaining stumbling block was the state connections of the Church of Scotland. These were gradually severed – and the Kirk effectively disestablished – and reunion was secured in 1929. A key impulse of union was concern over secularism and the ‘unchurched’, and the united Kirk immediately launched a ‘Forward


Movement’ to evangelise Scotland’s ‘Churchless Million’. The campaign was an abject failure from the beginning, and came as a blow to those who had seen reunion as prefiguring a great religious revival. One Scotsman correspondent expressed the disappointment following union: ‘To try and win back to empty pews the generation of the Great War is probably whipping a fog. The churches on average Sundays . . . look as if a ruthless epidemic had laid the folk in the churchyard.’11 There were broader reasons for Presbyterian disappointment. Over the period c. 1870–1920 there was wholesale dismantling of what had been a significant role for religion in local administration. By the 1920s education and welfare had passed irrevocably into the secular hands of County and Burgh Councils, and this followed the abject failure to secure alcohol Prohibition in the 1920 Local Veto polls. In essence, the 1920s witnessed a decisive breakthrough in Scottish administration and social policy for the secular state: ‘social salvation was being divorced from religious salvation in an unprecedented way . . . The old certainties of religious influence, which had survived industrialisation and urbanisation in the nineteenth century, were in the twentieth being swept away’.12 The 1920s also brought an abrupt halt to warming relations between mainstream Protestantism and the labour movement in face of domestic unrest and the Russian Revolution. This was part of an international phenomenon, a ‘great reversal’ in which Protestant churches returned to an individualistic emphasis on morality and sin – ‘a repudiation by Evangelicals of their earlier engagement with social issues’. 13 In Britain this mood mirrored the return to the familiar fold of laissez faire capitalism. The Presbyterian Churches reneged upon wartime pledges of social reconstruction, as the progressive social vision crumbled in the face of economic crises. There was a distinct political shift of the Churches to the right. One consequence was that the Kirk ‘ceased attributing poverty and inequality to injustices in the social and industrial system’ and instead emphasised ‘the individual moral failings of the poor themselves’. 14 Salvation in this world became, once again, an individual responsibility – the Kirk emphasised thrift, self-help, and self-restraint over collective efforts to ameliorate economic hardship. As British politics became increasingly dominated by the schism between Socialist and anti-Socialist, this clearly aligned the Presbyterian Churches with the right. As we shall also see, however, Presbyterianism was a powerful formative force for the Scottish left, with radical Labourites regarded as ‘true heirs of the Covenanters: teetotal, Nationalist and Presbyterian’. 15 To argue that the leading figures of Presbyterianism were Conservatives during the inter-war

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period, it must be stressed, is not to argue that Presbyterians, as a whole, tended towards the right. The rightward lurch of the 1920s left Presbyterianism ill-equipped for the mass unemployment and poverty of the 1930s. Material suffering thinned Presbyterian attendance, and ‘the stigma of the free seat drove many to the evangelistic missions’. 16 Such missions offered spiritual succour and community spirit whilst demanding little from attenders, who could adopt little more than an informal connection. The increased popularity for independent missions heightened the profile of antiCatholicism. A religious milieu which stressed a traditional Protestantism – including ‘No Popery’ – was reinvigorated as economic anxiety created space for radical political ideas. As we shall see, municipal sectarianism in 1930s Edinburgh and Glasgow was closely connected to independent evangelical missions. Several points about inter-war Presbyterianism must be emphasised. Its political meaning was contested one, its symbolism by social conservatives and by the emerging left. Simplistic equations of Presbyterian with Conservative obscure this contestation. Crucially, Presbyterians keenly felt their declining influence. Presbyterianism was losing its position at the heart of Scottish society, and the exhaustion of its key excuse. This had been that Presbyterianism divided could not deliver the ‘Godly Commonwealth’ – disappointment came with the realisation that neither could Presbyterianism reunited. The following chapters outline a number of Presbyterian setbacks: failure to win statutory rights in state schools (won by Catholics and Episcopalians in 1918); the apathy of the Education elections despite that failure; the resounding defeat of Prohibition; and, not least, the final dismantling of the Presbyteriantinged ad hoc administrative bodies in 1929. Attempts to revitalise Scottish Presbyterianism aroused little interest. Reunion, so long awaited, proved a disappointment, and hopes invested in the ‘National’ Church disappeared in the gloom of a world slump.

Scottish Catholicism between the wars For Catholicism the inter-war period was characterised by growing self-confidence and advance. Scotland’s Catholic community remained overwhelmingly working class and vulnerable to economic downturn, but two aspects of its structure enabled it to cope with economic anxiety. First, the 1918 Education (Scotland) Act moved full financial responsibility for Catholic schools to the state. This not only removed a heavy financial burden, it increased Catholic social mobility by improving and


extending Catholic education. Secondly, urban Scottish Catholicism’s priesthood was largely drawn from the community and understood the realities of economic hardship. Despite growing social mobility Catholicism ‘retained a homogeneity which prevented a major social divide emerging between a practicing Catholic bourgeoisie and a lapsed proletariat’. 17 At the same time, the weak economic position of individual Catholics made them particularly (though not uniquely) vulnerable to discrimination. This was most acute where employment was short term and casual, and where ties of kinship, locality, church, or fraternal order played an important role in securing work. Nevertheless, the extent of such discrimination should not be overstated. Joan Smith argues that such ‘patronage’ was relatively unimportant in Glasgow until the 1920s and that ‘those firms that discriminated against Catholics were a minority’.18 Scotland’s Catholic shared in a global resurgence of Catholic spirituality and confidence, which ‘can be seen in retrospect as the apogee of a particular model of Catholicism forged in the pre-1914 era’.19 This model was one of bullish confidence – a militant church unimpressed by, and unwilling to compromise with, modernity. In England, this mood crystallised around London’s 1908 International Eucharistic Congress, a triumphant public demonstration of Catholic Faith. The Congress, climaxing in a public procession of the Host, was intended ‘as a test of Catholic piety, English law, and public toleration’.20 Catholic piety was not in question – English law was. At first, dismissing ultra-Protestant complaints that the planned procession was illegal the Liberal government, fearing the legal consequences of disorder, made private representations to the Church. The legal point remained untested as, at the last moment, the Church reluctantly agreed to a procession shorn of legal controversy – this, even without its sacred elements, proved a triumph even sweeter in face of adversity. 21 At the heart of this self-confident Catholicism – a conjunction of Pius X’s anti-modernism and Leo XIII’s ‘social Catholicism’ – ‘were its hierarchy, its uncompromising doctrinal stance and its activist and associational structure’. At its head was the arch-centraliser Pius XI, ‘determined to liberate the Church from the defensive priorities of the nineteenth century and to transform it into an apostolic organisation committed to the rechristianisation of modern society’. 22 The view that the Scottish Catholic Church has over a long period ‘encouraged a low profile in all spheres of political and social life’23 fits uneasily with this era of Catholic Action. Campaigning organisations such as the Catholic Truth Society (CTS) and the Catholic Evidence Guild (CEG) were well established in Scotland by the mid-1920s. Activists were bolstered by

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the belief that in face of global crises ‘the Catholic Faith becomes ever more clearly the one hope of the human race’. Lay activists would combat Scotland’s ‘grotesque ignorance’ of Catholic doctrine and represented ‘a great force for the return of Scotland to the Faith’.24 This ‘return’ was felt to be within reach – Protestantism, to many, was ‘history’. This was equally true in England. At one major clerical conference Ronald Knox insisted that Catholic propaganda should target those nominal Anglicans ‘drifting into secularism’, whilst a fellow Priest proclaimed that: ‘Protestantism is dying . . . The Church of England was fast becoming a farce . . . [it] will soon change to a sect and even possibly to an insect.’25 Abrasive disdain towards Protestantism was felt, and expressed, by many Catholics during this period. One parochial magazine claimed, in 1931, ‘The Reformation reformed nothing. It deformed everything.’ Another spoke in 1922 of the Devil’s amusement at the state of the world: ‘and of all the things over which he chuckled . . . one must be Protestantism, for of all the unmitigated hoaxes that were ever foisted on a credulous world Protestantism was about the “hoaxiest” (Applause)’. Presbyterian stagnation burdened Catholicism with the gravest of responsibilities. The CTS warned: ‘All other religious allegiance is dwindling, and if Scotland is not to fall into utter paganism, this can only be through the Catholic faith.’26 As within Protestantism, however, some voices urged co-operation rather than competition, arguing that ‘Catholics and Protestants must forget their old enmities and stand side by side . . . to save their nation from the common enemy of indifference and unbelief.’27 By the 1930s Catholicism had a strikingly Scottish character. Rivalries between Catholics of Irish and Scottish ancestry had virtually disappeared, with one priest arguing that conversion was necessary ‘to save the Scottish race’: ‘They wanted a Scotland not only peopled by Catholics, but peopled by Catholics who were Scotsmen and Scotswomen. If they did not hurry up about it, it would be too late, because there was such a thing as race suicide.’28 Such conjunction of ‘race’, religion, and patriotism bear unexpected parallels with the Presbyterian campaign discussed in Chapter 6. Elements in the Catholic Church were as concerned about the state of Scotland’s national identity as many Presbyterians, although the emphasis laid on the causes of Scotland’s ills, and the means to remedy them, clearly differed.

Sectarian violence and the politics of the street One outcome of the re-energising of Scottish Catholicism was the creation of two national pilgrimages, at Dunfermline and at Lanarkshire’s Carfin


Grotto. These attracted large numbers – 10,000 pledged themselves at Dunfermline ‘to the great work of the conversion of their land’ in 1934; and 60,000 gathered at Carfin in 1930. Both also proved controversial. Presbyterians were offended in 1930 when a Catholic service was held – without permission – in the nave of Dunfermline Abbey, a Presbyterian church. Carfin proved a storm centre for sectarian rivalries, with Protestant ‘Conventicles’ sometimes leading to full blown riots. In 1931 ‘Wild Scenes’ followed an Orange parade with ill-feeling continuing for several weeks. The Catholic community viewed Protestant demonstrations in Carfin as highly provocative. Likewise many Protestants viewed Catholic ceremonies at Carfin, Dunfermline, and elsewhere as insensitive.29 Disturbances occurred with depressing regularity during the Marching Season, with violence c. 1931–1935 ‘of a much more serious and concerted nature’ than of any period since the 1870s. 30 In particular, violence followed the return of Glasgow Orange Lodges from gatherings outside the city when there were relatively serious disturbances across the city centre and in working-class districts. Rivalry between Glasgow’s largest football clubs – ‘Protestant’ Rangers and ‘Catholic’ Celtic – also saw increased violence during the 1930s. The most common flashpoints were, however, the return of Orangemen to their home districts after Twelfth celebrations. Processionists were welcomed home by supporters and opponents, acute tension building in areas with large Catholic populations. To some degree the routes chosen by Orangemen were deliberately provocative, designed to emphasise the right of ‘Loyal citizens’ to demonstrate peacefully on the public thoroughfares. The violence this could provoke long taxed conservative Orange leaders. Grand Master A.D. McInnes Shaw warned in 1933 that the ‘dignity’ of Orangeism was under threat: ‘If we . . . allow our feelings to run away with us, it gives the opposition a chance to point the finger and say that is the behaviour of the Orange Order.’31 Ignoring their leadership, however, many Orangeman revelled in provoking their Catholic neighbours. Likewise, many of these neighbours – heedless of priestly appeals for moderation – revelled in returning the compliment. Inter-war violence peaked in 1935, with forty arrested and five constables injured, in Glasgow after the ‘Boyne’ commemoration. Several weeks later ‘a series of running fights’ followed a Scottish Protestant League meeting at Bellahouston Park, whilst ‘bottles, chairs . . . knuckle-dusters and other weapons’ were employed in a disturbance outside Hamilton’s AOH hall. 32 Glasgow was hardly unique in experiencing a high degree of sectarian friction as rising tensions in Edinburgh, Liverpool and Belfast caused considerable concern. Belfast’s rioting was on a scale far

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beyond that on the British mainland – with 10 dead, 83 seriously injured, and 166 prosecutions. 33 The poisonous atmosphere of 1935 prompted ‘informal conferences’ between the ‘civic leaders and police authorities’ of the affected areas, and it was felt ‘that it would be in accord with public opinion if sectarian processions of a provocative character were prohibited’. There was no blanket ban, but tight restrictions were introduced and there were no serious incidents in 1936 – tensions had peaked, and 1935 ‘was the last year that the level of violence exceeded the norm’.34 Violent sectarian clashes were undoubtedly serious (in particular during the 1931–1936 slump), but it is important to contextualise them within a broader understanding of the nature of street violence, politics, and protest. Sectarian disturbances in and around Glasgow tended to involve larger numbers, and more fearsome weapons, than elsewhere in Scotland. Clashes in Liverpool rivalled Glasgow in their bitterness and violence, and both were eclipsed by events in Northern Ireland. Put bluntly, each locality had a different repertoire of violence. The 1930s Edinburgh disturbances (discussed in Chapter 8), although rowdy and aggressive, were quite different in character to the ritual confrontations of Glasgow’s Orange and Green factions. Neither did the rise in sectarian violence occur within a social vacuum: the latter 1920s and 1930s also saw a rapid escalation in gang-related violence in many British cities, as well as a sharp increase in political violence. Inter-war Glasgow was, infamously, infested with criminal youth gangs, and it is an indication of the relative seriousness of sectarian and gang-related disorder that the courts punished the latter more severely. This is not to say that the courts treated sectarian violence lightly – the evidence suggests the contrary35 – but, rather, that there was a conscious recognition that gang violence was an evil meriting particularly severe punishment. Unlike sectarian disorders, gang confrontations occurred all year round and their endemic nature brought them to prominence: the authorities may sometimes have chosen to ride out episodically violent Marching Seasons. It is debatable as to how far the gangs themselves were organised on sectarian lines. Whilst there can be no doubt that religion played some role in the demarcation of gang membership, its influence should not be overstated. The resurgent gangs of 1960s Glasgow ‘were formed on a territorial rather than a religious basis’36 and it might be presumed that territorial rivalries equalled, perhaps outweighed, religious divisions within Glasgow gangland. Gang violence frequently extended beyond the authorities ability to contain it. In 1929, for example, 500 Bridgeton gangsters invaded Anderston to avenge a stabbing, and police


struggled to maintain order. In 1931 four young men were gaoled after a clash involving ‘a knobkerry, hatchet, cutlass, Indian knife, poker, file, police baton, ‘dead’ bomb, and bars of iron and lead’. The intensification of violence reached even the London press, the Times noting in 1934 that ‘A renewal on a large scale of ‘gang warfare’ . . . has caused the [Glasgow] police grave concern.’ 37 Street clashes were not solely the preserve of sectarian mobs and violent gangs. Growing tension between the left and the Glasgow authorities, and splits within the left itself could on occasion manifest themselves in violent form. Most urban areas of Scotland saw considerable disorder during the General Strike surpassing that of the Marching Season. The fall of the Labour government in 1931 led to bitter confrontations between Labour and ILP factions. Left factionalism sparked violently in September 1931. A meeting of the abortive New Party on Glasgow Green saw organised Communist heckling amongst the 15,000 crowd and a razor attack on Oswald Mosley. The key political cleavage in Glasgow, however, remained between the left and the authorities. After the Chairman of the Moderate Group made dismissive remarks about Glasgow’s unemployed, 20,000 burned him in effigy. Defying police warnings, 50,000 gathered the following evening at Glasgow Green. Police interference sparked three days of very serious rioting. 38 The increase in sectarian violence c. 1929–1939 should come as little surprise. A time of acute economic anxiety coincided with political flux and a bitter confrontation between the left and the civic authorities in many parts of Britain. The period was characterised by intensely violent confrontations in urban affairs. Whilst much of the literature on political violence during this period has focused upon the conflict between fascist and anti-fascist, it is clear that there was a general upsurge in violence – political and criminal – and that sectarian aggression occupied only part of the violent space of Scottish urban life. Focusing on the more violent manifestations of Protestant–Catholic division during this period is, however, to miss much of the broader picture. Far removed from the politics of the street were a number of issues – theological and political – sharpening social divisions between faiths. One such issue – ‘mixed’ religious marriages – involved and nurtured suspicion and intolerance on both sides of the ecclesiastical divide.

Ne Temere Crucial to the centralisation of twentieth-century Catholicism was the global extension of Tridentine Law in a unified Codex of Canon Law.

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Although the Codex was formally enforced in 1918, canon law on mixed marriages was unified under the Decree Ne Temere of 1907. Prior to this the Church in Scotland forbade any mixed marriage without Dispensation granted only ‘for a sufficiently grave reason’. Dispensations carried three conditions: that any children be baptised and raised as Catholics; that the Catholic party have ‘full liberty’ in practising their Faith; and ‘that no religious marriage ceremony shall take place elsewhere than before the Catholic Priest’. After Ne Temere these terms were more forcefully emphasised and an additional clause required: ‘That the Catholic party shall endeavour to effect the conversion of the non-Catholic party to the true faith of Christ.’39 For ultra-Protestants the Decree was an act of aggression in the domestic sphere, and a challenge to Civil Law. Ne Temere noted that ‘NonCatholics . . . if they marry among themselves, are in no way bound to observe the Catholic form of betrothal or marriage’40 – but insisted that Catholics married outside their Church, ecclesiastically speaking, were not married at all, living in sin, their children illegitimate. Edinburgh’s Bishop Henry Graham was deeply concerned about the extent and effect of mixed marriages, and tolerated them only under ‘grave’ conditions and on sufferance: ‘For Mixed Marriages [the Church] has no blessing.’ 41 Graham was no ordinary Bishop: only the second Presbyterian Minister to convert to Catholicism since the Reformation (the first being a close friend), he was the first ex-Presbyterian within Scotland’s Catholic Hierarchy. As Auxiliary Bishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh in the 1920s Graham was a high-profile figure and – exhibiting the convert’s zeal and abrasiveness – highly controversial. In 1918, Graham42 described mixed marriages as ‘rampant’ in Scotland; ‘a grave evil in our midst’; some parishes ‘positively plagued by them’, and begged Catholics to ‘co-operate . . . in putting them down’. Graham outlined the Church’s ‘disapproval and disgust’ of those mixed marriages it accepted on sufferance, refusing all but ‘the bare necessities’ of ceremony: [the Church] does all she can to make [the couple] realise that she is standing gloomily aloof, her eyes turned away as if she would not look at them; her arms folded instead of raised in benediction; not blessing nor favouring the marriage but frowning upon it; tolerating it and no more; putting as many difficulties as possible in the way of it; only grieving in her Motherly heart that any of her children should be so perverse as to wring out of her, as it were, with tears, permission for a thing that she detests.


Graham was concerned with the spiritual welfare of three parties in a mixed marriage: the Catholic spouse, the Catholic children, and the Catholic parish. For the spouse there were religious quarrels ‘especially when there is drink in the house and the hatred of Catholicity, which is always there, vents itself’: What effect has all this on the Catholic party – the wife, I am supposing? Can she keep up the fight for long? The chances are she will not fight for the Faith at all. The fact of her choosing a Protestant husband was in itself a sign of slackness and of weakness . . . Almighty God and His Holy Religion are banished from the home and the devil reigns instead, and she calls it ‘peace’. But what of her soul’s salvation, living in what she knows, all the time, is mortal sin? Conversely, the more the non-Catholic was a ‘good’ husband and father ‘so much greater is the danger’ to the children, who ‘wonder whether they should follow father or mother’. In such cases: ‘almost to a certainty some of them will end by marrying Protestants, as their mother did . . . In this way hundreds of thousands are lost to the Church: Scotland is full of them.’ Mixed marriages arose through the ‘culpable negligence’ of parents who, when ‘company keeping with a Protestant’ was discovered, ‘criminally co-operate in it by silence or consent’. Graham lamented ‘to see a bright young life that might have formed a happy and contented home with a devoted Catholic husband, brought instead to ruin and desolation owing to the callous neglect of her parents’. Graham’s Pastoral Letter represents a careful retracing and buttressing of religious boundaries: an ecclesiastical patrolling of the inside of the ghetto walls, and highlights the gulf in ideas and expressions separating 1918 from the ecumenical (and increasingly secular) Scotland of today. Quite simply, religious debate in the past was conducted using terms and allusions that many – religious or otherwise – would now feel deeply uncomfortable with. This, however, represented separatism rather than conflict: Graham insisted that Presbyterians possessed ‘splendid characters and many natural virtues . . . Yet I say, their Religion is not our Religion, and it is Religion that counts, first and foremost, with any Catholic worthy of the name.’ A resonant theme here is that of women acting as gatekeepers to the faith of the Mother Church. Graham focuses upon the threatened Catholicity of wife/daughter, and the ambivalent (or hostile) Protestant husband/son-in-law. Catholic parents are urged to protect ‘their poor, thoughtless inexperienced girl – or boy as the case may be’ from becoming

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‘snared in undesirable intimacies’ and ‘dishonour’. Beyond the implied need to protect Catholic girlhood from predatory Protestant immorality lies the recognition that, in an era where domesticity was the inevitable lot of most women, responsibility for day-to-day inculcation of religious beliefs in children – the raising of good Catholics – fell upon women. Hence, Catholic women in particular needed to be shielded from the ‘grave evil’ of mixed marriage. Feminine domesticity also spelled danger where it was a Protestant wife and mother charged with the care of Catholic children, in such cases ‘the evils mentioned are equally great, if not greater; especially as regards the children’. 43 Gendered and sexual overtones are evident in ultra-Protestant reaction to mixed marriages in general, and Ne Temere in particular. Rev. Frederick Watson (Kirk minister at Bellshill West) warned of ‘the terrible tragedy’ of mixed marriages and argued that Ne Temere had introduced ‘a state of priestly interference and insolence that cannot be tolerated in Protestant Scotland’. Catholic priests were ‘purveyors of social misery’, and through Ne Temere ‘Homes are being wrecked, husbands and wives separated, and children denied the care of parents.’ For Watson, however, the key issue was the ‘solemn and sinister significance’ of the Decree’s alleged challenge to Scottish Civil Law and he urged Parliamentary legislation to bolster civil law against the challenge of Rome. This was not an entirely fantastic proposal: both New Zealand (in 1920) and New South Wales (1925) passed such legislation.44 Watson was a peripheral figure in Scottish Church politics, but during 1930–1931 the issue provoked a remarkable public controversy between Liverpool’s leading Churchmen. In late 1930 the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, Albert David, accused the city’s Catholic Archbishop, Richard Downey, of instructing priests to persuade Catholics married outside the Church that they ‘were not married, and that their children were illegitimate’. David alleged that ‘Roman priests brought relentless pressure upon non-Roman partners in mixed marriages’ and complained of ‘attacks’ on Protestantism by the Catholic Evidence Guild. Similar campaigns, he claimed, were occurring in the rest of Lancashire and in Scotland, using ‘methods of force and fear, so alien to the mind and spirit of Christ, with a pitiless vigour’. 45 The claims came at a moment of high religious tension in Liverpool. A few weeks earlier, the Liverpool Protestant Party had put forward six municipal candidates and won a council seat. Liverpool was very much a city in which ‘sectarian differences had been re-animated’. 46 Downey denied that his priests questioned ‘the validity of mixed marriages in civil law’ and accused David of launching a ‘reckless attack’ of ‘flimsy and unsubstantial’ allegations. With regard to Catholic propagandists,


Downey accused David of tolerating anti-Catholic lecturers in a city where Protestants ‘throw stones at defenceless nuns and the children under their charge’. Rather weakly, David warned Downey that any further interference in ‘mixed marriages, contracted or contemplated’ would result in the publication of full details in his Diocesan magazine. Downey called his bluff: six weeks later David announced that the situation had ‘distinctly improved’ and that ‘the priests have, at any rate for the time being, abandoned this method of persuasion’. He warned, however, that his clergy would ‘continue their watchfulness’. 47 This bitter exchange highlighted that senior ‘mainstream’ Protestants could be as concerned with mixed marriages as peripheral firebrands like Watson. It also revealed the semantic core of the issue: priests were telling Catholics that – in terms of Canon Law – they were living in sin, their children illegitimate. The caveat formed the point of contention. The subtle distinctions between illegitimacy in the eyes of the Church and in civil law (and, far more importantly, of friends, family and neighbours) were probably unclear to great many Catholics and, indeed, non-Catholics. The Church itself did not always make the distinction clear, as shown in one Glasgow parish magazine in 1933: It is a very serious sin for a Catholic to attempt marriage before a nonCatholic minister or a Registry Office. Even if only one of the parties is a Catholic, neither ceremony is a marriage at all. The parties are bound to put their marriage right, as it remains null and void in the sight of God until set right by a priest.48 Evidence that lay Catholics misunderstood or misinterpreted the Church’s position can be found in a curious Court of Session case in 1930. Witnesses to a marriage were sworn to secrecy because the Catholic groom feared religious difficulties with his family over his choice of bride. Upon his death, the family contested his (Protestant) widow’s rights to the estate. Although the marriage ceremony was irrefutably proven, they insisted that no consent could have been present, on the basis that no devout Catholic would have contemplated such a union. Lord Pitman was ‘unable to accept the suggestion that although [the husband] went through the ceremony he was not to be bound by it’ – no one was ‘entitled to say that in his heart he had given no consent at all just because his religion did not recognise such a marriage’. 49 Ne Temere had considerable social impact in the Irish Free State where the promises a Dispensation required had force of law. Recently Irish bishops have apologised for past interpretation of the Decree, which

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was sometimes ‘contrary to the spirit of Christian generosity and love’.50 In Scotland, concern was enough to spur a Church of Scotland enquiry in 1938. It found that mixed marriage was ‘not a major interest’ in most localities and that there was no clear pattern of apostasy: ‘It is true that changes of denomination are almost entirely due to mixed marriages but the Church of Scotland seems to gain as much as it loses by such changes.’ Handley, approvingly reporting the finding that Ne Temere was not a vexed issue of widespread concern, nevertheless rejected its conclusions, insisting that mixed marriages resulted ‘in almost all instances to a diminution of Catholic faith that becomes a total loss in succeeding generations’. 51

Conclusion Inter-war Scotland provided fertile ground for religious acrimony. Dislocating political flux and economic crises, allied to conflict in Ireland, and widespread fears over the ‘End of Scotland’ produced conditions in which suspicion and resentment could flourish. Scotland was hardly alone in this experience: the period saw endemic, social and political conflict over material resources, social authority, national identity, and – indeed – religion. The period was, in Hobsbawm’s phrase, ‘the age of catastrophe’.52 The controversies over Ne Temere offer us a useful way of understanding the general picture of religious politics in inter-war Scotland. Behind careful patrolling of denominational boundaries there is the bare fact that ‘ghetto walls’ were more permeable than many liked to admit. Concern over mixed marriages reflected – whilst, paradoxically, obscuring – that Catholics and Protestants were ignoring the ‘ghetto’ in the selection of their partners. As religious boundaries in the private realm were dissolving, so too were they in the public realm. The next chapter shows the inability of the Catholic Church to dislodge the Labour loyalties of Catholic voters over ‘Catholic’ issues of birth control and education. Catholic Action, whilst imbuing much of Scotland’s Catholic minority with confidence, had little political impact. As the following chapters will demonstrate, this had less to do with a majority Protestantism vigorously containing the ‘Roman menace’, than with broader processes of secularisation in which religion’s position in the public sphere was diminishing.

6 ‘Dumb Dogs’ and ‘Bonneted Chieftains’

Religious separatism in Britain has tended to be social and cultural, and has had to accommodate itself to Britain’s ‘open’ political system. Achieving this accommodation, and the impact of religion upon Scottish politics, is a primary concern of this chapter. It reveals the crucial difference between religious separatism and religious bigotry. Separatism refers to the belief that the faithful should refrain from unnecessary contact with other faiths, or with the secular world. In other words, the proper place for Catholics is within the Catholic Church and a Catholic marriage, their children educated in a Catholic school, their leisure time enjoyed with fellow Catholics in lay Catholic organisations. Separatism is less well defined for Protestants, but Church, youth, and Temperance organisations did provide an institutional framework within which to lead a ‘Protestant’ life. Such separatism represents a diluted form of the pillarisation found in a number of European societies c. 1870–1970. Separation implied a value judgement upon the Other, of course: a Protestant life was encouraged in part because it was seen as superior – morally and culturally – to that of a Catholic or secular life. It is here that separatism and bigotry coincide: religious bigotry relates to an active opposition to another faith, to (attempted) interventions into, and denigration of, its activities. This primarily lays stress on the qualities of the Other as dangerously immoral, untrustworthy, Hell-bound heretics.

Labour and the ‘Catholic vote’ An important part of the rise of the British Labour Party was its winning of the ‘Catholic vote’ after c. 1922. The significance of this electorate – strongly represented amongst the urban poor – increased considerably after franchise reform in 1918. Prior to c. 1918 ‘the political habit of the 89

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Catholic vote was . . . to regard itself as unaligned, ready to vote wherever it thought pressure could best be brought to bear to secure its aims’. In practice, this meant voting Liberal as part of a ‘marriage of convenience rather than a genuine partnership’. 1 Initially at least, this was mirrored in the Catholic–Labour relationship. On some issues, notably Ireland, there was a historical congruence of Catholic and Labour interests. On others there was scope for misunderstanding and mistrust. Catholicism, internationally, long looked with disdain on modern ideas in politics and culture, and in particular those associated with the left. Under Leo XIII the Church developed a distinctive stance on sociopolitical issues. Leo’s Rerum Novarum (1891) ‘chartered a precise middle course, a third way between the extremes of liberal laissez-faire capitalism and collectivist secular socialism’. 2 The Vatican consistently criticised the social conditions created by capitalism, but more forcefully attacked socialism as ‘proposing a remedy far worse than the evil itself’. Socialism was denounced as ‘a deadly plague’; ‘a wicked confederacy’; ‘an alluring poison’.3 ‘Christian socialism’ elicited no sympathy, Leo XIII believing it a particular danger and accusing its advocates of ‘stealing the very Gospel itself with a view to deceive more easily the unwary’. 4 Papal concerns were echoed locally, the Bishop of Salford warning in 1883 ‘that the doctrines of socialism were derived from the teachings of Satan’. 5 In 1931, Pius XI addressed the pressing issue of whether socialism’s moderate and reformist tradition was acceptable to the Church, concluding that ‘socialism, if it remains truly Socialism, . . . cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church’ and that ‘Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist’. The encyclical was open to considerable interpretation and Catholicism was reconciled to socialism where socialism was moderate and where anticlericalism was weak.6 In Britain the fact that Labour were only loosely committed to socialism ensured that Catholic–Socialist conflicts remained in the background. Reconciling the world views of Catholic and socialist was hardly straightforward, but prior to the Great War: ‘the Catholic hierarchy was able to convince itself that the [British] Labour party, despite the socialists within it, was not a socialist party of the type . . . condemned by Rerum Novarum’. The Bolshevik Revolution, wartime industrial unrest, and Labour’s formal adoption in 1918 of an ostensibly socialist constitution put this interpretation under some pressure. However, the Church came to the view that ‘Labour was still not intrinsically socialist’.7 Good relations proved contingent on Labour remaining moderate and not threatening Catholic interests – ‘the Catholic Church was prepared

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to be adaptable provided Labour was disposed to be reasonable’. 8 The Church took the view that material interests would draw Catholics towards Labour, and that its key concern should therefore be to keep Labour moderate. In Scotland key figures such as John Wheatley and Patrick Dollan acted as bridges between the worlds of Catholicism, Irish Nationalism, and Labour, sometimes provoking bitter Catholic opposition. Wheatley (1869–1930) developed a cordial relationship with the Catholic hierarchy, but not without difficulty. In 1912 his effigy was burned by a Catholic mob, and he faced frequent accusations of atheism and anticlericalism. By the mid-1920s, however, he epitomised the opportunities for political and social advancement offered by the Labour movement to Scotland’s Catholics. In this crucial period of the Labour–Catholic relationship Wheatley’s impact was profound. In the approach to the 1918 election, Irish Nationalist politics were in chaos with the heart of its Scottish political machine, the United Irish League (UIL), torn between Liberals who remained sound on Ireland, and the realisation that on Ireland Labour possessed the most consistently sympathetic policy. Gordon Brown has claimed that in 1918: ‘for the first time, the West of Scotland’s Irish community swung decisively behind Labour, but that was not enough . . . The decisive breakthrough in the industrial areas was still to come.’9 However, Labour fared poorly even in areas with a high concentration of Catholics: the Coalition won two-thirds of the vote in Glasgow, notwithstanding the high number of Catholic voters in the city. By 1922 the British Catholic vote was definitely committed to Labour, and henceforth would constitute ‘one of the most consistently pro-Labour elements within the working class’. 10 Labour’s crucial breakthrough in 1922 depended upon several interlocking factors: the recruitment of the unskilled to Labour as the divisive issues of wartime socialist politics faded into the background; the ending of the damaging association between Labour and prohibition; and, far the most important, the swing of the [Catholic] Irish machine from Liberal to Labour in national elections, and its increasingly loyal commitment to Labour in local elections. Of course, the three overlap. Not all unskilled were Irish, but most of the Irish were unskilled . . . [and] much of Glasgow Irish community life revolved around the public house 11 From the Catholic perspective we might add the long-standing and committed support of Labour for Irish nationalism. Overtaken by

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events, the UIL conceded ‘it was in the best interests of the Irish to throw in their lot, wherever possible, with the Labour Party’.12 The timing of this decision was curious, given that Labour’s Temperance policies contrasted with the importance of the drinks trade in Catholic community life. Tension came to a head in 1920, when municipal elections coincided with Veto Option polls. In Glasgow, Labour reaped limited benefit from the keen interest in working class wards in large part due to its support for Prohibition. Labour’s response was swift and simple: it dropped Temperance. Glasgow’s Irish Wets, opponents in 1920, were quickly absorbed bringing immediate benefits. Whilst the left had limited campaigning resources the Catholic Irish machine ‘had all the advantages of a tightly knit community bound together by the bar, the pulpit, and the “ethnic” press’. 13 If accommodating the national inclinations and socio-economic concerns of Scotland’s Catholics proved relatively easy for Labour, there remained issues which required very careful negotiation. The Church remained suspicious of the radical left of the party, and few priests publicly backed the programme of Parliamentary Socialism. It fell to Melbourne’s Archbishop Mannix, visiting Dundee in 1921, to bestow ‘a blessing on the Labour Party, here now and in the future’. In British terms this was a clerical ‘utterance without precedent, and probably without echo or emulation’. British Catholicism remained aloof and the Catholic press – dominated by the titles of Charles Diamond – tempered support for Labour with acute sensitivity to any leftward drift. 14 Diamond’s titles attacked the ILP as ‘practically a Communist Party’ with an ‘affinity to Bolshevism’, and following the 1931 encyclical his Preston Catholic News declared ‘socialism is the Devil’.15 The Catholic press attacked Labour’s pledge to restore relations with the Soviets, viewing the USSR as ‘a red-handed, anti-God state’.16 Neither was the Catholic press averse to recommending Conservatives where the Labour nominee was unacceptable. Finding John McGovern unpalatable as Wheatley’s successor, for example, Diamond backed Unionist William Templeton in the 1930 Shettleston by-election. Templeton – it duly emerged – had strong Orange links. Catholics who had taken Diamond’s advice might have thought twice before doing so again.17 Two issues threatening the Labour–Catholic alliance were education and birth control. Electoral losses in Glasgow in 1927 were attributed to Labour support for contraception, with the Glasgow Observer warning that ‘the mere mention of birth control is enough to set the Catholic electorate on its hind legs’. 18 Labour leaders duly removed birth control from the policy agenda, but the issue remained locally sensitive. Battle


lines were not easily drawn between Catholics and the left: Wheatley, as Health Minister in 1924, dented clerical suspicion by refusing to liberalise existing contraception policy. Wheatley’s appointment may itself have reflected Labour’s desire to block contraceptive reform.19 In this H.G. Wells felt that the Government were pandering to the bigotry of celibates, ‘the unpleasant feelings and imaginations of priests and elderly lady spinsters’. 20 The first Private Bill proposing public provision of birth control advice was heavily defeated and found more Labour opponents than supporters. Whilst elements of the left opposed birth control, it was also clear that many individual Catholics supported it, if not by public pronouncement then through private practice. A declining Catholic birth rate led to calls for a return to the teaching of the Church, with the New Zealand Tablet complaining in 1937: ‘The Catholic family is no longer, in a great many cases, what it used to be. We see one, two, and alas, worse still, none, where there used to be seven, nine and even more lusty scions of Catholic stock.’21 Catholics followed the Church rather more faithfully in the realm of education. Whilst, as the next chapter demonstrates, the religious education question was largely answered in Scotland by 1918, the issue remained politically volatile in England and Wales. Catholics were satisfied with Labour’s commitment to the Scottish settlement, but the English question highlighted a secularist strain in Labour ranks. Like Temperance and contraception, secularism was increasingly soft-pedalled by Scottish Labour – in the 1919 education elections two of Labour’s Glasgow candidates argued against denominational schooling and were not elected: a third in the same ward, remaining silent on the issue, was elected on Catholic votes. 22 In England the Catholic–Labour relationship was coming under increasing strain. Before the 1929 election Labour was unable (or unwilling) to give the Church the assurances it sought: Conservatives, traditional champions of Anglican schools, were better placed to do so. Remarks by Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, on Socialism’s ‘false principles’, were ‘judiciously and anonymously’ circulated in the Catholic community by Conservative canvassers to little discernible effect. 23 Labour entered Government for the second time, their Parliamentary representation almost doubled. A substantial number of Labour MPs felt personally (or electorally) committed to the protection of Catholic interests. Disagreements over education peaked in 1931 when 43 Labour MPs opposed their own Government’s Education Bill. An Amendment – proposed by John Scurr – attempted to tie the raising of the school leaving age to financial concessions to Catholic schools. The Government’s decision to call

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Scurr’s bluff went badly wrong. The Scotsman described the Government defeat as ‘the most decisive which they have yet suffered’ noting that many MPs feared the electoral consequences of voting for the Bill. 24 Thus whilst Labour gained office in part on Catholic votes and despite clerical misgivings, it found itself unable to secure educational reform without the goodwill (or acquiescence) of a large minority of its MPs who were not prepared to alienate Catholic voters. Some saw this as unprincipled: Jennie Lee (Labour – North Lanark) rejected Maxton’s warning that: ‘You can’t fight both the Labour machine and Catholic prejudice in West Scotland – make up your mind!’ and voted against the Amendment. Lee was amongst 27 Scottish Labour MPs to do so (the remaining 11 abstained), and it has been claimed that months later: ‘Controversy over the Scurr amendment cost Labour many seats and was the decisive factor in North Lanark.’ 25 Given the crisis engulfing Labour in 1931, it is difficult to discern any specifically ‘Catholic’ effect in their crushing election defeat. Lee certainly believed it significant, and alleged that Catholic prejudices intensified after Pius XI denounced socialism in May 1931. The evidence does not support Lees account and Neil Riddell concludes that whilst Catholic defection was of ‘considerable secondary importance’ in some areas of England and Wales, in Scotland Labour ‘had been more careful . . . not to offend Catholic opinion’.26 Of the 11 Scottish Labour MPs who abstained on Scurr’s Amendment, 7 subsequently lost their seats despite, presumably, a reservoir of Catholic gratitude. Labour held St Rollox in a 1931 by-election despite Church advice that Catholics could not support a candidate whose ‘opinion and advocacy of . . . birth control is in direct conflict with the moral teaching of the Catholic Church’.27 However, any anti-Labour Catholic vote operated only in specific and localised conditions. In Dumbarton, David Kirkwood represented a division with a high concentration of Catholic voters: despite opposing the Scurr Amendment and his (then) radical politics, Kirkwood retained his seat. Labour made a substantial recovery in Scotland in the later 1930s despite the potentially explosive issue of Spain. Tom Gallagher has suggested that a general election between 1936 and 1939 may have pushed Scotland’s Catholic–Labour alliance beyond breaking point. 28 Against this view is the fact that over that period the left made a substantial recovery, consolidating its hold over the urban industrial west. Of five by-elections in the West of Scotland during 1936–1939, none suggest any reluctance to vote Labour – indeed the party gained Dunbartonshire and Greenock, as the Spanish Crisis unfolded in 1936. The Greenock victory followed a municipal election campaign in which


the Glasgow Observer accused Labour, in their Spanish policy, of having ‘joined the war against Christ’.29 The key target of the Catholic press was the ILP, and William Knox suggests that their tactics may have ‘been not to alienate Labour as a whole, but to target hostility on the ILP as a warning’.30 The choice of A.D. McInnes Shaw, Scotland’s leading Orangeman, as candidate in Springburn in 1937 suggests that Unionists held out no hopes for a Catholic backlash over Spain.

The Protestant left Unsurprisingly, in a country where Presbyterianism dominated religion, Scottish Labour was deeply influenced by the Reformed Faith. Not all Presbyterians shared the rightward shift of the Kirk, some complaining that the Kirk ‘preached to the rich and at the poor’. 31 Neither was the left without influence within Presbyterianism. Labour MPs such as Rev James Barr and South Ayrshire’s James Brown were well-known, wellrespected and active Presbyterians. Christian socialism may have been marginal to Kirk policy but it remained highly influential on the Scottish left, and church membership amongst the Labour leadership was common. This was true throughout Britain: Eric Hobsbawm has quoted, with scarcely concealed surprise, a survey of Labour MPs in 1929 that found that ‘only eight declared themselves to be agnostics or atheists’. 32 The Protestantism of Labour MPs surfaced clearly in the debates over proposed revision of the Anglican Prayer Book, with ten of Scotland’s Labourites playing a key role in its defeat in 1927. Their opposition was theologically grounded: Rosslyn Mitchell argued that the Church of England could not ‘permanently endure to be half-Reformist and halfRomanist’. Mitchell was outraged that MPs were burdened with the obligation to judge the Prayer Book, feeling that this was a religious matter for the Church of England, not a political matter for Parliament. Nevertheless, given that MPs were expected to make a decision, Mitchell felt he had no option, as a Protestant, but to oppose the revision: ‘I do not want to do it, but I can do no other, so help me God!’ This interjection of Scottish MPs into ‘English religion’ infuriated supporters of the Bill. Opposing a further revision proposal in 1928, Rev. James Barr gleefully reminded critics that by definition the ‘established’ Church was accountable to all in Parliament: ‘We are told that Scotsmen should take no part in these discussions. One writer said that the rejection . . . was brought about by Jews, Welsh ranters, and Scottish infidels. I am one of the Scottish infidels.’33

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A strong Protestant identity – and a belief in fundamental theological differences – could be, and was, reconciled with Parliamentary Socialism. Another observation is, perhaps, more important. Mitchell and Barr were defending a distinctive Protestant identity which they saw as under threat from Anglican ‘ritualists’ attempting to use Parliamentary channels to achieve ecclesiastical aims. Both displayed a firm belief in religious separatism – that the proper place for Catholic practice was within the Catholic Church, Protestant in the Protestant – rather than any desire to stir religious conflict. This was relatively uncontroversial – indeed it was the religious orthodoxy of the times. Scotland’s Labour MPs also played a prominent role in the passing of the 1926 Catholic Relief Act, which removed most remaining Catholic disabilities. The Act was the legacy of sectarian animosities around Carfin where a public Corpus Christi procession had grown in popularity since 1921. In 1924 the Procession was removed to private grounds after Motherwell MP Hugh Ferguson brought the same dubious technicalities arising at the 1908 Eucharistic Congress to police attention. One English Conservative described Ferguson as ‘a common informer, a creature . . . despised and loathed by everybody’. Many agreed, and Parliamentary concern produced a Private Bill within six weeks.34 Ferguson defied his Labour critics to fight the next election on the religious issue, and although the General Election saw Labour lose a dozen Scottish seats one constituency bucked the trend: Motherwell. Labour’s James Barr, an outspoken advocate of the Relief Bill, answered Ferguson’s challenge in full. The Third Reading of the Catholic Relief Bill demonstrated the marginality of Parliamentary ultra-Protestantism. Attempting to exclude Scotland from the legislation, Sir Alexander Sprot argued it would ‘encourage’ religious processions and provoke ‘a great deal of trouble’. A.D. McInnes Shaw agreed that ‘rancour and ill-feeling’ would follow. Barr, however, invoked the Covenanters in welcoming the Bill’s contribution to Scotland’s ‘great pyramid of freedom’. To Barr, exemption proposed ‘that Scotland should be the last refuge of bigotry, injustice and inequality . . . Is our Protestantism so weak in Scotland that we cannot stand to see those of another faith parading in the streets?’ 35 Sprot’s Amendment was the only point upon which the Bill was challenged. It won the support of one Scottish Liberal, seven Ulster Unionists; nine English Conservatives; and seven Scottish Unionists. The bulk of Scottish Unionists abstained in full knowledge that English Conservative and Labour votes would heavily defeat the Amendment.


Five Unionists voted against the amendment, including the Solicitor General and the Scottish whip. Stanley Baldwin, then Prime Minister, was another notable opponent. The episode graphically revealed the weakness of anti-Catholicism in the Commons, and the marginality of ultra-Protestant issues to the broader concerns of Parliamentary Conservatism.

Unionism and Protestantism Whilst one can identify Scottish Catholic support for the moderate left, there was no recognisable Protestant (nor even Presbyterian) vote, let alone one supporting the Unionists. Such asymmetry is hardly surprising, but worthy of exploration. Catholicism had as its focus a single religious institution with a rigid hierarchy of authority; its own schools, press, and lay organisations; strong ethnic components; geographic concentration; and an overwhelmingly urban and working-class character. Protestantism, on the other hand, encompassed a myriad of denominations, classes, and regions; had no press of note; nor (after 1872) did it have its own schools. Crucially, the role of the minister was quite distinct from that of the priest. Priestly power can be overstated, but in political terms the Catholic Church had a role in directing the vote of the faithful neither enjoyed nor sought in Protestantism. It was unremarkable for priests to exhort parishioners to vote in a ‘Catholic’ way: ministers who acted likewise courted outrage. Protestant Churches did dabble in politics, but had neither authority nor inclination to mobilise a Presbyterian, or a Baptist, or an Episcopalian vote. It is clear, however, that prior to c. 1914 ‘a popular Toryism based on the fusion of religious and imperial ideals’ existed in many parts of Britain. In Scotland, Liberal success ‘in tapping the democratic and culturally distinctive strands of Presbyterian tradition’ must be emphasised. Whilst most Tory-British-Imperialist segments of the Scottish population were Protestant, not all Protestants possessed such inclinations. Presbyterianism was ‘ripe for plunder by Liberal and Labour political movements in search of historic, democratic and egalitarian credentials’.36 There remains the question of how far – and how often – political parties sought to draw upon anti-Catholicism in mobilising support. For Compton Mackenzie, ‘the sub-human bigotry of Orangemen’ was fostered ‘with the hope of political advantage’. 37 Yet the extent of any such advantage is unclear. A number of inter-war Tories had strong Orange connections. Sir John Gilmour, who served as both Home and Scottish Secretary, was

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the Orange Order’s highest-profile member, and as an Honorary Deputy Grand Master (HDGM). Five other inter-war Unionist MPs were Orangemen: Thomas Moore in Ayr (1924–1964); McInnes Shaw in West Renfrewshire (1924–1929); William Templeton in Banff (1924–1929) and Coatbridge (1931–1935); Aylmer Hunter-Weston in North Ayrshire (1916–1935); and John Baird in Ayr (1922–1924). In addition the maverick Hugh Ferguson in Motherwell (1923–1924) took the Unionist whip in the Commons. Another figure of note was Sir Charles Cleland, Chairman of Glasgow Education Authority and another HDGM. Despite these connections the Order often felt poorly represented politically. In Government, Gilmour obstructed the curtailment of Catholic Irish immigration demanded by both the Order and the elements within the Church of Scotland (see below). As a leading figure in educational politics, Cleland ‘took a far from anti-Catholic line’. While Moore and McInnes Shaw supported the Sprot Amendment, Gilmour, Hunter-Weston, and Templeton abstained. Frank Dorrian, Shaw’s deputy and successor as Grand Master, resigned from the Unionists in 1939, bitter that ‘the Order no longer had any real voice at all in the affairs of Scottish Unionism’.38 One might question the extent to which it ever had: Orange history is replete with complaints that Conservatives took its support for granted. In the 1890s, Orangemen complained that ‘their’ MPs ‘sat like a lot of dumb dogs’ when Protestant issues were at stake. 39 Tensions between Orange leaders and a grassroots ‘Protestantism before Politics’ faction were endemic, peaking in 1922 when Grand Lodge withdrew its representatives from the Scottish Unionist Association (won only nine years earlier) in protest over Unionist acceptance of the Irish Peace Treaty. Acceptance of Partition reveals the dominance of moderate pragmatism in Scottish Conservatism. Only three Scottish Tories signed the ‘Die Hard’ manifesto of 1922 demanding withdrawal from the Coalition, a return to traditional Conservative values, a more forthright stand against Socialism, and revocation of the Irish Treaty. Amongst the bulk of Scottish Unionism, pro-Coalition sentiment remained remarkably strong.

The ‘Orange vote’ The subordination of Orange concerns within Scottish Unionism led to repeated calls for a ‘Protestant’ party, and the 1922 rift led to the formation of an Orange & Protestant Party (OPP). Grand Lodge announced that ‘the time had now arrived when the Orange Order should make an


independent stand in all spheres of political work in upholding and defending their Orange and Protestant principles’. 40 Yet the OPP achieved nothing – at no point did it actually stand candidates against the Unionists, and its first electoral foray proved disappointing. Standing two candidates in Motherwell during the 1922 education elections the OPP discovered the limited scope, even at a very localised level, of the Orange vote. Their candidates were the only nominees not elected, even in this Orange stronghold. At their next opportunity, the 1922 General election, activity again centred upon Motherwell. In 1918, local councillor, Hugh Ferguson, opposing the official Unionist, came last with 11per cent of the poll. In 1922 the Unionists withdrew their candidate in favour of a Liberal, and Ferguson standing with OPP support came a good second. Ferguson’s evident popularity, and his determination in standing, persuaded the Unionists not to contest the seat in 1923. Ferguson captured Motherwell at his third attempt, benefiting from a focused anti-Labour vote. The ‘Protestantism before politics’ faction now had Parliamentary representation but this merely served to illustrate their marginality. Ferguson proved a figure of ridicule, and his sole Parliamentary achievements were to provoke the Catholic Relief Act and the charge from the Conservative benches that he was ‘loathed by everybody’. Ferguson was unseated in 1924 – Motherwell bucked the trend as the only Scottish seat Labour took from the Unionists. Ironically, the election which removed Ferguson from Parliament returned McInnes Shaw, ‘a man firmly entrenched in the Scottish Unionist establishment’. Shaw’s Grand Mastership was the end for the OPP.41 The OPP’s failure highlights the strict geographic and political limitations of the ‘Orange vote’. Indeed, given their inter-war efforts to absorb middle-class Liberalism, appealing to Orange sentiment was potentially damaging to the Unionist cause. There was also a persistent propensity for ‘Orange’ areas to elect Labour candidates. By 1935, Glasgow’s so-called ‘True Blue’ Bridgeton was a Labour stronghold where McInnes Shaw’s candidature saw the Unionist vote fall. In 1923 the Order responded to Labour’s election by threatening to expel ‘disloyal’ members who joined the party. Yet stemming ‘disloyalty’ was impossible. Labour’s advance depended in great part on Protestant voters, many of whom must have had Orange connections. Some inter-war Unionists ‘still used the language of loyalism’ to appeal to working-class Protestants42 but many Protestants, including Orangemen, placed class interests over such appeals. For many Unionists their commitment extended no further than talking an appropriately Protestant

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game. Orange readers of John Buchan’s Three Hostages must have read ‘Sandy Arbuthnot’s’ political reminiscence with discomfort: The chief row was about Irish Home Rule, and I thought I’d better have a whack at the Pope. Has it ever struck you, Dick, that ecclesiastical language has a most sinister sound? I knew some of the words, though not their meaning, but I knew that my audience would be just as ignorant. So I had a magnificent peroration. ‘Will you men of Kilclavers,’ I asked, ‘endure to see a chasuble set up in your market-place? Will you have your daughters sold into simony? Will you have celibacy practiced in the public streets?’ Gad, I had them all on their feet bellowing ‘Never!’43

‘The Kirk’s Disgrace’, c. 1922–1938 There has been recent interest over an official Presbyterian campaign against Catholic Irish immigration, aptly described as ‘The Kirk’s Disgrace’.44 The campaign – for which the 2001 General Assembly apologised – saw a defensive, conservative Presbyterianism attempt to place anti-Catholicism at the heart of Scottish politics. It failed abjectly: there was no shift in state policy and the campaigners undermined, rather than reasserted, the Kirk’s social authority. The campaign was ‘a new departure’ for the Churches: ‘aimed not so much at converting individual Roman Catholics, as at marginalising, and even eliminating an ethnic minority whose presence was regarded as an evil, polluting the purity of Scottish race and culture’. The language of race was emphasised, the grievance portrayed as national rather than religious. The campaign began with two ‘overtures’ to the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly of 1922. The first, proposing restrictions on Irish immigration and revision of the Education Act, complained that Catholics had ‘most abominably abused the privileges which the Scottish people had given them’. The motion passed, in ‘a thin house’, only on the Moderator’s deciding vote. The second overture, by Rev. Duncan Cameron of Kilsyth, warned that the presence of ‘Irish Catholic aliens . . . would soon bring racial and sectarian warfare to Scotland.’ The resultant Committee reported in 1923 that the Irish Catholic community: ‘was alien in both race and creed, and could never be assimilated; its presence therefore had a “very sinister meaning for the future of our race” ’.45 As senior Kirk figures adopted the campaign, emphasis was put upon ‘respectable’ arguments surrounding race and national character. In 1927, Rev. John White assured his Assembly that: ‘They dealt with this very difficult,


delicate, and important question entirely from the racial point of view. The religious factor did not enter the question at all.’46 Anger over Ireland, economic anxiety, and suspicion of Labour–Catholic links formed the campaign’s backdrop. Anti-Irish attitudes were made more respectable, in that it could now be argued that the (Catholic/ Nationalist) Irish had forfeited their right to British citizenship. Although the Government continued to recognise Irish Free State citizens as British subjects, the events of 1916–1922 and the frigid relationship between Dublin and London afterwards gave credence to claims of Catholic Irish ‘disloyalty’. The Presbyterian case was weakened by gross exaggeration. In 1923 the Clerk of Glasgow Parish Council claimed that: ‘The rumours as to a large influx of Irish immigrants were quite unfounded’, and dismissed claims of widespread welfare abuses. 47 The campaign also suffered from the weakness of the anti-Catholic caucus amongst Scottish Unionism. Support for the anti-Irish came only from a constituency whose political marginality ensured that the Presbyterian campaign would prove fruitless. In 1928 the Churches presented their case to Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks and Scottish Secretary Sir John Gilmour. They complained that Scotland had become ‘a dumping ground’ after the USA had reduced immigrant quotas; and that in Glasgow the Catholic Irish ‘draw 70 per cent of parish and other relief funds’. Insisting their position ‘was based solely on racial, economic, educational, and civic considerations’ they advocated immigration quotas and the repatriation of destitute migrants. This second point, which entailed a return to pre-1922 relief arrangements, was already the subject of protracted negotiation between Dublin and London, and here the politicians were ‘sympathetic in their attitude’. The deputation was promised ‘the fullest enquiry’, but handed a statistical bombshell as Joynson-Hicks produced data flatly contradicting their case. 48 The cool reception was hardly surprising: whilst the Free State remained a Dominion of the British Empire its citizens remained British subjects. Edinburgh’s Scotsman was an early critic of the Presbyterian campaign, and in 1929 the Glasgow Herald dealt it a mortal blow. The Herald, after demonstrating that immigration was ‘a mere trickle’, and the Irish-born were under-represented on poor relief rolls, concluded that the Presbyterian case could ‘no longer be effectively pressed’. 49 The Government, also finding no evidence of substantial immigration, refused further contact with the campaigners. After seven years the campaign reached a dead end and its prospects worsened with the return of a Labour Government. In 1930 a delegation

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received a frosty reception from Scottish Secretary William Adamson, and this prompted a change of tack. The 1930 General Assembly agreed the campaign was ‘proceeding in the wrong fashion’ and would be better advised to persuade businesses ‘to employ Scottish labour where such is available’. The campaigners recognised that ‘no Government would undertake to stop the immigration. Their appeal was not to the Government, but to the patriotism of their Scottish labour employers.’50 The new strategy had inauspicious beginnings. In late 1930 it alleged that Catholic Irish foremen were discriminating in favour of their fellow countrymen at Peterhead’s harbour works. Government investigation found that no Irish foremen were employed at the works, and only two men in a sizeable workforce were Irish-born. Such allegations further alienated an already hostile Government. An attempt to revitalise the campaign was made in 1931 when ministers were asked for information on Catholicism in their locality, its ‘racial composition’ and ‘the steps being taken in their parish to confront the Roman Catholic threat’. Around one-third of ministers did not respond. Finally an Assembly debate in 1935 ‘broke the usual unanimity on this issue’. One minister asked whether it was appropriate, ‘when materialism was rampant and sheer paganism . . .in their own midst’, to agitate ‘against a Church which, however they deplored her errors, did stand . . . on the side of Christ?’51 Ironically, Irish immigration into Britain gained political currency at precisely that time the Presbyterian campaign was wound up. Tom Gallagher claimed that the 1931–1935 Parliament heard ‘the most forceful cries for a regulation of Irish immigration to Scotland’, largely from Scottish Unionists.52 In fact, demand for legislative action came between 1937 and 1939, and from English MPs. The Presbyterian campaign did not provoke Parliamentary questions: only two were tabled concerning Irish immigration over 1925 and 1926 – both by Scottish Unionists – and both received the reply that no statistics were available. In 1927, Labour’s Tom Johnston (Dundee) was supplied with figures of arrivals from, and departures to, the IFS at Scottish ports which contradicted the Kirk’s claims. In a rare intervention in support of the campaign, Unionist Frederick MacQuisten told the 1928 Health Committee that Scotland’s poverty was exacerbated by ‘a considerable invasion’ from Ireland: ‘Gresham’s law . . . lays it down that bad money drives good money out of circulation, and in the same way the Irish people are driving out the Scottish people.’53 The evidence of the 1931 Census further damaged the campaign revealing that the Irish-born in Scotland, far from increasing, declined sharply over the 1920s. Further, a majority of the Irish-born were from


Northern Ireland, contradicting the campaigners’ consistent usage of ‘Southern Irish’. Residency figures gave the lie to wild claims of 9000 Catholic Irish immigrants entering Scotland each year: the Census suggested an increase of Irish-born persons of no more than 2000 a year, many of whom may have come via a long residence elsewhere in Britain. It became absolutely clear that the campaigner’s claims as to immigration were grossly – and irresponsibly – exaggerated. Irish migration to England did increase considerably over the 1930s, in particular after c. 1935. Parliamentary questions on this issue became increasingly frequent, often complaining that migrant workers were given undue preference. Concern was largely, though not exclusively, expressed by English Conservatives – one Welsh Labour MP called for a bar on Irish migrant harvesters, and other Labourites called for restrictions. In 1937 an Inter-Departmental Committee on Irish immigration reported ‘no evidence of any marked increase in the number of persons of Irish Free State origin applying for relief’. Further whilst it found ‘clear evidence’ of a recent increase in Irish immigration, the arrivals were ‘being absorbed into employment’ filling unskilled jobs for which it was ‘difficult to find an adequate supply of equally satisfactory applicants already available in this country’. 54

The Political limitations of anti-Irishness In terms of its legislative aims and its hope for a revitalisation of Presbyterian social authority, the anti-Irish campaign was an abject failure. Although successive Governments were concerned about the effects of Irish immigration, no action was taken and the campaigners were viewed as bigoted and ill-informed meddlers. The issue of how much public support the campaign garnered is far less clear cut. Jay Brown rejects the view that the Kirk was ‘swept along by a popular nativist movement outside the Church’ and argues the campaign was pursued for essentially ‘ecclesiastical purposes’. Cliff Williamson insists that the 1923 report, and the subsequent campaign, resonated weakly beyond ‘the upper echelons of the Church of Scotland’ and that the failure of the campaign to win broad support ‘is testimony to a growing reconciliation with the Catholic community’. 55 A number of public figures did align themselves with the tenor (if not the practicalities) of the campaign. Two prominent members of a rightwing Nationalist group, the Scottish Party, attacked the Irish. George Malcolm Thomson predicted that Scotland would be Catholic by the late twentieth century, but was critical of the Kirk’s ‘callous indifference’

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to the Irish menace: ‘the public spirit of the Church is suspect. They think of congregation rather than nation.’ Andrew Dewar Gibb argued that without the Irish, Scotland ‘would be the most law abiding country in the world’.56 Whilst Gibb and Thomson viewed the Catholic Irish presence as an unmitigated disaster, more influential Nationalists disagreed. During the 1930s a number of leading Nationalist writers – Christopher Grieve, Edwin Muir, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, William Power – described the Reformation as a national tragedy, and Presbyterianism as an un-Scottish ‘cultural aberration’.57 Compton Mackenzie, Catholic novelist, went further, insisting that ‘Satan himself . . . can fairly be regarded as the first Protestant of all.’58 The emerging Nationalist movement illuminates the complex political position of religion in inter-war Scotland. In 1932, Unionist Robert Horne claimed ‘it would be a very natural thing’ if Scotland’s Catholics were to support a left-leaning Nationalist Party, and predicted that the Catholic vote might ‘form the determining element in the balance between the Scottish parties, and you might find that . . . Scottish Home Rule turned out to be a form of very insidious Irish domination in our politics’. Labour’s George Buchanan disagreed, insisting that Scottish nationalism was ‘anti-Irish’.59 Early twentieth-century Nationalism was caught between two accusers: the right viewed Nationalism as a vehicle which would disproportionately increase the influence of ‘the Irish’, whilst some on the left accused a sectarian Nationalism of dividing the Scottish working class. This reflected the Janus-face of the movement itself, as one of the rare forays into sectarianism by a Nationalist candidate illustrates. In the Hillhead by-election of 1937, the SNP’s John MacCormick argued for the repeal of the 1918 Education Act and complained about welfare claims of recent Irish immigrants. This garnered little electoral benefit, and provoked resentment amongst party activists. Hillhead jarred with a Nationalist drift leftward which was increasingly isolating figures such as Gibb. Offering his resignation as SNP chairman in 1939, Gibb bemoaned the party’s ‘determination not to do anything which would wound the feelings of Irish Roman Catholics’.60 If the Kirk campaign found little support within the mainstream parties and from the emerging nationalist movement, it did find support from fringe militant Protestant political organisations. The key – and unintended – achievement of the campaign was to grant these bodies a degree of ecclesiastical sanction they had never before enjoyed. The refusal of established political parties to pick up the themes of the campaign allowed fringe groups to lay claim to policies proposed by Scotland’s mainstream Protestant Churches. Unable to persuade ‘respectable’


parties of the justice of their campaign, the Churches found that their calls were answered by populist demagogues with whom they were loath to be associated.

Conclusion Despite its failure, the Kirk campaign is crucial to our understanding of religious conflict. That one of Scotland’s key social institutions should embark on a bitter anti-Catholic campaign could only serve to sour religious relations for decades to come. Several points, by way of conclusion, should be emphasised. First, the campaign stemmed from the fear in some ecclesiastical circles that Presbyterianism was losing direction and influence; a fear fusing, in right-wing minds, with anxiety over the growing power of the left, continued emigration, and the feared ‘End of Scotland’. What stands out in the history of the campaign is that, by and large, the wider clergy and laity remained silent. This lends credence to Steve Bruce’s claim that the General Assembly administratively sidelined the campaign into subcommittees. The campaign did not engage the attention of the Presbyterian Churches as had the union negotiations or the Forward Movement, although it must be stressed that the ‘Kirk’s Disgrace’ was led by Churchmen of the highest influence. The wider clergy, if it cannot be clear that they shared these Churchmen’s views, were certainly culpable by their silence. As for Scotland’s Catholics, there can be little doubt that the campaign had a substantial effect on their self-confidence. The Presbyterian campaign propelled Catholics even more firmly into the Labour camp – thus a central motive for the campaign proved a self-fulfilling prophecy. Similarly, the campaign drew Catholics defensively inward, ironically enough given the campaign’s complaint over Catholic insularity. This circling of Catholic wagons was evidenced by Charles Diamond’s 1928 claim of rising circulation for his newspapers: ‘to which the bigotry of the ruffianly attacks’ by the campaigners ‘has already contributed much’. Characteristically controversial, Diamond ridiculed the ‘bonneted chieftains’ of the Kirk. The resurgence of Catholicism in Scotland, and the Presbyterian backlash, he told a Glasgow audience was proof that barbarism is again giving way to civilisation. Some of the furious outbursts [by the campaigners] remind us of the last dying outburst of Paganism before the steady advance of Christianity. These Pagani in our midst are out of date. It is perhaps useless to talk reasonably to these fomenters of hatred and of national animosities.

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Diamond’s dismissal of Protestantism as ‘the revolutionary and demoralising doctrines preached by those who assisted to plunder the Church and rob the poor’, and of the Reformers as ‘vile religious revolutionaries’, did not reflect the entire spectrum of Catholic opinion.61 Such bullishness, however, does indicate that – in the late 1920s at least – there were influential Catholic figures prepared to confront the bigotry of the campaigners with a little bigotry of their own.

7 ‘A Happy Solution to a Difficult Problem’

The issue of separate Catholic schools has been a point of historical friction in many parts of the world, and highlights the mythologies surrounding Catholic–Protestant relations in Scotland. The journey of Catholic – and Episcopalian – Church schools from their refusal to join Scotland’s state system in 1872, to their entry in 1918, is fascinating and illuminating. Whilst relatively little has been published on Episcopalian schools, there is a broad and expanding literature on Catholic education. Missing from most accounts, however, is an explanation of Catholic educational separatism. James Treble, for example, dispensed with Catholicism’s ‘conscious repudiation’ of State education in 1872 by noting that it contained two impulses. The first was an emphasis on a Catholic ‘atmosphere’; the second – which Treble privileged – was suspicion that the new state system would either prioritise Presbyterianism or, at worst, promote religious apathy and, ultimately, secularism. 1 Yet, Catholic educational separatism can only be understood in the context of two facts: that separatism was pursued in many other spheres; and that Catholic separatism was pursued globally. Nineteenth-century Catholicism developed ‘a vast and complex system of parallel institutions’ including schools, labour and business organisations, youth movements, and – in some states – political parties.2 Whilst ‘pillarisation’ was most obvious where Catholic political organisations developed furthest – in the Netherlands for example – it was also present to a significant degree wherever Catholicism had a notable presence. By c. 1900, Glasgow Catholicism represented a ‘self-enclosed world in which the Church had duplicated every movement of Protestant and secular social service and charity’. 3 Such duplication characterised the Catholic experience throughout the modern world. 107

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In terms of the Catholic ‘struggle for the schools’, the religious question was answered in Scotland more comprehensively and earlier than elsewhere. In 1960, Will Herberg noted that state funding for US Catholic education remained an ‘area of bitter controversy [and] the focus of religio-communal conflict’. 4 State funds were conceded in Australia in 1963 and New Zealand in 1970 – almost a century after the establishment of state education. In England the State–Church compact of 1902 did not go as far as the Scottish settlement, and provoked a level of organised dissent quite missing in Scotland after the passing of the 1918 Act. Many of the educational difficulties faced by Catholics in Scotland were faced not only in other ‘Protestant’ countries, but also in ‘Catholic’ societies (such as Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal), where secular governments were often violently hostile to Catholicism. It is crucial, therefore, to acknowledge that the Scottish settlement was a remarkable legislative reform, and provided an international benchmark by which Catholic educationalists could measure their achievements. Mgr William Brown, the English cleric who helped reconcile the Scottish Church to reform, ‘confidently asserted that the 1918 Act had given Scottish Catholics a school system better than any in the world’. 5

Modernity and ‘Catholic separatism’ As we have seen, the Catholic Church reacted to the upheavals of the nineteenth century by condemning them, and withdrawing – even in ostensibly Catholic societies – behind the institutional walls of the faith. One hymn, published in 1862, encapsulates Catholic mistrust of the modern world: I shun the haunts of those who seek To ensnare poor Catholic youth No Church I own, no schools I know But those that teach the Truth.6 The argument for Catholic schools must first and foremost be seen as a Catholic argument, rooted in the presumptions and fundamentals of Catholic thought and practice. Williamson has argued against ‘a tendency . . . to devalue the overtly “Catholic” aspects of the social and political behaviour of the Catholic community’ and argues that it is appropriate ‘that when we look at the development of a community

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defined to a large extent by their religiosity that religion is included in the discussion’.7 Williamson’s point is a useful one – ‘religion’ is often relegated to no more than a marker (or complicator) of class, ethnicity, or nationality. Such analyses emphasise the external, ‘anti-Catholic’ factors in Catholic separatism and ignore global Catholic doctrine and practice. To do so is to relate – and to privilege – only part of the story. Likewise, to dismiss opposition to, or suspicion of, Catholic aims and actions as simply reactive anti-Catholic bigotry undervalues religious and political idealism as a framework through which behaviour is constructed and understood.

Catholic separatism in Scotland Before examining the 1918 Education (Scotland) Act, it is necessary to pose a deceptively simple question: why do Catholics insist on their ‘right’ to maintain separate schools? Typically, accounts of this vexed issue are explained simplistically: ‘Catholic schools came into existence in the 19th century as Irish immigrants encountered violent hostility in the Protestant-run schools.’ Mary Hickman argues that the ‘proselytising intent’ of England’s Protestant schools ‘ensured that segregated schools became the hallmark of Catholic educational policy’ but that this was not the case in Scotland. 8 Hickman refers here to the Kirk’s 1829 decision to allow Catholic children to attend its schools and be excused from religious instruction. This meant that a ‘conscience clause’ operated in the bulk of the Scottish school system by the 1830s. The Church of England resisted such a policy as implying a separation of ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ instruction, a principle running against the views of many Anglicans as well as Catholics. Given that the Catholic Church did object to their children attending ‘Protestant’ schools, even under the protection of a ‘conscience clause’, fully separate schools were established by the Catholic Schools Society from 1817. Predominantly funded by Presbyterians, the society operated schools for Catholic children in which ‘no formal creed was taught’. This hardly satisfied Catholic aspirations, however, and Church-managed schools (providing secular and religious instruction) were operating from the mid-1830s.9 Given the willingness of Presbyterians to assist Catholics in the secular education of their children during this period it is difficult to posit Protestant ‘bigotry’ as the key motive for Catholic separatism in Scotland. A more useful explanation for Catholic separatism can be found in the Church’s Canon Law: ‘Christ’s faithful are to promote Catholic

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schools, doing everything possible to help in establishing and maintaining them.’ Separate schools form part of a historically developed critique insisting that Catholicism was the only bulwark against the evils of modernity – Pius IX denounced the view that ‘Catholics may approve of the system of educating youth unconnected with Catholic faith and the power of the Church’. 10 To many Catholics, all non-Catholic schools were dangerous. In 1924, Edinburgh’s Bishop Henry Graham warned that: In [public] schools our children are deprived of all Catholic instruction; they are daily under the influence of teachers belonging to the Protestant religion or to no religion, who may, even in secular subjects such as History, instil into the children’s minds many things contrary to Catholic faith and principles; they are placed in the midst of surroundings hostile to the faith and in an atmosphere that chills their religious fervour and tends to indifferentism; they are in danger of growing up with a weakened if not a perverted faith, insufficiently instructed in their religion and looking at everything from a Protestant point of view; and through their close companionship with Protestant friends, run the risk of lapsing finally into the evil of a mixed marriage – fitting retribution of a career spent in the teeth of the Church’s prohibition and fulfilling the Scriptural warning, ‘he that loves the danger will perish in it’. Catholic education pursued the education of the soul: whilst secular education provided for life in this world, only Catholic education provided for life in the next. This demanded, in Scotland as everywhere else in the Catholic world: Catholic teachers, trained to teach and mould the children in a Catholic way; the visits of the Priest; the constant round of religious observances; . . . encouragement for frequent and daily Communion; the Catholic pictures and statues; Catholic companions – in short, the ‘Catholic atmosphere’.11 This view was emphasised at the highest levels of the Church. Whilst Leo XIII, in 1898, praised Scotland’s public schools as ‘thoroughly efficient’, he emphasised the ‘vital importance to defend most strenuously’ separate Catholic schools. The ‘Catholic atmosphere’ could not be abandoned, and it ‘could not be guaranteed except by the daily contact of believing teacher with believing child’.12


‘The struggle for the schools’ During the legislative debates of 1917–1918, Sir John Struthers of the Scottish Education Department (SED) praised the ‘Highland solution’ by which Catholic-dominated School Boards provided Protestant teachers to give religious instruction to a Protestant minority. Pupils attended to secular subjects together, and religious instruction separately, and Struthers regretted that ‘this liberality of view was not followed by the School Boards of Scotland generally’.13 Would more ‘liberality’ have ‘solved’ the religious question? The Highland solution was not an extendable one: mixed schools were acceptable to the Catholic Church only where Catholic control of the Boards ensured that a given school’s ‘atmosphere’ and staff were Catholic. Such an eventuality was limited to a very small number of Parish Boards in the Gaidhealtachd. The Catholic demand, therefore, was that the state recognise the principle of Catholic atmosphere. The 1872 Act sidestepped the religious question because the Liberals were neither prepared to concede stateprovided denominational schools, nor able to impose a genuinely non-denominational solution. The ‘Cowper-Temple’ Clause in the English Act of 1870 restricted religious instruction in state schools to ‘undenominational’ Bible reading, forbidding the use of any ‘religious catechism or . . . formulary’. This proved unacceptable to Catholics and – crucially – to Anglicans, and these bodies remained outside the English state system, and outside rate aid from local School Boards (though not from continued Treasury grants).14 To Catholic ears the ‘undenominational’ claim rang hollow: ‘Bible teaching by the lay teacher, and interpreted by the individual [is] Protestantism to the Catholic, and sectarian, denominational, dogmatic.’15 To Catholics and Anglicans it was unjust that rate aid was given to de facto ‘dogmatic’ schools but withheld from ‘denominational’ schools. In Scotland the question was less complex, given most Scots were Presbyterians. As Presbyterians were providing most of the schools for the new state system, they argued for statutory recognition of the Presbyterian tradition in these schools. The 1872 Act, however, simply adopted a permissive fudge allowing School Boards to provide such religious instruction as they saw appropriate. Whilst in practice this allowed for continuing Presbyterian instruction, the refusal of statutory protection rankled the Churches. Segregated timetabling of religious instruction also led to a marked decrease in the religious content of school textbooks. As in England, Catholics and Episcopalians remained outside

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the new state system. Whilst in England most schools thus remained ‘voluntary’, in Scotland only a small minority remained outside the public sector. The Catholic system was to expand significantly over the next 50 years, doubling in size from 102 schools in 1876 to 226 in 1919, in no small part due to the introduction of compulsory education in 1872.16

School Board politics In 1872, Scotland’s Lord Advocate dismissed calls for mandatory religious instruction as ‘eccentric and superfluous’ arguing that only ‘feeling of the people themselves’, rather than statute, could allow religious education to flourish.17 School Board elections were, therefore, fought on denominational lines as the Churches sought to ensure that ‘the feeling of the people’ was met. The minority Churches also felt compelled to secure Board representation: so long their communities were liable to pay the education rate, they had an interest in the fiscal conservatism of the Boards. Secular interests also contested Board elections, often under the guise of ‘economy’. Ratepayer interests were increasingly active as educational provision (and therefore expense) burgeoned. By the 1890s the Boards were dominated by interests stressing economy. A further secular interest was represented by the entry of the Labour movement into Board elections, although Labour’s electoral record here was a dismal one. With such a diversity of interests, a complex interplay of principle and self-interest ensured that the Boards operated on an increasingly consensual educational agenda. This is not to say that candidates in the Board election did not utilise robust religious rhetoric but only that it proved, on the whole, just that – rhetoric. Whilst the Glasgow Herald predicted ‘some pretty play of a non-scholastic character’ between a ‘Knoxite’ caucus and the Catholic nominees in Glasgow’s 1888 Board election, it also noted that ‘within the Board-room these antagonists seem to get on very well together’. More broadly, the centralising impulse of the SED and gravitation towards an educational (rather than denominational) consensus contributed to ‘a fundamental shift in educational ideology’. Religious intransigence on the part of Board members was rewarded with marginalisation. An initial rallying of Presbyterian interests did not survive beyond the 1870s, and by the time that intra-Presbyterian divisions were bridged a pragmatic and secular educational agenda was firmly established. 18


This shift in educational ideology meant that the financial burden upon the minority Churches increased as required school standards rose. Whilst the minority Churches resented their exclusion from rate aid, many on the Boards disliked the existence of state-funded schools outwith their control. Many Boards rejected the voluntary demand for a share of the education rate arguing that secular education was offered to all, regardless of religious background, under the protection of the conscience clause. Crucially, voluntary schools represented an economic challenge, attracting Grants otherwise destined to the Boards. (In passing it might be noted that claims that Catholic schools were entirely funded by the Catholic community are mistaken – direct central Government funding provided most of the income for British denominational schools.19) Crieff School Board lobbied the SED in 1891 against recognising a new Catholic school. They argued that the voluntary schools in the town would earn £200 annually in Treasury Grants, substantially reducing the income of the Board’s own schools. Since the conscience clause had operated in Crieff without complaint, they viewed the new school as religiously unnecessary and economically irrational. The Board offered to completely secularise their own schools, if the two voluntary schools were closed. The minority Churches and the SED rejected the offer outright.20 By the late nineteenth century many Boards accepted that the minority Churches would not accept mixed or ‘secular’ schools, and held out the offer of rate aid in exchange for a role in the management of voluntary schools. The principle of ‘No Control, No Rates’ provoked a furious response from some Catholics: ‘so this is what it has come to. If we want any help out of the rates, to which of course we have to pay our quota, we must give up the management of our schools, those schools which we have loved and cherished.’21 For the most part, however, there was close co-operation between the Boards and the Catholic Church. In 1908, finding that the Church was unable to provide ‘Day Industrial Schools’ for its ‘delinquent’ children, the Glasgow Board provided two such schools exclusively for Catholic children with an entirely Catholic staff and a ‘Catholic atmosphere’ to the complete satisfaction of the Church. From 1905 the Glasgow Board also provided a Truant School where Catholic and Protestant children were ‘fully integrated’ with the exception of separate religious instruction classes. This contrasted sharply with the rigid segregation of denominations at Liverpool’s Truant School. 22 The success of these schools in overcoming religious obstacles provided considerable hope that a future settlement was possible.

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Negotiating a settlement As the standards demanded of schools increased, the Catholic Church found it increasingly difficult to meet the educational demands it had set itself. It was short of schools and qualified teachers; many Catholic schools were badly overcrowded, and its provision of post-primary education was sparse. In 1896, Glasgow’s Catholic school managers approached the SED: ‘stating that in return for rate aid the Catholic schools of Glasgow were willing to submit to the school board, provided they retained proprietary rights to their school buildings, with control of staff and school management’.23 The ensuing discussions foundered on the recognition that whilst Parliamentary legislation would be required, such legislation was politically impossible, and would remain so until c. 1910. The Balfour Education Act of 1902 granted to voluntary schools in England and Wales the settlement sought by Glasgow Catholics in 1896. English denominational schools gave over one-third of their management committee places to municipal nominees in return for substantial rate aid. The Churches retained control of recruitment and responsibility for the upkeep and provision of school buildings, and maintained a two-thirds majority on management committees. The Churches were not, therefore, entirely relieved of the financial burdens of their schools, but retained managerial control. The Balfour Act also abolished ad hoc Boards, passing responsibility for education to County and Borough councils. Many Liberals saw this as an attack on local democracy, and secularist and non-conformist alike baulked at the religious settlement, especially to the extensive Anglican system. Welsh opposition was particularly fierce, and non-conformists complained about ‘Rome on the Rates’. The Liberal assault, led by Lloyd George, extended beyond Parliament, with Carmarthen Council suspended for refusing to implement the Act. A campaign of ‘passive resistance’ between 1903 and 1905 led to the prosecution of 30,000 protestors for non-payment of the education rate. By 1906, with the return of the Liberals to power, the campaign had petered out, and attempts to redraw the 1902 settlement were stifled by the Anglican-Tory majority in the Lords.24 Here then is the crucial background – the Scottish debate was played out against a larger English/British debate where the key antagonism ran along a cleavage of Liberal/secular against Conservative/ Anglican, and not Protestant against Catholic. A further attempt to reach a Scottish compromise was initiated by Glasgow School Board in 1910, the Liberal Government offering to legislate if the parties could reach a settlement. The negotiations, however,


foundered upon what has been described as a ‘fatal obsession’ in the Catholic Hierarchy with the English settlement. Scotland’s Catholics, rather unrealistically, hoped to improve upon the financial aspects of the Balfour Act while surrendering an equal degree of control. 25 Conditions in Scotland’s Catholic schools worsened considerably after 1914, with the war spurring all parties towards compromise. A concerted effort was made in Edinburgh, where the Board and the minority Churches met between 1915 and 1917. Handley implies that the negotiations foundered on the need for legislative sanction, while Martha Skinnider suggests that opposition from the Archdiocese of Glasgow ended the initiative. In fact the Conference sat over 31 meetings, with an assurance of Government support, and despite internal Catholic opposition. Whilst the Catholic Church could not agree to the Conference’s final Report, the key issues were now well rehearsed and clarified. That the Episcopalians did come to a settlement in Edinburgh increased the desire for a settlement on Catholic schools.26 The only significant opposition to the Edinburgh Conference was from within the Catholic community, in particular the Archdiocese of Glasgow, which represented the majority of Scotland’s Catholics. An anonymous pamphlet, circulated to the clergy, attacked the negotiations as ‘an error of the first magnitude. It is worse – it is a crime . . . it means the selling . . . of a sacred trust.’ The Edinburgh negotiations represented an ‘unholy and illegitimate bargain . . . contrary to all Catholic instinct and tradition. It is like selling our heritage – our Catholic children’s inheritance – for a miserable mess of pottage.’27 Senior clerical interests seemed to agree – Glasgow’s school managers, in early 1917, voted to oppose the concession of any degree of control in return for rate aid. The Scottish Secretary, Robert Munro, assured Catholics in August 1917 that ‘from the moment they assent to my proposal the Catholic community would never regret having come in on the terms I have ventured to suggest’. 28 Munro’s Education Bill proposed schools be administered by County Council committees rather than Parish ad hoc bodies. Voluntary schools would be transferred to these committees in return for full public finance – school buildings might be sold or leased to the County as the Churches saw fit. Religious instruction in all transferred schools would be guaranteed by statute, and the Churches would enjoy a religious veto on staffing. Compared to the 1872 Act, the minority Churches were being asked to give up far less in return for considerably more. There had been no compensation for transfer in 1872 (the Presbyterians gifted their schools to the State), and no legislative protection for religious instruction.

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Presbyterians saw an opportunity to secure their long desired mandatory clause, believing that intra-Presbyterian harmony enhanced the strength and justice of their demand. With legal protection for religious instruction proposed for minorities, they argued the Government was now at liberty to extend legislative sanction to the Presbyterian majority. The key opposition to the Bill related to its administrative proposals, and a spirited defence of ad hoc bodies forced Munro to accept elected Authorities at County level. Otherwise the Bill remained substantively unaltered from the Second Reading onwards: Presbyterian hopes for mandatory religious instruction were frustrated once more. Little discontent emerged over the proposed transfer of voluntary schools. The larger School Boards unanimously supported the proposed transfer, though disagreeing over the details. Whilst most supported Munro’s scheme, others held out hopes of a unified – mixed or secular – schools system. The Bill’s Second Reading, however, was characterised by the warmth with which it was welcomed.29 Doubts remained most deep rooted amongst Catholics, and the first half of 1918 saw a deepening of their misgivings. Bishop Graham advocated outright rejection, warning that no ‘Protestant government’ could safeguard ‘the Catholic character and control of our schools’. Graham was ‘utterly opposed’ to transfer ‘no matter what conditions and safeguards we secure’. Munro’s proposals, Graham felt, represented ‘the first step on the downward path towards secularising’ Catholic schools. Munro’s Bill proposed the scrapping of Grants for schools remaining outside the new state system – a mechanism clearly designed to force the hand of the minority Churches. Graham saw this as: ‘a piece of coercion very much to be resented, and a very curious kind of repayment to Catholics for all that they have suffered and sacrificed for education in the country, under conditions of brutal injustice, for half a century past’.30 The Bishops accepted the legislation only at the eleventh hour, Mgr William Brown, an English Apostolic Visitor having finally persuaded them that they were being offered a deal superior to the 1902 Balfour Act. The brute facts of demography and economy made it clear that refusal was at least as dismal a prospect as acceptance. In some industrial areas voluntary subscriptions accounted for as much as one-quarter of Catholic school income, and such subscriptions were highly sensitive to economic downturn. Despite increased Government aid, voluntary schools were running on empty by 1916. Catholic teachers, it might be noted, warmly welcomed the Bill and its offer of improved pay,


conditions, security, and career prospects. In time even Graham was reconciled, viewing the Act ‘as a happy solution to a difficult problem . . . The transfer of the schools had been an act of justice on one side and an act of faith on the other’.31

Catholic uncertainty, 1919–1922 The feeling of coercion lingered however, and the Glasgow Observer warned that the Authorities contained many ‘bitterly hostile’ to Catholicism and bent upon ‘penalising the Catholic schools as far as the letter of the law will allow’.32 This was not borne out by experience, but Catholics remained suspicious. Attempts to reorganise the Catholic Education Council in 1921 foundered as the clergy ‘absolutely refused’ to co-operate due to their continuing opposition to the Munro Act. The Bishops dropped the matter until 1925.33 The implementation of transfer proved unproblematic. Indeed the rapidity and smoothness of the Act’s operation was remarkable. By 1921, all of Scotland’s denominational schools had transferred to the new Authorities, and that the Authorities approached the particular concerns of Catholic education in a positive light quickly allayed remaining doubts. Given the Irish War and the economic crisis occurring when full implementation of the Act was undertaken, there was ‘surprisingly little friction’ between the bodies concerned.34 Catholic problems were treated sympathetically and lay Catholics found the Act allowed them to articulate repressed grievances. A pupil strike at one Catholic school ended when Lanarkshire Education Authority agreed to investigate parental grievances, although the Authority refused to investigate events prior to the school’s transfer in 1918. Remarkably the parents sought redress for the school’s allegedly lax approach to religious instruction, redress not obtained through the Church. It is profoundly ironic that Catholic parents had to resort to the statutory protection for such instruction to ensure that the school maintained a properly ‘Catholic atmosphere’.35 Lanarkshire was also the site of a dispute over who was responsible for ‘deficiencies in the provision of Catholic school accommodation’. All parties agreed that Whifflet RC’s accommodation was inadequate – but whilst the Church proposed to provide a £8500 extension to the existing premises, the Authority wished to build a new £25,000 school at the ratepayers expense. The Church, however, insisted that only they had the right to deal with such cases, and that Authorities should only provide accommodation where the Church explicitly repudiated such

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a role. After three years of dispute, arbitration ruled in favour of the Church. In 1928, however, the Church waived these same rights having realised Whifflet was ‘at best a Pyrrhic victory’. Catholic mistrust was eroded through the positive experience of the new system, and the Church’s realisation of the lack of ‘resources to discharge the burden which she had so strenuously fought to place on her own shoulders’. 36 The Whifflet case revealed the willingness of the Authorities to invest in Catholic education, but contentious questions remained as to who set the agenda and defined the needs in the new era. These issues were finally resolved after a bitter dispute between the Catholic Church and the Stirlingshire Education Authority.

Conflict in Stirlingshire The Stirlingshire dispute hinged on whether or not an Authority was obliged to extend the system of Catholic education transferred in 1919. In 1922 the Stirlingshire Authority declined a request for a Catholic school in Bonnybridge, arguing that existing accommodation was adequate to meet local needs; that an additional school represented unnecessary expense; and that Bonnybridge’s Catholic children had hitherto been educated in non-denominational schools (without complaint) under the protection of the conscience clause. The local priest felt that Bonnybridge might provide a useful test case, warning that the Authority’s position ‘would lead to the extinction of existing Catholic schools when these got worn out’. He concluded that ‘If Bonnybridge is not a good case, then there will never be a good case for any new Catholic school.’ 37 Though the Scottish Education Department sympathised, the Church was informed that the Authority could not be compelled to provide a school.38 The Authority offered to provide, in all its non-denominational schools, a ‘Catholic teacher to give such Roman Catholic pupils religious instruction for the same time as is set apart for the religious instruction of other pupils.’ The Authority had already implemented a similar scheme for its Episcopalian children with the consent of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Should this be unacceptable, the Authority offered to co-operate with the Catholic authorities in taking the case, ‘at mutual expense’, to the Court of Session for clarification. 39 It was apparent that the Authority, too, were keen to pursue a test case, and relations between the two bodies rapidly deteriorated. It should be noted, however, that Stirlingshire acted alone – no assistance or public support was forthcoming from the other Authorities.


Ignoring Catholic complaints the Authority extended their policy of segregated religious instruction to Catholic pupils in non-denominational schools. This had particular implications for post-Qualifying education, as there was no Catholic secondary school in the County. Hitherto the Authority had provided bursaries allowing children to attend Catholic secondaries outside Stirlingshire. As ‘adequate religious instruction’ was now, in the Authority’s view, being provided, no further bursary would be granted. The SED refused to give their statutory sanction to the proposed scheme, resulting in a public enquiry. At issue were 203 children receiving bursaries to attend Catholic schools outwith Stirlingshire: the Authority claimed that their scheme would reduce bursary costs by 75 per cent. With regard to religious instruction the Authority argued that whilst the desires of the parents were important, ‘the precise method in which their desire should be carried out is a matter of public policy which we are elected to decide’. The enquiry disagreed, ruling that Stirlingshire’s policy on religious instruction was ‘hopelessly insufficient’ and one with which Catholics ‘could not conscientiously approve’. The Authority were instructed to resume the bursaries and ‘pay for suitable education’ as the Catholics had insisted.40 The Church, keen to press its claims, built and equipped a school and requested that the Authority transfer it under the provisions of Section 18. The Authority refused, moving the dispute into the Courts. The Church insisted that the Authority was obliged to transfer the school. The Authority countered that the request fell outside the spirit and the letter of the law; and that no school could be transferred without Authority consent. Whilst the Catholic case was at first successful in the Court of Session, the ruling was overturned on appeal and the dispute moved to the House of Lords. It found in favour of the Catholic Church six votes to four – the narrowest possible majority. The Catholic Church emerged from the disputes in Stirlingshire with important principles established and an interpretation of the law which would not merely maintain the system of Catholic schools, but extend it. The dispute in Stirlingshire raised the spectre (and it proved no more than that) of budgetary chaos as the SED authorised schools against the wishes of the Authorities. Whilst a respectable case could be constructed from the Bonnybridge affair, some reactions to the Lords’ decision were explicitly sectarian. One Authority member complained that: ‘He was asked to subscribe to a foreign potentate, and to pay rates to propagate a creed that was alien to him and to the people of Scotland . . . we were being overridden by an organisation that was ninetenths political.’41

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It is impossible to discern how much of the Authority’s position – defended for almost a decade in defiance of the SED – was motivated by anti-Catholic sentiment, and how much by a sincere desire to protect the educational interests of Stirlingshire’s ratepayers. It is probably impossible to separate the two, and the point is that neither aspect should be denied. It seems likely that opposition to the Catholic case gained momentum, and had its resolve hardened, by anti-Catholicism. Sectarian posturing, it must be noted, was not conspicuous in the dispute until it was reaching the bitter end. The Church of Scotland’s 1930 General Assembly expressed resentment towards the continuing Catholic insistence on segregation. This was not, however, an issue it pursued with any degree of vigour. One minister concluded sadly ‘the Roman Catholics would never accept mixed schools’. More ominously, a Stirlingshire minister warned that after Bonnybridge there was ‘no deterrent whatever to the ambitions of the Roman Catholics in Scotland . . . The whole of Scotland looked to this great Church for a lead’. The only ‘lead’ provided was remittance of the matter to the Education Committee, the Assembly viewing no other action as necessary. The Committee reported in 1931 that Bonnybridge placed ‘ratepayers in jeopardy’ and recommended further consideration. Seeking to close the matter, Sir Henry Keith, Chairman of Lanarkshire Council Education Committee argued that dispute would have been avoided had Stirlingshire exercised some ‘common sense’. Keith believed that further Presbyterian harping would ‘create a ferment of ill-will and sectarian jealousy’. The Assembly deferred action, reflecting the fact that – despite Presbyterian unease – segregated education was functioning smoothly and efficiently. As if to demonstrate this, Keith left the debate to open a new Catholic school near Airdrie, taking the opportunity, alongside Archbishop Mackintosh, to praise the Munro Act. That same day Scottish Secretary Willie Adamson opened another Catholic school at Tranent, hearing Archbishop McDonald praise the Act as: ‘the greatest that had been passed for many centuries . . . it would be appreciated more in the future than it had in the past’. 42

‘Rome on the rates’ No understanding of the educational settlement would be complete without contextualising the Protestant backlash. Handley argued that the Act renewed the ‘old discord’ against Catholicism, that the 1922 education elections were ‘heralded with a roll of anti-papal drums’, and that a ‘slogan was born that continues to rally opponents . . . : “Rome on


the rates!” ’43 Yet there had been no ‘roll of anti-papal drums’ in the education elections in 1919 – and neither was the issue prominent in the elections of 1925 or 1928. The slogan ‘Rome on the rates’ too had a longer (and possibly English) provenance. The Protestant ‘backlash’ in Scotland differed substantially in tone and scope from the Liberal and non-conformist outcry in England and Wales following the 1902 Balfour Act. In 1919 the central issue for Protestant interests remained securing ‘Use & Wont’ (the continuation of traditional Bible instruction) rather than sniping at the minority Churches. The electorate were resoundingly unexcited about the new education authorities and the 1919 polls were abysmally poor. The minority Churches, however, successfully mobilised their congregations. Whilst candidates supporting ‘Use & Wont’ were returned across Scotland, more striking was the success of Catholic candidates. Where organised, the Episcopalians also increased their representation. Initially at least this Catholic success, and modest Labour gains, were not seen as problematic on the Glasgow Authority. When one (Moderate) member resigned in 1919 the Authority happily co-opted a Labour nominee in his place, increasing the Catholic–Labour minority to 19 members out of 45. By 1921–1922, however, the Labour–Catholic bloc was causing concern in some circles, largely stimulated by non-educational issues. Ireland was mired in a bloody war of reprisal; Labour was emerging as a significant municipal and parliamentary force; and Temperance hopes were crushed with the abject failure of Local Veto polls. Unemployment spiralled in 1920–1921 and showed little promise of short-term improvement. These processes were subtly interwoven. Economic conditions improved Labour’s electoral outlook at the same time that ‘disloyal’ Irish Catholics were demonstrably supporting the Party. In return, Labour tailored many of its policies to suit this electorate. Labour’s commitment to Ireland was long-standing and unchanged – but the principles of integrated secular education, and of Temperance were strategically shelved at the very time that the Irish Question was coming to a bloody ‘solution’. Added to these political processes was the fact that the implementation of the 1918 Act had placed an added and disproportionate burden on the rates. Parish Councils complained that the Act ‘was a cumbrous, unworkable, and appallingly expensive machine’. Rural Councils in Lanarkshire loudly protested the ‘extraordinary sums’ demanded of them. Pressure on the Authorities also came from central government, who insisted after 1920 on spending cuts. Yet the transfer of denominational schools did not feature in these attacks, leading

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Munro to defend himself by arguing ‘it is often forgotten that the entire cost of the voluntary schools . . . to a large extent accounts for the increased cost’. 44 The sectarian campaign coalesced after a speech by Professor John Phillimore, Catholic convert and Glasgow University lecturer, which described Scotland’s Universities as ‘undefended cities’ to be ‘captured’ by Catholic scholars. One minister responded that ‘a widespread and deplorable apathy prevailed’ in education with an ‘indifference to the Roman Catholic menace’; another bemoaned ‘a most unholy alliance between the Roman Catholic Church and the representatives of the advanced Labour Party’ in educational affairs.45 Divisions between the Orange Order and the Unionists over Ireland meant that some were keen to develop a distinctive ‘Orange’ voice on the Authority. There was little unanimity between those ministers peddling an anti-Catholic card during the election, and senior Orangemen stayed entirely aloof from the ‘No Popery’ drum beating. All Moderate candidates, however, insisted that continued voter apathy placed ‘Use & Wont’ in real danger. The result was a brief reversal for Catholic and Labour interests. Jimmy Maxton insisted Labour was the real target and that it was unworthy of ‘Protestant churches to stand blatantly as the enemies of the working class even when the attack is made behind the mask of religion.’46 The rousing of Protestant electors to the defence of ‘Use & Wont’ was short-lived, with both Catholic and Labour regaining the lost ground in 1925. That there was no return to the ‘sectarian’ card suggests that the specific congruence of Irish bloodshed, economic crisis, Orange-Unionist division, and the fear of Labour lay behind the 1922 ‘drum beating’ rather than the provisions of the Munro Act per se. The most striking aspect of educational politics was Labour’s poor record. Whilst the 1920s saw Labour win between two-fifths and one-half of Glasgow’s Parliamentary votes, this was four or five times the proportion won in education elections. Many clearly separated educational politics from the politics of local and central government. Whilst this has been a recognised feature of Catholic behaviour, there has been less recognition of a Protestant combination of support for Labour with traditionalist affection for religion in educational matters.

The impact of ‘sectarian’ politics Discerning the electoral impact of ‘sectarian’ rather than denominational or party-political preference is difficult. There is, though, little


evidence that bigotry was prominent in Authority politics. That the ‘Rome on the Rates’ campaign was limited to a small coterie of Glasgow Ministers and did not survive beyond the 1922 election demonstrates the short-term utility of the sectarian card. More direct evidence relates to the experience of the Scottish Protestant League (SPL) in the 1925 Edinburgh education election. The SPL hoped to exploit a selfinitiated controversy over a Catholic school and put forward seven candidates to oppose the ‘sectarianism of Rome . . . propagated . . . at the expense of the ratepayers’. 47 A fairly plausible list of candidates had been assembled, including a Parish Councillor and a future Free Kirk Moderator. The electors were unimpressed; while SPL leader Alexander Ratcliffe scraped in on the thirteenth and final count, the others polled woefully. Ratcliffe’s victory came in the Division containing the ‘controversial’ school, suggesting that his appeal was strictly parochial. With a total of 2666 votes (six per cent of the poll) the SPL gained a precarious toehold on the Authority. Ratcliffe’s sojourn was, however, an unhappy one: without allies he made no impact and had a poor attendance record. Neither Ratcliffe nor the SPL stood for the Authority in 1928. One Education Authority did attempt to make an explicitly and consciously ‘Protestant’ stand against the Munro Act. Caithness, a body with no transferred school in its responsibility, circularised the Authorities in 1925. It argued that the Munro Act provided ‘maintenance and propagation of an alien creed at the public expense’. 48 The circular received no support – indeed the Association of Education Authorities (AEAS) did not discuss the Act’s religious clauses at all in its entire existence between 1919 and 1930. 49 The most telling judgement about the record of the Authorities came from the Catholic Church’s reaction to the scrapping of the ad hoc bodies. The Church was quick to point out that municipal control of schools might presage the removal of religious interests – Protestant and Catholic – from education administration, a situation unacceptable to both the Church and the Kirk. Indeed in Glasgow and Lanarkshire, Catholic priests and Orange chaplains co-operated in opposing the scrapping of the Authorities. 50 To some, local government reform offered an opportunity to curb the (already waning) influence of the Presbytery by limiting the number of religious representatives on the new education committees. Senior Catholics, rather than welcoming this curbing of Presbyterian influence, believed Catholic interests would suffer: ‘As far as I can gather the non-Catholics on the Town and County Councils are anxious to be

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rid of their ministers as far as possible . . . and unless we take care it will be our turn next.’ 51 The central concern for Catholic educationalists in 1929 as in 1872 was not the relation between Catholic and Protestant, but that between the interests of religion and the claims of the secular state. Despite some evidence that the Labour Government attempted to play Catholic and Presbyterian interests against each other, the issue of representation was settled amicably. 52

Conclusion ‘Sectarianism’ offers a fatally limited framework for understanding the evolution and expansion of Scottish Catholic education. The Catholic Church achieved a very generous settlement in 1918 not simply guaranteeing the survival of distinctively Catholic schools, but expanding the scope and depth of Catholic education. As Lindsay Paterson has recently noted, the new system extended and improved the Catholic secondary sector to the point that, by the 1930s, Catholic schools were presenting candidates for the Leaving Certificate in broad proportion to the Catholic share of the general population.53 After 1918 the relationship between Catholic educators and educational institutions – the Scottish Office, the Authorities and the SED – was a positive one. By 1930 the Catholic right to separate schools, fully funded by the State, was an entrenched reality. Only two Authorities made a stand against the religious provisions of the Munro Act: Stirlingshire succeeded only in securing legal interpretations favourable to Catholic aspirations; and Caithness found that few cared for their theological objections. Over the entire inter-war period and beyond, events played absolutely true to Munro’s promise that the Catholic community ‘would never regret’ accepting his Bill. The Scottish settlement did not produce a backlash in any way comparable to the civil disobedience waged in England and Wales between 1902 and 1906. Whilst the Tories 1902 Act raised the hackles of secular and non-conformist Liberals, the Munro Act sprang from very different circumstances. Politically, it was the child of the wartime coalition, belonging as much to Unionist and Labour as to Liberal. Scotland’s Unionists were members of a party dominated by English Anglicans committed to denominational schools, and Liberals and Labour saw the Act as a triumph of progressive tolerance. In an era when educational politics were directly accountable to the electorate,


no significant attempt to repeal Section 18 took place. At every level a practical consensus on Catholic schools left little room for sectarian politicking. In the 1930s, however, chafing against this consensus was to capture – albeit briefly – a mood of popular Protestant nativism in both Edinburgh and Glasgow.

8 ‘The Reformation must be Fought Again’

This chapter investigates the intrusion of militant Protestantism into the municipal politics of Scotland’s largest cities. The SPL in Glasgow, and the Protestant Action Society (PAS) in Edinburgh achieved remarkable, but brief, success in the 1930s. Whilst their success suggests a reservoir of latent anti-Catholicism, the rapidity of their emergence and decline suggests that the potential of anti-Catholicism was severely limited. Militant Protestant success was contingent on localised and short-lived social and political factors, not the vibrancy of anti-Catholic sentiment. The historiography on the militants is interesting: only obliquely referred to by the contemporary commentator Compton Mackenzie, and ignored altogether by Handley in the 1940s, they re-emerged from obscurity with the publication of studies by Bruce and by Gallagher in the 1980s. 1 Few subsequent accounts have ignored the phenomenon. Indeed, these organisations have been central to the view that the inter-war period represents the zenith of religious conflict in modern Scotland. Writing of PAS, for example, Tom Devine has claimed they provoked ‘the most violent anti-Catholic riots’ in Scotland’s twentieth century.2

Militant Protestants The militants fell heir to a ‘Protestantism Before Politics’ tradition which believed that ‘the Unionists and the [Orange] Order were weak-kneed and supine representatives of Protestant interests’.3 This critique had some history. Some militants – such as Harry Long and James Brisby in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Glasgow – were content to forge a quasi-independent path, emphasising an ‘Orange’ worldview within the boundaries of the mainstream right. Others, such as Hugh 126

‘The Reformation must be Fought Again’ 127

Ferguson, began as independents with a ‘true blue’ outlook but reacted to political success by embracing mainstream Unionism. Others still remained resolutely independent, unwilling to compromise in any way. Two Kirk Ministers, Robert Thomson and Jacob Primmer, were indefatigable campaigners against Catholicism in the later nineteenth century. Thomson served for nine years on Glasgow School Board despite his Church’s opposition to his candidacy. Primmer became a Kirk missionary in Fife during 1876 and ‘entered into a thirty years war with his own congregation, his Presbytery and the General Assembly’. 4 From 1888 aided by Thomson, Primmer, toured Scotland, his outdoor ‘Conventicles’ courting violent controversy, and it was Primmer who provided the vision for later militants. In 1920, Alexander Ratcliffe (1888–1947) launched his SPL in Edinburgh before a ‘large audience [from] various evangelical Protestant denominations’. A ‘new aggressive Protestant movement’, the SPL was ‘evangelical, undenominational, and non-political’ and would oppose ‘spiritualism, Christian Science, and various other systems of anti-Scriptural teaching’. Despite this broad remit the SPL was essentially anti-Catholic, born days after an Edinburgh Sinn Fein rally. 5 Whilst his brief tenure on the Education Authority was a miserable one, membership raised Ratcliffe’s profile and, by the late 1920s, he boasted Lord Scone, a young Unionist activist, as a supporter. However, Ratcliffe was increasingly frustrated by the absence of ‘staunch’ Protestants in Parliament and contested the 1929 General Election at Stirling and Falkirk. It was an obvious choice: Labour’s Hugh Murnin, the sitting MP, was Catholic and the Division was home to the Bonnybridge controversy. Ratcliffe attacked Murnin for his Catholicism and challenged Unionist Douglas Jamieson over his Protestant commitment. Murnin ignored him and Jamieson dismissed Ratcliffe as fixated on ‘religious subjects alone’. Ratcliffe offered to withdraw should Jamieson pledge to seek amendment of the Education Act: Jamieson replied ‘that it was made in the knowledge that it could never be accepted’. Bruce suggests that the rejection ‘looks foolish’ with hindsight, given that Jamieson lost the seat by 5000 votes whilst Ratcliffe polled nearly 7000. In fact there were compelling reasons for refusal, not least Catholic concerns over Labour’s education policies. Scone, with an eye to his political future, complained about Ratcliffe’s candidacy against a fellow Unionist and resigned from the SPL. 6 In 1930, Ratcliffe moved to Glasgow and entered three candidates in the 1931 municipal contest. Two, against expectation, were successful. In 1932, 11 candidates stood, winning one further seat, and in 1933 the SPL ran 23 candidates, winning 4 seats, and 68,000 votes. At this peak

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the SPL took 22 per cent of the Glasgow vote, marginally behind the Moderates, and across those seats it contested was the most popular party. Yet there were clear signs of disharmony. In the East End former supporters stood against the SPL and from here the party disintegrated as Ratcliffe’s autocratic grip alienated his followers. Of seven SPL councillors, four left the party in 1934, all criticising Ratcliffe’s dictatorial style. Only five SPL candidates stood in 1934 – all, including Ratcliffe, were defeated. Of four councillors elected in 1933 three stood in 1936 as Independents, only one for the SPL. All four lost, three were humiliated, signifying end of electoral Protestantism in Glasgow – a spectacular but ultimately brief phenomenon. Protestant Action Society emerged in 1933 out of a fractious and tiny militant Protestant scene in Edinburgh, coalescing around John Cormack (1894–1978). In 1934 three militants stood in Edinburgh: whilst an Edinburgh Protestant Society candidate made little impact, PAS had mixed fortunes, faring badly in affluent West Leith but winning North Leith, one of Edinburgh’s most deprived wards. PAS profited from the coincidence of several high-profile Catholic events in the city and organised spectacular protests. In 1935, PAS ran five candidates, with three other Independent Protestants also standing. In all, the militants won 18,000 votes, 23 per cent of the poll, with only one victory – in South Leith. Whilst SPL success was followed by defections, success in Edinburgh united militant Protestants around (if not always within) PAS. In 1936 they took 35,000 votes, and pushed Labour into third place. In the wards they contested, Protestant candidates were the most popular. Six seats were won, giving Protestantism a bloc of nine seats in the Council Chamber. Cormack struggled to maintain unity and discipline, briefly assuming personal control of PAS, for which Ratcliffe derided him as a ‘Protestant pope’.7 In 1937, PAS contested thirteen wards and supported one Independent Protestant. Unusually Cormack stood in both North Leith and Gorgie – it proved a costly error with opponents deriding Cormack for his egotism and opportunism. After a tense campaign there was only one PAS victory – in South Leith again. Moderates had strategically withdrawn from some wards, and Protestantism was not strong enough to beat Labour in straight fights. Despite taking 28,000 votes militant Protestantism had suffered a definite setback. PAS did not self-destruct like the SPL. Councillors, whilst enjoying more autonomy, remained aligned with, if not members of, PAS. All eight militant candidates in 1938 belonged to, or were backed by, PAS. Cormack won South Leith, giving Protestantism all three of the ward’s seats, but elsewhere the movement polled poorly and one seat was lost. In early 1939, PAS made


no impact on several by-elections – as war approached the militant Protestant advance had collapsed.

Differences in militant Protestantism Municipal Protestantism in the two cities seems similar – both emerged from obscurity, scored remarkable successes, and promptly evaporated. There are important differences, not least militant Protestantism’s deep internal fractures. In 1935, Ratcliffe derided PAS as a criminal ‘Protestant Underworld’, and several of Ratcliffe’s Glasgow rivals deliberately appropriated the label of ‘Protestant Action’. 8 In 1937, allegations about PAS finances were published by both the Communists and SPL. In turn, Ratcliffe’s authoritarianism bitterly divided Glasgow’s militants who competed against each other electorally. Whilst the SPL went from success to internal squabbling, the picture in Edinburgh was reversed. After bitter factionalism during 1933–1934, success did much to bring the different factions together. By 1936 most groups united behind Cormack, and he allowed some influential figures to plough a moreor-less independent furrow. Alongside esoteric anti-Catholic lectures, militants attacked the Education Act and ‘Free State’ immigration. Labour were criticised for defending ‘Catholic’ interests, and the Unionists and Moderates for ignoring ‘Protestantism’. Catholics were accused of discriminating against Protestants, of monopolising sectors of municipal employment, and of claiming an undue share of Public Assistance. Militants complained that ‘loyal’ ratepayers were subsidising a ‘disloyal’ minority, and that priests were involved in immoral and criminal activities. Here there were many similarities, in substance if not tone, with the Kirk’s anti-Irish campaign. Despite mainstream Protestantism’s hostility towards the militants, there is no doubt that the ‘Kirk’s Disgrace’ gave them a respectability they would have previously been denied. Crucially, however, whilst the Kirk had masked their anti-Catholicism behind ‘respectable’ notions of ‘race’, the militants explicitly proclaimed their enemy as ‘Popery’. If there were few differences of substance between the militants, there were considerable differences of style. PAS offered musical entertainment followed by, as one advert described, a ‘Bright Sparkling Address on a Burning Topic: It’s Real Hot, Whew!’ PAS promised entertainment and enlightenment, spicy allegations about local priests as well as the historic critique of Popery.9 A few pennies bought music and a furious oration from Cormack, undoubtedly a talented speaker. One of his key

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weapons was simplicity. Cormack insisted in 1934 that PAS would not co-operate with ex-Catholics, because ‘Once a Papist, Always a Papist’. This broke the militant Protestant consensus (not always reflected in practice) that the enemy was Catholicism, not individuals, and Ratcliffe damned Cormack as ‘a coward and a humbug’. 10 However, the slogan ‘Once a Papist’ was coined during a tense moment of intra-militant conflict. James Graham, Cormack’s deadly rival on the Edinburgh scene, was the target of the slogan, as a convert to Protestantism. However, by the 1936 elections PAS was campaigning on Graham’s behalf, and Cormack maintained long-standing connections with ex-Catholic evangelists. The slogan, therefore, was a temporary weapon against a future ally, rather than an articulated principle. Its utility was wider. When PAS urged that Catholic bodies be banned from Edinburgh’s public halls, Ratcliffe denounced them as ‘intolerant pro-Romanists who would deprive Romanists of their rights’. For Ratcliffe, the touchstone of Protestantism was civil and political rights for all, the key character of Catholicism its denial of such rights. Cormack’s opposition to granting Catholics access to public halls thus smacked of ‘Popery’. 11 The cumbersome gymnastics of such ‘logic’ made ‘Once a Papist’ attractive for its simplicity.

Sources of electoral support Who supported the militant Protestants, and why? The obvious answer is that they were supported by urban Protestants viewing the presence of Catholicism in their midst with distaste. Such an answer begs two questions: why did anti-Catholicism become politically viable at that moment; and did militant Protestants focus upon religiously mixed wards? Ian McLean concludes that the SPL vote in any given ward ‘probably bore little relation to the proportion of Catholics. The enemy did not have to live next door to be hated or feared.’12 Indeed Protestant candidates contested all but two of the thirteen Glasgow wards with no Catholic church during the 1930s. Lack of a church need not mean absence of Catholics, but in several wards with a heavy concentration of Catholics, SPL candidates did poorly, or did not compete at all. A different pattern emerged in Edinburgh where PAS took votes in precisely those areas where Catholics had a sizeable presence. Catholicism was crucially different in the two cities, however. In Glasgow, Catholics comprised around a quarter of the population, and in some wards considerably more; it was well organised community and (at least within the Labour movement) politically influential. Edinburgh’s Catholics


made up less than one tenth of the population and were less politically organised. They were not faced with a rival ‘Orange’ community, and neither were they as well assimilated within the Labour movement. All this suggests that Edinburgh Catholics were less able to resist the challenge of militant Protestantism in their own neighbourhoods. Edinburgh’s left was weak and there was no ‘machine’ to direct the Catholic vote. While the SPL were to avoid, or fail in, certain wards because of a sizeable and organised Catholic political presence, there was no such obstacle for PAS who successfully exploited fear of Catholic advancement in specific localities. Yet anti-Catholicism alone cannot explain the success of parties who exploited secular concerns and appealed to voters disillusioned with Moderatism but not yet reconciled to Labour. Where did militant Protestants win seats? Detailed ward data are scarce, but some judgements can be made using the 1931 Census. Table 8.1 groups wards according to a measure of housing quality: persons per 100 windowed rooms (PWR). It also shows the number of times each ward was won by Labour between 1921 and 1938: Labour-Moderate voting bifurcated roughly according to housing, suggesting that this is a useful surrogate measure for class.13 The table then shows the best performance by Protestant candidates as a proportion of the electorate (rather than only those who voted) in each ward. Wards where Protestant candidates emerged victorious are highlighted in bold. Some of the best results for the SPL were achieved in Glasgow’s middle-class wards, whilst Edinburgh’s militant Protestants fared best in the city’s most working-class areas. In both cities most victories came where the Labour presence was weak. As Labour success in Govanhill and Kinning Park came after the decline of the SPL, all SPL victories except Dalmarnock came in seats where Moderatism was dominant. In Edinburgh, the left was weaker, dominating only three wards. In these PAS polled well, although only one (Gorgie) was taken. The other Protestant gains were in solidly Moderate or politically unpredictable wards. Whilst the SPL had a broad appeal extending into Glasgow’s affluent suburbs, PAS was largely limited to working class areas where Labour were poorly organised. The 1930s also witnessed the acceleration of suburbanisation. Edinburgh’s and Glasgow’s population rose by five per cent between 1921–1931, but in both cities population declined in older central areas and increased markedly on the suburban fringes. The SPL and PAS mapped on to these changes quite differently. The SPL proved more popular in ‘receiving’ areas than in the declining inner city, whereas exactly the

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Table 8.1

Protestant electoral record by ward PWR

Lab. Wins

% elect.

Glasgow Kelvinside Pollokshields Cathcart Park Langside Camphill

65 80 87 91 96 98

– – – – – –

– – 30 – 21 32

Whiteinch Pollokshaws Dennistoun North Kelvin Partick East Partick West Blythswood Sandyford Govanhill

123 125 133 135 141 141 143 143 155

1 1 – – – 5 – 3 2

16 19 36 – 16 17 – 14 23

Maryhill Fairfield Springburn Townhead Woodside Provan Shettleston Kinning Park Ruchill Anderston Exchange Cowlairs Kingston Gorbals Whitevale Govan Calton Parkhead Cowcaddens Hutchesontown Mile End Dalmarnock

175 176 176 176 176 178 178 184 185 187 188 190 192 194 195 201 204 207 209 229 238 247

8 16 18 10 14 14 15 7 11 12 2 13 14 18 7 15 16 17 16 18 18 17

18 20 – 15 12 – 22 27 25 13 13 15 20 13 19 21 17 21 20 – 19 31

66 75 77 80

– – – –

– – 13 –

Edinburgh Morningside Haymarket Newington Corstorphine


Merchiston St Bernard’s Colinton St Stephen’s West Leith St Andrew’s Portobello Broughton

85 93 96 98 102 108 108 109

– – – – – – – –

7 – 4 – 11 13 16 24

Liberton George Square Calton South Leith Gorgie Canongate St Leonard’s St Giles’ Dalry Central Leith North Leith

125 132

4 –

9 17

135 144 152 155 160 162 163 169 183

5 – 14 8 15 8 13 3 9

21 29 25 26 27 15 21 26 26

Source: Census of Scotland (1931); Election Returns Scottish Press (1921–1938).

reverse was true in Edinburgh. In large part this reflects the class differences already implied. Whilst the SPL could win a growing middle-class suburb such as Cathcart, similar areas in Edinburgh were barren ground for PAS. Where PAS won 10 of their 11 seats in Edinburgh’s 9 most working-class wards, the SPL garnered only two victories in Glasgow’s 22 most working-class wards. Ratcliffe believed the SPL benefited from disgruntled Moderates, although a considerable proportion came from erstwhile Labour supporters. 14 Distinct patterns are difficult to discern, but examination of individual ward results suggests that the SPL attracted votes from both right and left, including many former Moderates who had not voted in recent contests. In working-class wards, particularly those with an Orange tradition, the SPL benefited at the expense of the Moderates. This was particularly true in the East End where the Moderates haemorrhaged votes to the SPL. Across Glasgow as a whole, results suggest that a significant proportion of SPL voters had previously supported Labour, and that many others voted SPL as they moved from Moderate to Labour. The pattern of PAS support is unclear, not least because the city’s left was relatively undeveloped. Many PAS voters were former Moderates,

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but PAS success in the most deprived wards suggests that they also attracted votes from the left. Nowhere is the picture so confused as Central Leith where PAS won a 1935 by-election apparently by taking Moderate votes. Subsequent results make no sense unless there was tactical anti-PAS voting. In 1935 and 1936 this benefited the sitting Moderate, but in 1937 – perhaps because of Moderate’s failure to hold the seat – Labour benefited. The only middle-class ward to elect a PAS councillor was Broughton where, in 1936, the defending Moderate was a Catholic, James Gorman. Labour supported Gorman by withdrawing and Moderates urged ‘Vote for Gorman and uphold the dignity of your city’.15 On a relatively stable poll, however, the Moderate vote dropped by around a quarter whilst the PAS vote doubled. Many Labour voters, it might be assumed, had supported PAS, a conclusion strengthened by the reduction in the Protestant vote when Labour reappeared in the ward. In both cities, therefore, the Protestant vote was not simply drawn from disillusioned Moderates, but from a substantial proportion of erstwhile Labour voters. A final factor regards turnout. Some militants reaped the benefit of unusually high polls, and it is possible that many habitual non-voters found a temporary home with the Protestants. However, militant success often contributed to a higher poll the next year, as non-voters were tempted out to oppose the Protestants. In Edinburgh, five Protestant victories coincided with an increased poll, three with a stable poll, and two with a reduced poll. With the exception of South Leith, every PAS victory saw an increased poll and defeat the following year. The Glasgow picture is less clear as two seats were won in wards where Moderatism had previously won unopposed. Of the remaining victories, four coincided with an increased poll and only one with a reduced poll. Only once was SPL victory followed by a higher poll the next year and it worked against them. The key effect of the intrusion of militant Protestant parties was an energising of local politics. The 1933 election in Edinburgh was a quiet affair, with only ten wards contested and a turnout of 35 per cent. The PAS challenge provided colour and vibrancy – in 1936 the poll had risen to 51 per cent – and worked to Labour’s ultimate benefit. If there was any doubt over the Labour commitment of Edinburgh’s Catholics before 1934, there was none afterwards: in attacking the ‘Catholic vote’, PAS ensured its heightened organisation and commitment. Apathy in Glasgow politics was lower and 55 per cent polls were common. Between 1932 and 1934, with the SPL at their most popular, the polls rose to 60 per cent. The SPL, too, wedded Catholics more firmly to the left, and


they pulled back from political apathy those disillusioned with the Moderates but not yet trusting Labour.

‘We have only one “plank” . . .’ In a city so utterly dominated by Moderatism, the long-term political impact of PAS was slight, and its continued survival dependent on the illusion that it offered an effective alternative to working-class Protestants. In 1934, Cormack insisted: ‘We have only one “plank” . . . Wherever in the political life of our country, municipal or national, the Papist beast shows its head we must crush it.’ 16 Such a ‘plank’ was of strictly limited value, but PAS took care to make it seem relevant in specific locales. Urban clearance caused localised housing shortages and rent increases; landlords, including many leading Moderates, were accused of profiting from the failure of Corporation house-building schemes. With both Labour and Moderate sharing a policy of clearing ‘slum-dwellers’ to new estates on the fringes of the city, PAS was well placed to benefit from the fear that age-old communities were being torn apart. Shopkeepers in clearance areas saw their customer base shrink, whilst those customers left behind were frequently unemployed and desperate. PAS linked the ‘Popish controversy’ with bread-and-butter issues: new Corporation houses were disproportionately leased to Catholics; Labour was in thrall to the Catholic vote; Catholic foremen ensured Catholics got Corporation jobs. PAS fought dirty, organising effective heckling in 1934 and 1935. Opponents faced incessant questioning on religious issues and jeers and catcalls when, and if, they replied. Silence was represented by PAS as evidence of ‘Popish intrigue in local affairs’.17 Such tactics were limited, and constructive policies were inevitably demanded. This was precisely the problem that had faced Ratcliffe. The SPL whip was concerned only with religion; on others issues SPL councillors voted as they pleased. Whilst the general tone of SPL policy was, for the Glasgow Herald, ‘a socialist case wrapped up in the vestments of religion’,18 candidates adapted their policies to local audiences. The SPL was thus bereft of an identity beyond anti-Catholicism. In 1934 one opponent argued that the SPL position was ‘Kick the Pope’ – ‘take that away and there is nothing left’, an accusation Ratcliffe accepted: ‘Yes we do kick the Pope! That is our job! That is our programme!’19 The SPL cast around for controversies to exploit, and personalities to attack. In 1931 they tapped concern over Moderate austerity and the violence associated with the left. The 1931 elections followed unemployment riots and fighting in the Council Chamber. Ratcliffe targeted wards where the

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Moderates were deeply split and appealed to Labour voters appalled at recent violence, attacking Labour’s ‘hot-headed policy’ and Moderatism’s ‘vacillating methods’.20 A different approach was taken in Dalmarnock where a rowdy and violent campaign employed a notorious gang as ‘stewards’. The ‘respectable’ and ‘rough’ elements of the SPL came together at a Partick rally where local youths surrounded the hall, outraged at the presence of the Bridgeton gang.21 The following year Ratcliffe focused on Labour’s working-class wards, particularly in the East End, suggesting that he viewed Dalmarnock – rowdy campaigning and ‘Kicking the Pope’ – as the way forward. By 1933 he had changed his mind, targeting instead Moderate seats, including working-class wards represented by Orangetinged councillors. Relations with Orangeism were always frosty and Ratcliffe argued that ‘the Orange members in the Council have been struck dumb on every question pertaining to the Protestantism and Orangeism of Scotland’. 22 The change in focus was profitable, winning four seats, although all were won from the Moderates in middle-class wards. Another twelve Moderates lost to Labour where they might have won if they had taken votes given to the SPL. However, it is doubtful they would have taken these votes. Many of the lost seats were originally won through antiGovernment sentiment in 1930, and Moderate losses in 1933 could have been expected without SPL intervention. This was confirmed in 1934 when the SPL was weaker. Of twelve Moderate seats lost to Labour in 1933, three were held by the Moderates whilst Labour held three and gained six. In other words, without the complication of the SPL, Labour took Moderate seats in 1934. With Labour gaining control of Glasgow in 1933, the SPL represented a serious obstacle to Moderate revival and in 1934 the two parties agreed an electoral pact. This gave the SPL a clear run against Labour (and a claim on Moderate votes) in several wards, and seemed to assure Ratcliffe’s successful defence of Dennistoun. The Moderates got the better deal: the SPL stood only five candidates, three in safe Labour wards, and Ratcliffe faced an unexpected challenge. Matthew Armstrong, a Moderate and Orangeman, had lost his Kingston seat in 1933 largely because of the SPL, and stood in Dennistoun as an Independent. Senior Moderates barely attempted to dissuade Armstrong, and the mainstream left withdrew. The Orange Order endorsed both candidates as ‘good Protestants’, and Armstrong made contact with Catholic representatives. With the Glasgow press and many pulpits urging an anti-Ratcliffe vote, Armstrong won by 300 votes.


Whilst the SPL seemed to be unsure of where its core support really lay, oscillating between centrist populism and ‘Kicking the Pope’, PAS remained consistently focused, seldom contesting middle-class wards and canvassing working-class enclaves in those they did. PAS claimed to be a ‘worker’s party’, and demanded public works to boost employment and a religious census of Corporation employees.23 Success hinged on the fact that Edinburgh as a whole escaped the worst ravages of the Depression and did not qualify for Special Assistance. Thus, deprived pockets of the city felt doubly burdened – ignored by both Westminster and the ruling Moderates. Leith had particular grievances after its forced amalgamation with Edinburgh in 1920, and was acutely sensitive to economic crisis, its dockworkers suffering particularly high levels of unemployment. In the mid-1930s Leith contained 19 per cent of Edinburgh’s population and 25 per cent of its total unemployed, over a third of those ‘temporarily stopped’, and 90 per cent of those ‘normally in casual employment’. 24 Leith was an unemployment black spot without political influence. PAS harnessed Leith’s resentment, winning seats in three of its four wards, the Port becoming the heart of the Protestant movement. Yet only a decade before, in the 1925 Education elections, the SPL failed miserably in Leith, taking 481 votes across the entire Port. In 1936, PAS was Leith’s most popular party, taking 9438 votes, 41 per cent of the total. This remarkable turnaround in militant Protestantism’s appeal in Leith suggests that anti-Catholicism was less important than more secular, and time-specific, issues. PAS appealed to sections of the working class who felt unappreciated by both Labour and Moderate. The SPL also attracted those who saw neither established municipal party as representing their aspirations, but were rather more successful amongst the lower middle class.

Riots and rowdyism A number of authors have described PAS as a ‘fascist’ organisation, given its views on Catholics and its use of violence.25 This is poor analysis. Fascist movements glorified violence in a manner that PAS or the SPL never did. First, whilst fascism represented a violent revolutionary movement, militant Protestantism was deeply conservative and solidly (‘loyally’) wedded to the existing economic and political system. Secondly, most militants rejected fascism as a Catholic doctrine. It did not escape their notice that fascism arose in Catholic Southern Europe, and all the Edinburgh groups took an explicitly anti-fascist stance when Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) organised in the city. This opposition was

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not simply rhetorical, and Fascists were physically attacked. 26 Militant Protestant anti-fascism was ‘theological’ in that Fascism was seen as ‘Catholic’, but PAS also viewed Mosley (with some justification) as ‘pro-Irish’. 27 PAS was certainly not characterised by anti-Semitism: one of its councillors, Esta Henry, was Jewish. In 1936, Henry stood as an Independent in Canongate but, largely through expedience, joined PAS before the poll and remained until c. 1938. Ratcliffe derided Henry’s candidature and was to come to see Jews, rather than Catholics, as the greatest threat to Protestant liberty. The only substantial link between militant Protestantism and fascism during the inter-war period is Ratcliffe’s late decline into Hitler-worship.28 If militant Protestantism did not share fascism’s exaltation of violence, it did see it as a legitimate strategy. The SPL campaign of 1931 saw gangrelated violence in Dalmarnock and Partick, and there was further disorder in 1935.29 However, the SPL did not adopt physical confrontation as a deliberate strategy and neither was it adept at producing public spectacle. Ratcliffe had an eye for controversy but lacked the manipulative skill to turn opportunities to his advantage. A visit to Fauldhouse in 1935 resulted in what the Procurator Fiscal described as ‘nothing short of a riot’ and the arrest of 13 anti-SPL protestors. The court disagreed, concluded that the SPL had provoked violent opposition, and admonished all the accused.30 It is with PAS that violence is most often associated. Various events during what Tom Gallagher terms ‘The Hot Summer of 1935’ have been described as ‘riots’. 31 PAS was fortunate that its rise coincided with a number of high-profile Catholic events in the city. Such events were by no means a recent development in Edinburgh: in 1929, Catholics celebrated the installation of Archbishop McDonald and the Emancipation Centenary. The city authorities attended McDonald’s consecration, after which the clergy walked in procession ‘witnessed by large crowds’, and the Centenary saw a public procession of 2000 Catholic children whose ‘distinctive banners and flags attracted considerable attention’. 32 Such public displays of Catholic faith drew no notable protest and, throughout the early 1930s, Catholics held regular high-profile meetings at the Usher Hall and smaller venues without harassment from militant Protestants. It was a planned Council reception for the Catholic Young Men’s Society (CYMS) which ignited the sectarian issue, and PAS benefited from Catholic plans for a Eucharistic Congress in Morningside. PAS could hardly have wished for a better political opportunity than a Catholic display of strength and devotion in an affluent suburb. From its electoral debut PAS had a reputation for roughness, Labour activists complaining ‘they could make no progress against rowdyism’.


Cormack retorted, ‘why squeal now when the same medicine is administered to themselves, which they loved to administer to their opponents’. Certainly Cormack’s electoral tactics were no more violent than Labour’s tactics during the General Election of 1935, and considerably less so than Labour’s Parliamentary campaign in Leith in 1929.33 PAS demonstrations that summer were large and boisterous – 10,000 gathered for the CYMS protest, and 10,000 for the main anti-Congress demonstration – although many were attracted by curiosity rather than active anti-Catholicism. These events have been described as ‘the most violent anti-Catholic riots seen in Scotland this century’,34 yet they seem to have been characterised by noisy confusion not physical violence. The CYMS protest passed without any notable confrontation, and of three arrests, two involved passing drunks. As the Congress approached, PAS focused its campaign on its closing Mass at St Andrew’s Priory, Morningside. No protest was planned for the first two Congress days. On the opening day Cormack arranged a rally which drew his followers away from premature confrontation. There were, however, some minor clashes that evening, and PAS quickly announced a demonstration for the second day. Gallagher is wrong to claim that ‘A suitable opportunity for venting hate did not present itself until . . . the second day of the Congress’,35 rather it seems that Cormack preferred to focus on the final day but was overtaken by events. Notably this was the only major PAS protest at which Cormack was not present, suggesting that he was not entirely happy with the fairly impromptu arrangements. This protest, involving around 1500 demonstrators, proved to be the most violent with outbreaks of fighting, although the police were always in control. Eleven arrests were made and nine convictions secured, the court imposing sentences of exemplary harshness.36 The following day was very tense – around 10,000 Catholics attended the Mass, and 10,000 more gathered outside, to demonstrate or spectate. Nevertheless, the evening produced little in the way of violence. Several buses carrying Catholics were stoned but these frightening incidents were isolated cases on the fringes of an evening marked by confusion. The image of a Priory besieged by demonstrators is inaccurate. Some priests left the Priory unaware of the presence of protestors.37 One Catholic recalls that protestors ‘were cordoned off by a fairly strong contingent of police’ and that ‘there were no major incidents of violence to mar the day’. He recalls, however, that there was a large degree of tension and that: The atmosphere was not calmed by the presence of a group of [Catholic] men who set up camp in the grounds as self-appointed guardians that

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weekend, and armed themselves with a strange assortment of items to serve as clubs. Fortunately their martial arts were not called upon.38 The Evening News praised the ‘peaceful persuasion’ of the Police who kept potential trouble-makers in check. Indeed the night yielded only four arrests, all involved in the stoning of a bus. The four were heavily fined and warned that a subsequent conviction would see them jailed.39 Sporadic and small-scale confrontation continued throughout the summer between PAS and a newly formed Catholic Vigilance Association (CVA). In response, Cormack announced the formation of ‘A Real Vigilance Association’: Kormack’s Kaledonian Klan. Much has been made of the ‘K’s’, but they were no more than a puerile title for his ‘rougher’ followers. Although the ‘Klan’ were never seriously organised, Cormack was clearly paying homage to the North American Klan – who in the inter-war period were characterised by their urban focus and their antiCatholicism rather than rural racism. 40 A study of the Edinburgh press – which frequently reported ‘sectarian’ disturbances in the city – between April and December 1935 suggests that 38 criminal charges were brought in connection with sectarian incidents, around two-thirds of the accused being militant Protestant activists. Almost half of the charges (18) related to violence in dance halls where Leith PAS supporters clashed with youths from other areas of the city, not all of whom were Catholic. Whilst this undoubtedly underestimates the level of friction, it does suggest that the extent of disorder has been exaggerated. Protestantism’s physical street presence was a brief phenomenon. In North Leith, during 1936, a PAS meeting was abandoned after ‘continual barracking by the singing of Irish songs’, an affront PAS was not strong enough to overcome.41

Rejecting the militants One reason for the exaggeration of PAS violence is the shock experienced in a city relatively unused to controversy. Catholics were shaken by the turn of events in a city where, until very recently, their activities were rarely criticised, let alone physically challenged. Archbishop McDonald wrote to the Scottish Office complaining that the fact that ‘a riot . . . did not actually take place’ was due to Police action ‘deserving of the highest commendation’, as well as the ‘self-restraint’ of his flock.42 McDonald was furious at reports in the quality press of ‘minor disturbances’, soon insisting there had been ‘a serious riot’ in Morningside (contradicting his earlier view) and that stern action was required.43 The scale of the


violence was rapidly magnified by the absence, in McDonald’s view, of an adequately sympathetic recognition of the Catholic experience. The publicly expressed commendation of the Police masked private concerns about non-Catholic indifference to, or even sympathy for, the protests. For Tom Gallagher ‘that no major Edinburgh institution such as the Kirk, the police, or the press took a major stand against Cormack or consistently sought to deflect public opinion away from him . . . causes apprehension even at a distance of fifty years’.44 In fact these institutions were consistent in their hostility to PAS. Edinburgh’s Lord Provost publicly warned Cormack that ‘the whole power at the disposal of the authorities’ would deal with ‘any disturbance’, and that the authorities would ‘not be intimidated’.45 Edinburgh’s press was implacably hostile, taking a firm stance against militant Protestantism even before its electoral debut. Whilst PAS notices were still accepted and PAS activities reported, the press consistently editorialised against them. The Courts treated those convicted of sectarian offences particularly harshly: convictions after PAS demonstrations during 1935 were much more punitive than sentences for more serious charges without sectarian motivation. There is also some evidence that the Courts were lenient towards Catholics provoked by militant Protestants. 46 The authorities were hampered by the fact that Cormack was adept at stretching the limits of the law and were concerned that a Court appearance, far from dampening militancy, would encourage it. These concerns proved wellfounded. In 1936 two non-PAS militants were convicted of breach of the peace, the Sheriff noting that ‘The time had arrived when the authorities must take up a firm attitude and put down these disturbances.’47 The lack of interest in the prosecution encouraged the authorities to prefer charges against PAS leaders for events which had occurred some weeks before. The charges were relatively innocuous and the fines unremarkable, the intention being to warn PAS over its conduct. Cormack revelled in the publicity and defied the court, subsequently spending a night in prison before a supporter paid his fine. 48 Later in 1936 PAS hit their electoral peak, Cormack enhanced by his day in court. No mainstream religious figure publicly supported PAS, nor indeed the SPL. Only three clerics supported Cormack: two independent evangelicals with small followings, and Rev. George Goodman, a student pastor who broke his PAS links when given a United Free Church charge. All of the other ‘religious’ figures associated with PAS were lay preachers. 49 To some extent the initial Kirk reaction was that PAS was not ‘their’ problem: PAS supporters were regarded as ‘unchurched’ and religiously ignorant. Individual Presbyterians did, however, publicly express their

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disgust through letters to the press.50 An outright condemnation of ‘Our Attitude to the Church of Rome’ was written by the leading Presbyterian, Principal W.M. McGregor, and published as the main article in Life & Work in September 1935. The article warned of that summer’s PAS demonstrations: ‘if Protestantism can be vindicated only in such ways, its day is nearly done’. McGregor concluded that in the face of ‘a rising tide of paganism’ in Scotland and the world: ‘It is not inconceivable that some day all who call Jesus Lord may be driven to stand together, acknowledging and assisting one another, in order to save the nation from the deluge.’51 The significance of this article must be emphasised. Here was one of Scotland’s leading Churchmen condemning militant Protestantism and the Presbyterian anti-Irish campaign in the Kirk’s flagship publication. It was a sobering warning that the anti-Irish campaign provided succour to disreputable militants. In October 1935 the Church of Scotland’s Edinburgh Presbytery noted that recent events ‘had caused much heartsearching and deep concern’ and condemned PAS and other militants as ‘fundamentally unchristian’. The United Free Church’s Edinburgh Presbytery unanimously denounced PAS as ‘unworthy of our religion and injurious to its good name’. 52 In short, press, civic authorities, and mainstream Presbyterians did react to, and oppose, Cormack’s activities. That they did not oppose them more might well be explained by the belief of one Kirk minister that Cormack was riding on an outburst of socio-economic anxiety ‘mass hysteria, as experience shows, dies away as quickly as it arises’.53

Conclusion Much has been made of the brief popularity of militant Protestant parties during the 1930s. Most analyses have focused on their sensational and violent aspects and not on the underlying basis of what was, essentially, a fleeting moment of electoral protest. At its peak, militant Protestantism attracted 23 per cent of the vote in Glasgow, and 31 per cent in Edinburgh, and this has hitherto received less analysis than it merits. Militant Protestantism reveals all the paradox of populist politics – by necessity they were outsiders, and their distance from the discredited policies of the established parties was central to their appeal. The electoral pact in Glasgow stripped the SPL of any sense of offering an alternative. The rapid decline of the SPL in a city long associated with religious division was remarkable, and illustrates the political shallowness of the division. Put simply, anti-Catholicism was not strong enough to sustain


a Glasgow party at municipal level even in the strife-ridden 1930s. Edinburgh offers a quite different insight because it did not have a strong tradition of religious division. What makes Edinburgh so enigmatic is that the extent of violence has been historically magnified by the fact that Catholics were stunned by the rise of PAS. Their surprise illustrates how marginal anti-Catholicism had been throughout the first three decades of the city’s twentieth century. Yet much of Edinburgh’s working class, frustrated at their disempowerment in a city dominated by Moderatism, turned to a party attacking the ‘Papist Beast’. PAS polarised Edinburgh politics, inadvertently galvanised an ineffectual left, and rapidly undermined the very basis of its own appeal. The success of militant Protestantism in municipal politics reveals the existence of a cultural divide between Scotland’s urban Catholics and Protestants during the inter-war period. But it also reveals that divide’s strict political limitations. In the realm of Parliamentary, educational, and municipal politics, anti-Catholic sentiment was too ephemeral to provide the ideology for successful political organisation. On the surface PAS, SPL, and the OPP; the election of Hugh Ferguson; and the Presbyterian anti-Irish campaign, suggest the vibrancy of anti-Catholic politics in inter-war Scotland. In fact, they are the proof of its marginality. Unlike Northern Ireland there were no major secular cleavages in Scottish society dovetailing with ethnic or religious cleavages. In Ulster, conservative Protestantism operated as a ‘sacred canopy’ under which Protestants united in defence of their economic and political interests. In Scotland, the key issue was class, with Labour providing a ‘secular canopy’ under which individuals of all religions and none found their economic interests represented. Whilst the ‘Kirk’s disgrace’ did try to weld national and ‘sectarian’ interests together, it lacked support and remained within the confines of the General Assemblies. To a large extent the 1920s and 1930s saw the final kick, rather than the peak, of ‘Protestantism before Politics’ populism. The OPP was a short-lived failure without legacy, and the SPL and PAS – strictly limited by time and location – ultimately served to strengthen Labour. The limitations of the militant Protestant vote confirmed what the Unionist/Moderate elite already knew – ‘Protestantism before Politics’ was political fantasy.

9 ‘Reality is Always a Little More Complex’

This study has sought to demonstrate that Scotland is not a ‘sectarian’ society, at least when that term is used as analytical concept rather than pejorative description. Scotland is an increasingly secular country where religion does not provide a significant marker of political and social cleavage. Nor did it represent such a line of cleavage in the impoverished and polarised 1920s and 1930s. In that period religious conflicts were localised and ephemeral and, to all intents and purposes, epiphenomenal to broader secular cleavages in Scottish society. One crucial question, then, remains. Why is it that religious division – or, in the popular lexicon, ‘sectarianism’ – emerged as a controversial topic at the end of Scotland’s twentieth century when religion was declining in its social significance and when inter-church relations were warmly ecumenical? In a sense, the current debate over religious conflict is a lacklustre echo of the polarised grievances of the inter-war period, which invoked a mythical religious past in response to a moment of national crisis. The present debate has proved even more ephemeral. The actual religious conflicts of the inter-war decades were prompted by fears that Scotland’s day as a distinctive national community was over. In contrast, contemporary debate over perceived religious conflicts is prompted by the ‘rebirth of Scotland’. With constitutional change and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, the Scots are confronted by questions of identity: Who are we; where are we going; where have we been? The relative youth of the debate on religious conflict can be gauged from the chronology of academic literature. Between Handley’s Irish in Modern Scotland (1947) and Bruce’s No Pope of Rome (1985), books concerned with ‘sectarianism’ were thin on the ground. Since then, and particularly during the 1990s, there have been a number of works 144

‘Reality is Always a Little More Complex’ 145

specifically or secondarily concerned with religious division. Some of this research has begun with the assumption that ‘sectarianism’ has been brushed under the carpet, ‘shoved to the side, perhaps out of embarrassment, perhaps out of a belief that it has gone away’ or perhaps to ‘Let [anti-Catholic] sleeping dogs lie’. 1 There is, of course, another possibility, one supported by this study. The long absence of a debate stems from the fact that religious conflict has been episodic, localised, and – relative to other conflicts in Scotland, and to religious conflicts elsewhere – fairly insignificant. To claim that religious conflict is relatively insignificant is not to deny its existence, or its localised and individual impact, only to argue that when placed beside other conflicts – over class, over gender, between generations – it pales in historical and contemporary significance. If religious conflict did not command the attention of Scottish academic enquiry in the 1950s or 1960s (when Scotland was a more religious society) it was because it was seen, and rightly so, as marginal to the important issues of Scottish life. For sure, it was not marginal to the victims or perpetrators of religious bigotry (Protestant, Catholic, or otherwise), but, at a societal level, serious religious conflict has been virtually absent in the Scottish twentieth century. Why, then, the debate at the secularised end of the twentieth century? Much of the debate is marked by reference to a vaguely defined ‘sectarian’ past. For some commentators, for example, the lack of contemporary evidence for economic discrimination suggests only that discrimination (which ‘used to happen’) has simply found new homes. If it happened in the past, proceeds this logic, we should assume it is happening today, albeit in different forms. Patrick Reilly, who draws heavily on notions of a virulent anti-Catholic Scotland in the past and (marginally less so) in the present, sees little to celebrate in the decline of religious bigotry in the Scottish labour market. For Reilly this has been unintentionally driven by the rise of meritocracy and the shift of ownership to the multinational company. He notes: ‘A man, your sworn enemy from birth, attacks you every time you meet. One day you come across him wearing a straitjacket. It’s a relief not to be attacked, but has he changed or do you owe it to the straitjacket?’ This metaphor rests on two assumptions: that anti-Catholicism was a key characteristic of Scotland in the past (and embedded in the structure and culture of the Scottish economy); and that it survives in Scotland, albeit constrained by the new structural realities of the labour market. Anti-Catholicism has declined ‘Not in the souls of men but in the world of business.’ 2 The present existence of anti-Catholicism in the Scottish Protestant soul, therefore, is ‘proved’ by Scotland’s anti-Catholic past. Yet this is a view

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not supported by this study. Anti-Catholicism was not a defining part of the polarised Scotland of the 1920s and 1930s. Although it is beyond the scope of the present study, there is also evidence that neither was anti-Catholicism a defining feature of earlier eras in Scottish history. 3 Dissenting voices have recently begun to emerge from within Scottish Catholicism, criticising such appeals to the ‘sectarian bad old days’. Historian Bernard Aspinwall argues that Reilly and other ‘self-appointed guardians of Catholicism’ are ‘stuck in their Tardis around 1939, crying wolf or barking up the wrong tree at some imaginary threat’. He argues that the ‘myth’ of a socially isolated Catholic ghetto has proved a ‘political tool’ for various elements within the Catholic Church and Catholic community, ‘a device to sustain a particular world-view’. For Aspinwall, ‘Reality is always a little more complex.’4 Another historian, Owen Dudley Edwards, also finds much to criticise in the current debate, viewing James MacMillan’s ‘catalogue of grievances . . . as bitter as it is archaic’. To Edwards, MacMillan’s Festival speech – drawing as it did on the arguments of Reilly – looked ‘like the launch of a lobby, and a pretty solipsistic, self-centred one at that’.5 This directly links the MacMillan debate – and much of the current literature on religious division – to contemporary political events. The establishment of the Scottish Parliament has redrawn the political map and brought certain issues of concern to the Churches – most obviously Catholic education – under the control of Scottish politicians. What is interesting is that the launching of a political lobby – if it amounted to such – by certain Catholic figures, largely to protect the present system of Catholic schools, was a failure. MacMillan may have provoked discussion over Scotland’s ‘sectarianism’, but it was a short-lived and unfocused debate, unable to sustain itself. Notably there was, and is, no identifiably ‘Protestant’ or ‘secular’ lobby in opposition to, or in competition with, this Catholic caucus. Indeed, this might be extended to the academic debate more generally. Whilst it is possible to discern a ‘Catholic’ perspective in research on Scotland’s religious divisions, it is much more difficult to identify ‘Protestant’ or ‘non-religious’ perspectives. In politics, and in the academy, there is no symmetry on this issue, whether between Protestant and Catholic, or indeed ‘religious’ and ‘secular’, perspectives. Such were the immediate political circumstances surrounding the emergence of a debate on religious division. Another factor was at work, operating on a deeper and subtler level. The debate on constitutional change in Scotland focused on issues of self-government, selfdetermination, Home Rule. The self and the Home were national – Scottish/


Scotland – and raised difficult questions. Home Rule for whom: who are we? The debate on religious division thus fed into, and off, a broader debate around Scottish national identity. Indeed MacMillan opened his speech on a deceptively positive note, immediately locating his lecture within the context of the Parliament, officially opened the previous month: There is a palpable sense of optimism in Scotland at this time. Women and men of goodwill detect that the circumstances are ripe with opportunity and challenge. The arrival of our new devolved parliament, the latest step in the nation’s desire to slake its thirst for democracy, seems providential in its timing on the eve of the new millennium. Further, MacMillan argued that: ‘If Scotland is ever to establish a genuinely pluralistic democracy where differences are not just recognised and respected but celebrated, nurtured and absorbed for the greater good, we will first have to clear a seemingly insurmountable hurdle.’ This hurdle was Scotland’s ‘endemic’ anti-Catholicism, part of ‘a very Scottish trait – a desire to narrow and to restrict the definition of what it means to be Scottish’. MacMillan claimed his speech was made ‘in the new spirit of inclusiveness, [because] no part of Scottish society should feel less than fully involved in the “new Scotland” ’.6 Benedict Anderson famously defined the nation as ‘an imagined political community’: ‘Regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.’7 Notions of social cleavage – whether on religious lines or otherwise – might imply defects in, or limitations to, this comradeship. Indeed much of the debate around social inclusion stems in part from the question of who shares in the national feeling of ‘community’. Central to ideas, to imaginings, of the nation is belonging: but who belongs, who does not? National identity represents a claim about belonging, whether of oneself or of another, dependent upon ‘identity markers’. For Richard Kiely et al. such markers comprise the ‘characteristics . . . an individual . . . might present to others to support their national identity claim’ as well as ‘to attribute national identity to others, and to receive claims and attributions made by others’. Claims, attributions and receipts in terms of Scottish (and English) identity ‘are usually based on various combinations of the basic markers of birth, ancestry, residence, upbringing and commitment, backed up by other markers’. 8 Here the alleged ‘Scottish equation’ noted in Chapter 2

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is important, as it implies that religion (Protestant = Scot; Catholic = Irish = alien) was a crucial marker for Scottish identity. The evidence presented in Chapter 4 – that self-claimed Scottish national identity is equally high amongst Catholics, Presbyterians, and the non-religious – suggests that religion is no longer a salient national identity marker. This highlights that identity claims, attributions, and receipts are historically fluid and dependent on their context. In a Scotland where those of all religions and none are equally likely to claim a Scottish identity, and where Scottishness is assigned primarily on the basis of birth and residency, the ‘Scottish equation’ ceases to make sense. Crucially, the ‘imagining’ of the nation posited by Anderson is not fixed, it is a constantly evolving process in which ‘identity markers’ – the boundaries of the imagined community – are adopted and discarded. The ‘Scottish equation’ may have made sense in an era when Scotland was a relatively comfortable part of an Imperial and Protestant Britain which contrasted itself with the ‘Catholic’ despotisms of France and Spain, 9 but by the twentieth century the meaning of Scottishness had changed. The defining political question of late twentieth-century Scotland was not Scotland’s position within the British Imperial project but Scotland’s position within the United Kingdom. That, and the fact that Scotland and Britain have undergone sharp secularisation since the 1960s, has rendered the ‘Scottish equation’ meaningless. ‘Scottishness’ has long represented a claim to distinctiveness within the United Kingdom, particularly in relation to Englishness. Over the course of the twentieth century, new forms of Scottishness – increasingly secular and pluralistic – have emerged and developed. To a large degree, ‘Scottishness’ is a claim to distinctiveness and an implicit demand that this distinctiveness take political or institutional form. For Peter Worsley: ‘Cultural traits are not absolutes or simply intellectual categories, but are invoked to provide identities which legitimise claims to rights. They are strategies or weapons in competitions over scarce resources.’10 The debate over religious division can be seen as stimulated by the broader debate over what it means, at a watershed in Scottish history, to be Scottish. It is not surprising that at a decisive historic moment Scots have turned inwards, simultaneously beset by doubts and enlivened by confidence, to contemplate their Scottishness and Britishness and, for some, their Irishness or other identities. The last years of the twentieth century have propelled the Scots into uncharted territory. Such moments are bound to provoke self-contemplation and a gazing into, in Ernest Gellner’s phrase, the historical ‘navel’ of the nation.11 In his


Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx notes the tendency, at crucial historical moments, to invoke the phantoms of the past: Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. And just when they seem engaged in revolutionising themselves and things, in creating something that has never yet existed, precisely in such periods of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle cries, and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time-honoured disguise and this borrowed language. Thus Luther adopted the mask of the Apostle Paul. 12 At the point of creation of ‘something that has never yet existed’ (a democratically elected Scottish Parliament) the ghosts of a ‘sectarian’ past have been anxiously invoked. Yet in their very invocation they have been exorcised – how else can one explain the all-so-brief public interest in the spirits summoned up by James MacMillan? This, as this study has shown, is perfectly explicable. MacMillan’s ‘ghosts’ were, by and large, imaginary terrors created in, and for, the present through a selective interpretation of the past. History here ‘is not a product of the past, but a response to the requirements of the present’. 13 Again, this is to be expected, and hardly specific to MacMillan or to Scotland: ‘All profound changes in consciousness, by their very nature, bring with them characteristic amnesias.’14 Also in the Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx remarked that important moments of history repeat themselves ‘the first time as tragedy, the second as farce’. This study began by noting the farce, the recent ‘debate’ over religious division encapsulated by MacMillan’s speech, and closed with the tragedy, the spasm of sectarian hysteria in 1930s Edinburgh. Drawing parallels between MacMillan and John Cormack may seem far-fetched (and odious) given that the latter sought to build a political movement through virulent anti-Catholicism, but there are interesting points of comparison. Both appealed to a sense of religious grievance resting upon myth and exaggeration, and both found that such an appeal had little staying power. Cormack’s tragedy spawned a localised political movement, street protests, and violence, whilst MacMillan’s farce produced a brief flurry of letters to the Herald,

150


a collection of academic essays, and a minor piece of legislative tinkering. Both men depended on the invocation of the ‘Other’ – for Cormack the Other was the politically rapacious Papist beast, whilst for MacMillan the Other was personalised in the figure of Donald Findlay, a shamed Rangers vice-chairman. Both were criticised for living in a distant past, of attempting to revive a dead history. Whilst MacMillan’s complaints were criticised as ‘archaic’, the Edinburgh press attacked Cormack for attempting to revive conflicts from ‘the far past’. 15 To Aspinwall, the Kirk’s Disgrace of the 1920s was ‘a dying kick of a fading mentality’, Cormack ‘a prisoner of history – like some of his opponents’.16 Much of the current debate around sectarianism has proved imprisoned in an imagined history, invoking exaggerated terrors at the outset of a new era for Scotland. History need not feast ‘like a nightmare on the brain of the living’, for it ‘is not the dead weight of the past on the present, but the very means whereby identity is shaped in an active and ongoing fashion’. 17 The shaping of Scotland’s identity could do no better than to follow the advice of poet Edwin Morgan: Go from the grave. The shrill flutes are silent, the march dispersed. Deplore what is to be deplored, and then find out the rest.18

Appendix: Logistic Regression Models Notes: Reference category (where applicable) in brackets; significant results are highlighted in bold, with direction of effect given in last column; ‘n.s.’ denotes no significant effect at .05 level.

Perceptions of religious conflict, 1997 Dependent variable: Believing religious conflict to be ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ serious. Independent variables: age; church attendance; class identity; gender; occupational class (non-manual or manual, according to Registrar General classification); region; religion; religiosity. Number of cases in model: 805. Variables Constant Age Area (Rural North & South) West Central Scotland East Central/North East Occupational class (manual) Non-manual

B

S.E.

.35 −.03

.32 .00

1.21 .29

−.44

R

.25 .25

−.17 .19 .14 .00

.15

−.08

Exp (B)

Sig.

Effect

3.36 1.33

.2664 .0000 .0000 .0000 .2545

positive n.s.

.64

.0040

negative

.97

negative

Source: Scottish Election Survey (1997).

Northern Ireland, 1997 Dependent variable: Believing Northern Ireland should remain in UK. Independent variables: age; church attendance; class identity; gender; occupational class (non-manual or manual by Registrar General classification); region; religion; religiosity. Number of cases in model: 803. Variables Constant Religion (Other religion) Church of Scotland Catholic No Religion Male

B −.89 −.68 −1.06 .43 .40

S.E.

R

Exp (B)

Sig.

.51 .35 1.54 1.49

.0001 .0000 .0102 .0017 .0755 .0149

.23 .26 .34 .24 .16


151

.21 −.07 −.09 .03 .06

Effect

negative negative n.s. positive

152

Appendix: Logistic Regression Models

Notes – this model was rerun adding in party identification as an additional independent variable. There was no substantial difference between the models, and party identification was not found to be a significant predictor of wishing NI to remain within the UK.

Vote in general election, October 1974 Dependent variable: voted Conservative. Independent variables: age; class identity; gender; occupational class; religion. Number of cases in model: 746. Variables Constant Religion (other religion) Church of Scotland Catholic No religion Age Class identity (none) Middle class Working class Middle class (ABC1a)

B

S.E.

−2.26

.39

−.00 −1.08 −.71 .03

.25 .41 .30 .01

.31 −.88 .85

.28 .24 .20

R

.11 .00 −.08 −.07 .15 .13 .00 −.12 .14

Exp (B)

1.00 .34 .49 1.03 1.36 .41 2.33

Sig. .0000 .0013 .9933 .0081 .0169 .0000 .0002 .2691 .0002 .0000

Effect

n.s. negative negative positive

negative positive


Being against the SNP, 1999 Dependent variable: Being strongly against/against the SNP. Independent variables: age; church attendance; class identity (forced); gender; occupational class; religion. Number of cases in model: 1149. Variables Constant Non-manual occupation Middle class identity Age

B

S.E.

R

Exp (B)

Sig.

−2.42 .50 .40 .03

.24 .14 .15 .00

.09 .06 .18

1.65 1.49 1.03

.0000 .0003 .0058 .0000

Effect positive positive positive


Best nationality: British, 1999 Dependent variable: Claiming nationality which best describes self is ‘British’. Independent variables: age; church attendance; class identity (forced); gender; occupational class; religion.

Appendix: Logistic Regression Models 153 Number of cases in model: 1149. Variables Constant Non-manual occupation Middle class identity Religion (other religion) Church of Scotland Catholic No religion Male

B

S.E.

−3.42 .59 .70

.40 .25 .23

.05 −1.29 .17 .82

.34 .59 .34 .23

R

Exp (B)

.07 .10 .05 .00 −.06 .00 .13

1.80 2.01 1.06 .28 1.19 2.26

Sig. .0000 .0203 .0023 .0598 .8731 .0288 .6139 .0003

Effect positive positive n.s. negative n.s. positive


Best nationality: Scottish, 1999 Dependent variable: Claiming nationality which best describes self is ‘Scottish’. Independent variables: age; church attendance; class identity (forced); gender; occupational class; religion. Number of cases in model: 1149. Variables

B

S.E.

R

Exp (B)

Sig.

Constant Male

−.51 −.36

.08 .13

−.06

.70

.0000 .0043


Effect negative

Notes

Chapter 1 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

O’Hagan (2000: 25). Sewell (2001: 174). Jenkins (2003: 1–2, 66). For example, MacMillan (2000a) and Conroy (2001). On the vexed question of anti-Semitism, see Cornwell (1999), Kertzer (2002), and Dahl (2003). 6. For example, Witness: Football, Faith and Flutes (Channel 4, 12 November 1995). 7. See, for example, Scottish Executive (2002).

Chapter 2 1. Witness: Football, Faith and Flutes (Channel 4, 12 November 1995). 2. MacMillan (2000a: 15). 3. Scotland On Sunday, 8 August 1999. Also Daily Record and Guardian, 9 August 1999. 4. O’Hagan (2000: 25). 5. Devine (ed.) (2000). 6. G.Walker (2000: 125). 7. McCrone (1992: 90). 8. Ibid. See also Schopflin (1997). 9. Gallagher (1985c: 44). 10. Bradley (1997: 29). 11. Kuper (1994: 217). 12. Aspinwall (1989: 76). 13. O.D. Edwards (1994: 181–182). 14. Ian Bell, Scotsman, 20 May 2000. 15. McCarthy (1998: 179–181). 16. McKay (2000: 69). 17. See Mullen et al. (2000). 18. Williams & Walls (2000: 233). 19. See Lugton (1999). 20. J. Jackson (1963), Drudy (1986b), Delaney (1999), Handley (1943, 1947), and Devine (ed.) (1991). 21. Burnett (1998: 178, 186–187). 22. Burnett (1998), MacDonald (1978), Colpi (1993), Millar (1998), and Bradley (1995d). 23. Aspinwall (2000a: 105). 24. Devine (1991: vi). 25. Gallagher (1991: 20), G. Walker (1991: 49), McFarland (1990: 154), and C.G. Brown (1993: 34). 154

Notes 155 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

Akenson (2000: 114). MacRaild (1999: 113, 117). G. Walker (1992: 178–179). G. Walker (1991: 59). Handley (1947: 305). Reilly (1998: 160). Bradley (1995a: 464). Handley (1943: 282–294). Bradley (1995e: 137, 1998d: 216, 1998b: 110). O.D. Edwards (2000: 8). Bradley (1995e: 134). See also Devine (1991: vi). McFarland (1990: 52, 54). Quoted in McFarland (1994: 80). Ibid. G. Walker (1991: 52). Bradley (1995c: 109). Northern Ireland Life & Times Survey, 2001. See also Bruce (1994: 146). See Chapter 4. See Bond (2000). Aspinwall (2000a: 106). Herberg (1960: 232–233). McLeod (1986: 421–422). Scotland On Sunday editorial, 27 October 1996. Whyte (1981: 21). Lijphart (1968). McLeod (1986: 413). McLeod (1997: 18). Reilly (2000: 37). See also Bradley (1995e), Conroy (2001), and Finn (1999). Conway (1997: 42) – emphasis added. Aspinwall (1989: 76). On US violence see Herberg (1960: 141–142), Carwardine (1992), Headley (1873), and McGimpsey (1982). MacRaild (1999: 172–184, also 1996, 1998), Arnstein (1975), Gilley (1973), Waller (1981), Bohstedt (1992), and Murdoch (1992). Marshall (1996: 34–35). McFarland (1990: 64), Marshall (1996: 35–37), and Handley (1947: 117). Handley (1947: 117). See also Burrowes (2003: 93–112). Ibid., and McFarland (1990: 153). McRoberts (1978b: 28). See also Handley (1947: 111). McCaffrey (1983: 291). Bradley (1998b: 96–97). Free Press, 20 August 1864 – quoted in W.M. Walker (1972: 651). Heinrick (1872: 36). Ibid., 51, 67. Williamson (1998: 17). McCarthy (1998: 39–40, 40). Pius IX (1864). Hornsby-Smith (1987: 214). Boyle & Lynch (1998: 197). Finn (1999: 869).

156 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

Notes Bradley (1995a: 443, 453). Bradley (1995e: 182). B. Murray (1984: 19). See also Docherty & Thomson (1975: 43). Finn (1999: 869, 873). See also Finn (1994). Bruce (1988: 155–156). Brewer (1992: 352, 353). Ibid., 359. M. Mitchell (1998: 258). See M. Mitchell (1998) and Smith (1980). Bruce (1988: 159, 160). Brewer (1992: 359). See L. Paterson (2000a: 146), Gallagher (1987a), McCrone (1992), and Bruce (2000). L. Paterson (2000a: 149, 155). Williams & Walls (2000: 247). Ibid., 31. Ibid., 29, 33. G. Walker (2000: 125). Aspinwall (2000a: 114).

Chapter 3 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Brewer (1992: 353). Brewer with Higgins (1998: viii–ix, 11–14, 211). Ibid., 209–212. Ibid., 130–135, 141, 155. Bruce (1988: 151, 1985a: 42), Brewer with Higgins (1998: 217–219). MacMillan (2000a: 15–16). MacMillan was drawing upon Patrick Reilly’s column in the Herald, 31 July 1999. Brewer with Higgins (1998: 132). Brewer (1992: 353). Brewer with Higgins (1998: 221). An overview of religious statistics and their strengths and weaknesses is provided by Currie et al. (1977). Brierley (1989, 1999, 2003a). ‘UK’ figures include England, Scotland, Wales and only those counties of Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom after 1922. ‘British’ figures exclude Northern Ireland. Brierley (1989); Office of National Statistics ‘Where people marry in England & Wales’, ONS (2000) 121, 31 March 2000 – www.statistics.gov.uk. Bruce (1996: 31). Davie (1994: 74–76). Ashford & Timms (1992: 40–42), Brierley (1999), and Bruce (1996: 33). Bruce (1996: 36). Robertson (1987). P.L. Berger (1999: 2, 3, 9). C.G. Brown (1992: 54). Brierley (1989, 1999).

Notes 157 22. Census of Northern Ireland, 2001. 23. For Presbyterians, those members receiving communion at least once in the year, for Episcopalians/Anglicans those receiving communion on Easter Sunday. 24. Brierley (1989), Annual Reports of the General Register Office (GRO), the GRO Northern Ireland (GRONI) and the GRO Scotland (GROS), 1999 and 2001. 25. GRONI, 2002. 26. Bruce (1992: 146). 27. Aspinwall (2000b: 56). 28. Darragh (1978: 217, 237). 29. I.R. Paterson (2000: 223). 30. See Rosie (2002). 31. Brierley & MacDonald (1995) and Brierley (2003a). 32. See Heath et al. (1993: 51). 33. Highet (1958: 729–731). 34. See also Rosie (2001). 35. Glasgow City Council (2003) – Glasgow City Council/NFO Social Research, Sectarianism in Glasgow – Final Report, January 2003. 36. Sunday Herald, 2 March 2003. 37. The precise question is ‘Turning now to Protestants and Catholics in Scotland. Using a phrase from this card, how serious would you say conflict between them is?’ For general details on these surveys, see: www.crest.ox.ac.uk. 38. More detail of the analysis can be found in the Appendix. 39. Scottish Executive (2002). 40. MacMillan (2000a: 17–18). 41. Bradley (1998d: 213). 42. See Appendix. 43. MacMillan (2000a: 16–17). 44. Bradley (2000: 160). 45. Finn (2000: 77). 46. Scotsman, 10 February 1998. 47. Finn (2000: 57, 81). 48. Scotsman, 18 February 1998. 49. Conroy (2001: 543–544). See also Bruce (2003) and Conroy (2003). 50. Conroy (2003) responding to Bruce (2003). 51. Grace (2001: 491, 493). 52. Bradley (2000: 160). This closely echoes Gallagher (1987a: 139). 53. L. Paterson (2000b: 39). 54. Bennie et al. (1997: 111) and Finn (2000: 76). 55. Bradley (1998b: 102). The only research referenced is his own. 56. See Scotland On Sunday, 23 October 1994 and Flourish, 29 April 1979. 57. Finn (2000: 76) and Conroy (2003: 407).

Chapter 4 1. Kellas (1989: 110). 2. Bradley (1995e: 124). 3. A. Brown et al. (1999: 68–70).

158 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

Notes Crewe et al. (1995) and Kotler-Berkovitz (2001). Lapp (1999: 1, 28). Kellas (1989: 110). Budge & Urwin (1966: 61). Seawright & Curtice (1995: 327). Ibid., 331. Bradley (1997: 29). Full details in Appendix. Brand (1978: 130) – emphasis added. Ibid. G. Walker (2000: 127). Tom Gallagher, Two Tales of a City, BBC Radio 5 Live, 24 December 1995. See also Gallagher (1991: 39) and Boyle (1994: 90). For Letter, see Herald, 3 May 1999. Gallagher (2000: 43). See also John Curtice in Scotland On Sunday, 26 June 1994 and Seawright & Curtice (1995: 330). Gallagher (1991: 38–39) Hickman (1995: 218). See Appendix. Bond (2000). Budge & Urwin (1966: 127–129). Gallagher (1987a: 328). See J. Mitchell (1996: 163–164). See Gallagher (1987a: 327). Scottish Catholic Observer, 19 January 1979 – quoted in Gallagher (1987a: 328). Gallagher (1991: 32–34, 42). S.J. Brown (1991: 42). See Moreno (1988). See Appendix. Bradley (1995a: 449–450). Paton (1968: 178–179). Anderson (1991). McCrone (1992: 196). A. Brown et al. (1999: 83, 90–91). McCrone (1992: 17). Handley (1943, 1947), Bruce (1985a), and Gallagher (1987a, b). Lowenthal (1985).

Chapter 5 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Hobsbawm (1968: 207–209). T.A. Fitzpatrick (1999: 136), R.J. Finlay (1994b), and E. Muir (1935). Quoted in R.J. Finlay (1994b: 247). Vincent (1976: 47). See also Smith (1980). Keller & Stewart (1927: 19–50, 157). See also Stewart (1925). Pius XI (1922, 1925). Paragraph III, 129 – quoted in Keller & Stewart (1929: 175).

Notes 159 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

Brierley (1999: sec.8.6). Gwynn (1950b: 432). Bruce (1988: 157, 160). Letter to Scotsman, 20 May 1931. C.G. Brown (1992: 66–67). Bebbington (1989: 214). S.J. Brown (1992: 90). Iain McLean, Sunday Herald, 30 January 2000. C.G. Brown (1997: 152). Ibid., 152–153. Smith (1980: 153). Conway (1997: 2). Bohstedt (1992: 178). See Machin (1983). Conway (1997: 2, 40). Bradley (1995a: 452). See also MacMillan (2000a). Catholic Truth Society of Scotland, St Andrews & Edinburgh Diocesan Branch (hereafter CTS/SEDB), Reports 1930–1932. Times, 16 and 17 September 1929. Kinning Park Catholic Monthly, February 1931; Glasgow Herald, 24 April 1922; CTS/SEDB Reports 1932–1933. Anson (1937: 216). Evening News, 30 November 1934. Evening News, 11 June 1934; Scotsman, 25 May 1931, 6 July 1931. Marshall (1996: 147). Glasgow Herald, 10 July 1933. Scotsman, 8 July 1935; Evening News, 19 August 1935. On Edinburgh, see Chapter 7; on Belfast, see Hepburn (1990). Evening News, 20 July 1935; Marshall (1996: 148). For example, Scotsman, 25 May 1931, 16 June 1931. Gallagher (1987a: 248). Scotsman, 3 June 1929, 9 July 1931; Times, 5 March 1934. See Glasgow Herald, 28 September–3 October 1931 and McShane & Smith (1978: 175–176). Catholic Directory for the Clergy and Laity in Scotland (1905: 37, 1915: 42). Pius X (1907: xi–4). Graham (1921: 2). Graham (1918). Ibid., 2–8. Watson (1934: 3, 12–14). On New Zealand, see Sweetman (1989). Times, 3 December 1930. Waller (1981: 324–326). Times, 4 December 1930, 14–16 January 1931, 4 March 1931. Kinning Park Catholic Monthly, February 1933. Emphasis in the original. Scotsman, 19 June 1930. See Irish Times, 9–10 May 1997; Irish Independent, 1 June 1998. Handley (1947: 324). Hobsbawm (1994).

160

Notes

Chapter 6 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

McCaffrey (1978: 151) and Gallagher (1991: 25). Gilley (1999: 35). Leo XIII (1878b: 1) and Pius XI (1931: 10, 55). Ibid., 5. Quoted in Riddell (1997: 168). Pius XI (1931: 117–120). See also McCarthy (1998: 251) and Gilley (1989). Riddell (1997: 168–170). W.M. Walker (1972: 665). G. Brown (1986: 92). Fielding (1993: 105). McLean (1983: 181). Glasgow Herald, 10 August 1920. McLean (1983: 185). W.M. Walker (1979: 470–472). Glasgow Observer, 10 October 1925, 20 March 1926 – quoted in Gallagher (1987a: 190); Preston Catholic News, 18 July 1931 – quoted in Riddell (1997: 188). Tablet, 4 May 1929 – quoted in Riddell (1997: 177). Gallagher (1987a: 194), Marshall (1996: 129), and Scotsman, 21 June 1930. Glasgow Observer, 5 November 1927 – quoted in Gallagher (1987a: 192). Riddell (1997: 180). See also Soloway (1982: 283–284). Quoted in Soloway (1982: 287). Quoted in Van der Krogt (1998: 322). Glasgow Herald, 26 March 1919, 9 April 1919. Scotsman, 30 January 1928. See Foot (1962: 135), Gwynn (1950a: 288), and Scotsman, 22 January 1931. Hollis (1997: 32–39) and Foot (1962: 149). Hollis (1997: 58) also Riddell (1997: 191–192). See also Fielding (1993: 122–124). Scotsman, 7 May 1931. Gallagher (1987a: 213). Quoted in Gallagher (1987a: 207). Knox (1988: 624). S.J. Brown (1992: 91). Hobsbawm (1959: 128–141). See 211 HC Deb. 5s: 2566–2567 (15 December 1927) and 218 HC Deb. 5s: 1272 (14 June 1928). See 191 HC Deb. 5s: 238 (3 February 1926) and 176 HC Deb. 5s: 2756 (5 August 1924). See 200 HC Deb. 5s: 1586–1592 (3 December 1926). Walker & Gallagher (1990b: 87) Mackenzie (1936: 167). G. Walker (1995: 76) and Marshall (1996: 153). Quoted in McFarland (1990: 201). Glasgow Herald, 22 February 1922. See 191 HC Deb. 5s: 238 (3 February 1926); Marshall (1996: 124).

Notes 161 42. G. Walker (1995: 77) – emphasis in original. 43. Buchan (1924: 707). 44. S.J. Brown (1991: 20); Scottish Television, Secret Scotland: The Kirk’s Disgrace, 10 November 1998. 45. S.J. Brown (1991: 21–26). 46. Times, 31 May 1927. 47. Glasgow Herald, 24 April 1923. 48. Scotsman, 20 July 1928. 49. S.J. Brown (1991: 34–35). See Glasgow Herald between 20 and 26 March 1929. 50. Scotsman, 24 May 1930. 51. S.J. Brown (1991: 36–40). 52. Gallagher (1987a: 145). 53. See 220 HC Deb. 5s: 2016 (31 July 1928). 54. See 329 HC Deb. 5s: 2411–2413 (3 December 1937). 55. S.J. Brown (1991: 20) and Williamson (1998: 24). 56. Thomson (1927: 16, 56) and Gibb (1930: 55). 57. Liam McIlvanney, Sunday Herald, 9 April 2000. 58. Mackenzie (1936: 168). 59. See 272 HC Deb. 5s: 245–287 (24 November 1932). 60. Quoted in R.J. Finlay (1994a: 193). 61. Scotsman, 30 January 1928.

Chapter 7 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

Treble (1978: 111). Herberg (1960: 233–234). Gilley (1989: 215). Herberg (1960: 233). Quoted in Anson (1937: 197). Second verse of Hymn No. 62 (‘I am a faithful Catholic’) in the Crown of Jesus Hymn Book, 1862 – quoted in Litvack (1996: 81). Williamson (1998: 12). Scotland On Sunday, 25 April 1999; Hickman (1995: 124). Skinnider (1967: 14–15) and Handley (1947: 191). Code of Canon Law, 800 (2); Pius IX (1864: 48). Graham (1924). Leo XIII (1898: 12) and Beales (1950: 381). See letter to Herald from Fr George Donaldson, Lecturer at Scotus College, Bearsden, 10 April 1999. Beales (1950: 375). T.P. O’Connor, MP – quoted in Byrne (1907: 4). Handley (1947: 220), C.G. Brown (1997: 143), and Darragh (1978: 232); Report of the Committee of Council on Education in Scotland (hereafter Report on Education), 1919–20. See 211 HC Deb. 3s: 303–306 (6 May 1872). Glasgow Herald, 28 March 1888; C.G. Brown (1997: 144). See also Roxburgh (1971).

162

Notes

19. For example, the New Catholic Encyclopaedia (1967) claimed that Scottish ‘Catholic schools were supported entirely by the voluntary contributions of the faithful until 1918’ (see entry under ‘Scotland’). 20. Handley (1947: 224–245). 21. Splaine (1894: 24). 22. Roxburgh (1971: 195–198). 23. Skinnider (1967: 41). 24. A. Wood (1982: 386), Beales (1950: 384–386), Dugdale (1936: 329–330), and Murphy (1971: 94–96). 25. Kenneth (1968: 94). 26. Handley (1947: 237) and Skinnider (1967: 56–57); Report of Conference, submitted to Edinburgh School Board on 6 June 1917 – Minutes of the Edinburgh School Board (hereafter Min. EdSB) (1917: 341–346). 27. (Anon.) ‘Rev. School Manager’ (1916: 6) – my emphases. 28. See 97 HC Deb. 5s: 463 (8 August 1917). 29. Report of Conference of Larger School Boards, Edinburgh, 8 February 1918: Min. EdSB (1918); See 107 HC Deb. 5s: 1074–1168 (26 June 1918). 30. Quoted in McEwan (1973: 136). This ‘coercive’ clause became Section 18 (5) of the Act. 31. McEwan (1973: 114). 32. Glasgow Observer, 6 December 1919 – quoted in Treble (1980: 30). 33. Resume of History, Catholic Education Council, typescript, n.d., Scottish Catholic Archives (hereafter ‘SCA’), DE99/3/1. 34. Gallagher (1987a: 139). 35. Glasgow Herald, 26 April 1920. 36. Treble (1980: 33–34). 37. Rev. Edward Miley, Bonnybridge to Bishop H.G. Graham, Edinburgh, 28 December 1922. See ‘Joint Print of Documents for the Parties’ (hereafter Bonnybridge Documents), SCA, ED9/106/3. 38. Proof of Closed Record of Action, Court of Session, 13 December 1927. SCA, ED9/ 106/1-2. 39. Stirlingshire Education Authority to Rev. James MacDonald, Bannockburn, Bonnybridge Documents. 40. Report of Sheriff Fleming to Scottish Education Department, 28 March 1925, SCA, ED9/104. 41. Scotsman, 10 January 1930. 42. Scotsman, 27 May 1930, 26 May 1931. 43. Handley (1947: 303). 44. Glasgow Herald, 30 September 1920; Scotsman, 7 November 1919. See also Poor Law & Local Government Magazine, January 1920; 133 HC Deb. 5s: 1544 (26 October 1920) – my emphasis. 45. See Phillimore (1922: 184–185) and McEwan (1979); Glasgow Herald, 15 and 22 February 1922. 46. Quoted in Knox (1987: 35). 47. Evening News, 2 March 1925. 48. Quoted in Min. EdEA: 14 February 1925 (p. 585). 49. Minutes of Association of Education Authorities in Scotland (hereafter Min: AEAS).

Notes 163 50. Minutes of Catholic Union of Glasgow, Vigilance Committee on Education, 27 July 1928, SCA, DE101/1/3. Min. AEAS (v.4): (26 September 1928; 10 October 1928; 19 December 1928). 51. Abp Mackintosh (Glasgow) to Abp McDonald (St Andrews & Edinburgh) 7 December 1929, SCA, DE101/2/5. 52. ‘RCs on Education Committees (County Councils) 1928–30’; SCA, DE101 53. Paterson (2003b). See also Paterson (2003a).

Chapter 8 1. Mackenzie (1936), Handley (1947), Bruce (1985a), and Gallagher (1985b, 1987a,b). 2. Tom Devine, Herald, 18 July 1998. 3. G. Walker (1995: 68). 4. Bruce (1985a: 40). 5. Evening News, 15 and 29 September 1920. 6. Scotsman, 14–17 and 27 May 1929; Bruce (1985a: 51). 7. Gallagher (1987b: 139). 8. Evening News, 6 July 1935, 6 November 1935. 9. Notices, Evening News, 24 March 1934; 7 April 1934. 10. Protestant Vanguard, 29 June 1935 – quoted in Bruce (1985a: 101). 11. Notices, Evening News, 1 September 1934; 2 and 8 April 1935. 12. McLean (1983: 225). 13. See Miller (1985) for the utility of this measure at ward level. 14. Bruce (1985a: 63–66). 15. Evening News, 26 October 1936, 2 November 1936. 16. Evening News, 12 October 1934. 17. Evening News, 6 November 1934. 18. Glasgow Herald, 6 November 1933. 19. Vanguard, 29 September 1934 – quoted in Gallagher (1987a: 155). 20. Scotsman, 20 May 1931; Glasgow Herald, 7 and 30 October 1931. 21. Glasgow Herald, 2 November 1931. 22. Bruce (1985a: 53) quoting Protestant Vanguard. 23. Evening News, 21 March 1935. 24. Evening News, 7 November 1933, 8 September 1936. 25. For example, ‘neo-fascist thugs’, Damer (1997: 191), ‘the fascistic Cormack’, Calder (1989: 20), ‘fascist connections and racist sympathies’, Williams & Walls (2000: 233). 26. Evening News, 3 March 1934, 21 June 1934. 27. See McFarland (1990: 217). 28. See Holmes (1989). 29. Glasgow Herald, 31 October 1931, 3 November 1931; Evening News, 19 August 1935. 30. See Bruce (1985a: 72); Evening News, 13 and 30 July 1935, 16 August 1935. 31. Gallagher (1987b: 35), G. Walker (1995: 75), and Knox (1999: 201). 32. Scotsman, 25 September 1929, 16 October 1929.

164

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33. Evening News, 24 and 25 April 1935. On Labour and electoral “ruffianism”, see New Statesman and Nation, 9 November 1935. 34. Tom Devine, Herald, 18 July 1998. 35. Gallagher (1987b: 49). 36. Scotsman, 25 June 1935; Evening News, 26 June 1935. 37. Priests were asked to report their experiences to the Hierarchy – see SCA DE162/51-52. Three priests reported separate incidents of stoning, resulting in minor cuts, bruises, and shock. Press reports suggest at least two other incidents. 38. Letter from Abbot Alban Boultwood OSB, Washington DC, to Michael Turnbull, June 1999. I am very grateful to both for permission to cite their correspondence. 39. Evening News, 26 June 1935; Scotsman, 27 June 1935. 40. On Klan anti-Catholicism, see K.T. Jackson (1967), Moore (1991), and Calderwood (1972). 41. Evening News, 15 October 1936. 42. See letters from McDonald to Sir William Thomson, Lord Provost, 5 May 1935, and to Sir Godfrey Collins, Secretary of State, 16 July 1935, SCA DE 162/49/1-4. 43. See reports and McDonald’s responses in Times, 6 and 14 August 1935; Spectator, 9 and 16 August 1935. 44. Gallagher (1987b: 187). 45. Scotsman, 26 April 1935; Evening News, 10 June 1935 46. See cases reported Evening News, 1 August 1935, 06 November 1935. 47. Evening News, 30 January 1936, 22 February 1936; Evening Dispatch, 10 March 1936. 48. Evening Dispatch, 25 and 27 March 1936; Evening News, 14 February 1936; 8 April 1936, 11 May 1936. 49. See the argument developed in Bruce (1985b, 1986). 50. For example, Scotsman, 27 June 1935; Evening News, 18 July 1935. 51. Life & Work, September 1935. 52. Evening News, 2 October 1935; Evening Dispatch, 5 March 1936. 53. See letter from Rev. Gordon Stott, Evening News, 26 April 1935.

Chapter 9 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Lynch (2000: 253) and Reilly (2000: 30). Reilly (2000: 33). M. Mitchell (1998). Aspinwall (2000a: 105, 2000b: 65). O.D. Edwards (2000: 5, 12). MacMillan (2000a: 13–16, 2000b: 265). Anderson (1991: 6–7). Kiely et al. (2000: 1.4, 6.1). See also McCrone et al. (1998). See Colley (1992). Quoted in McCrone (1998: 30). Gellner (1997: 90–101). Marx (1852: 300).

Notes 165 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

McCrone (1998: 44). Anderson (1991: 204). O.D. Edwards (2000: 5); Evening News editorial, 19 April 1935. Aspinwall (1989: 79, 82). McCrone (1998: 63). ‘King Billy’ (1968) in Morgan (2000: 29–30).

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Newspapers, magazines and so on Daily Record; Evening Dispatch (Edinburgh); Evening News (Edinburgh); Evening Times (Glasgow); Glasgow Herald/Herald; Guardian; Irish Independent; Irish Times; Kinning Park Catholic Monthly (1930–35); Life & Work; New Statesman & Society; Poor Law & Local Government Magazine; Protestant Action; Scotland On Sunday; Scotsman; Scottish Catholic Observer; Spectator; Sunday Herald; Tablet; The Times; The Universe.

Television & radio BBC Radio 5 Live, Two Tales of a City, 24 December 1995. Channel 4 Television, Witness: Football, Faith and Flutes, 12 November 1995. Scottish Television, Secret Scotland: The Kirk’s Disgrace, 10 November 1998.

Index Adams, Gerry, 11 Adamson, William, 102, 120 Airdrie, 120 Akenson, Donald, 14 alcohol Local Veto polls, 77, 92, 121 prohibition/temperance, 77, 78, 92 Anderson, Benedict, 69, 147–8 Anglicans, 16, 42, 50, 65, 80, 109, 111, 124 see also Church of England Angus, 37 anti-Catholicism, 29–32, 44, 64, 86–7, 100, 109, 117, 119–24, 126–43, 145–8, 149 different forms, 30–2 political limitations, 130, 142–3 anti-Protestantism, 22–3, 64, 80, 86, 104, 105–6 anti-Semitism, 2, 138 Armstrong, Matthew, 136 Aspinwall, Bernard, 14, 16, 19, 27, 36, 146, 150 asylum seekers/refugees, 40 Australasia, 3, 5, 19 Australia, 108 Ayr, 98 Ayrshire, 95, 98 Baird, John, 98 Baldwin, Stanley, 97 Balfour Act see Education (England and Wales) Act (1902) Banff, 98 Baptists, 34 Barr, James, 95–6 Bellshill, 86 Berger, Peter, 33 Birkenhead, 19 birth control see sexual morality Bismarck, Otto von, 19 Bonnybridge, 118–20, 127 Bourne, Francis, 93

Boyle, Raymond, 22 Bradley, Joseph, 10, 15, 21, 22, 42, 44, 45, 49–50, 53, 57, 68, 70 Brand, Jack, 54, 63 Brewer, John, 23–7, 29–30, 31 Brisby, James, 126 British identity, 64–7, 148 Catholics and, 66 in Northern Ireland, 16 Protestants and, 65–6, 67 British Union of Fascists, 137–8 Brown, Alice et al, 50, 52 Brown, Gordon, 91 Brown, James, 95 Brown, Jay, 103 Brown, William, 108, 116 Bruce, Steve, 23, 30, 36, 70, 105, 126, 144 Buchan, John, 72, 100 Buchanan, George, 104 Budge, Ian, 53, 59 Burnett, Ray, 14 Caithness Education Authority, 123–4 Cameron, Duncan, 100 Canada, 50 Carfin, 80–1, 96 Carmarthen Council, 114 Catholic Action, 79–80, 88 Catholic Church, 2, 7, 12, 22, 44, 54, 60, 74, 79–80, 96, 97, 123, 138, 146 Canon Law, 83–4, 87, 109–10 Eucharistic Congresses, 79, 96, 138–40 growth of, 6, 75–6, 78–80, 112 ‘indifferentism’, 11, 110 Mass attendance, 33, 35, 37–9, 75 mixed marriages, 83–8, 110 and ‘modernity’, 21–2, 79, 90, 108–10 Ne Temere decree, 83–8 178

Index Restoration (England), 19, 20 Restoration (Scotland), 20 sexual morality, 92–3, 94 ‘social Catholicism’, 79, 90 and Socialism, 90, 92, 93, 94 Catholic Evidence Guild, 79–80, 86 Catholic ‘ghetto’, 20–2, 85, 88, 105, 146 Catholic press, 21, 87, 92, 95 Catholic Relief Act (1926), 96–7, 99 Catholic schools/education, 4, 12–13, 19, 44–8, 78–9, 93–4, 107–25, 146 as global phenomenon, 19, 107–8 ‘atmosphere’, 107, 110, 111, 117 attitudes towards, 44–8, 116–18, 122–3 in Australia, 108 Bonnybridge controversy, 118–20, 127 Catholic Education Council, 117 Catholic Schools Society, 109 Edinburgh Conference, 115 in England and Wales, 45, 93, 108, 109, 113, 114 funding, 111, 113, 114, 116 Glasgow Industrial Schools, 113 Glasgow Truant School, 113 ‘Highland solution’, 111 Liverpool Truant School, 113 in New Zealand, 108 reasons for, 107, 108–10 religious instruction, 115, 117, 118 ‘Rome on the rates’, 114, 120–4 and social mobility, 25, 124 in United States, 108 Whifflet RC school, 117–18 see also Education Acts Catholic Truth Society, 79–80 Catholic Vigilance Association, 140 Catholic Young Men’s Society, 138, 139 Celtic football club, 3, 10, 12–13, 42, 81 see also Old Firm Census of Scotland, 16, 38–9, 102–3, 131 Christian Science, 127 Christian Socialism, 90, 95–6

179

Church attendance, 33–5, 37–9, 75–6 see also Scottish Church Census; secularisation Church in Wales, 35 Church membership, 33, 34–7, 75–6 see also secularisation Church of England, 43, 65, 80 membership, 33, 35 Prayer Book debates, 95–6 ritualists, 95–6 schools, 93, 109, 114 Church of Ireland, 34–5, 43 Church of Scotland, 54, 123, 141 church attendance, 33, 38–9, 75–6 Forward Movement, 76–7, 105 General Assembly, 11, 12, 100, 102, 105, 120, 127, 143 influence, 78, 105, 123 ‘Kirk’s Disgrace’, 98, 100–6, 129, 142, 143, 150 Life & Work, 142 Lifestyle Survey (1987), 33 lurch rightwards, 77–8 membership, 34, 75–6 mixed marriages, 88 Presbyterian reunion, 75–7, 78, 105 Presbytery of Edinburgh, 142 rationalisation, 75–6 religious education, 115–16, 118 schools, 109, 111 ‘Churchless Million’, 77 Cleland, Charles, 98 Coatbridge, 12, 20, 98 Communists, 83, 129 Conroy, James, 44–5, 46 Conscience clause, 109, 113, 118 Conservative party, 10, 12, 49–54, 56–8, 60–2, 72, 95, 96, 101–3, 122 and Catholics, 51, 57, 92, 93, 104 denominational schools, 93, 114, 124 and Protestants, 49–50, 52–4, 57, 77–8, 97–8, 99–100,126–7, 129, 143 constitutional change see devolution contraception see sexual morality Cormack, John, 128–30, 135, 139–42, 149–50 Cornwell, John, 3

180

Index

Court of Session, 87, 118 Cowper-Temple clause, 111 Crewe, Ivor et al, 50 Crieff School Board, 113 Criminal Justice Act (2003), 4 ‘cultural defence’, 36–8 Curtis, John, 53 David, Albert, 86–7 Davie, Grace, 33 Devine, Joseph, 60 Devine, Tom, 14, 126 Devolution, 5, 7, 50, 54, 58–63, 144 Catholics and, 54, 58–62 Protestants and, 50, 54 referenda, 54, 60–1, 62–3 see also Scottish Parliament Diamond, Charles, 92, 105 Dollan, Patrick, 91 Dorrian, Frank, 98 Downey, Richard, 86–7 Dumbarton, 94 Dunbartonshire, 38, 94 Dundee, 92, 102 Dunfermline, 13, 80–1 ecumenicism, 11–12, 144 Edinburgh Protestant Society, 128 Edinburgh, 23, 37, 78, 84, 125, 126, 127, 130–5, 137, 142–3 Broughton, 134 Canongate, 138 Council/Corporation, 128–9, 135, 137, 138, 141 Education Authority, 123, 127, 137 Gorgie, 128, 131 housing crisis, 135 Kirk Presbytery, 142 Leith, 128, 134, 137, 139, 140 local press, 140, 141–2, 150 Morningside, 138, 139–40 police, 140–1 religious disturbances, 81–2, 138–43, 149 School Board, 115 UFC Presbytery, 142 unemployment, 137 Education (England and Wales) Act (1870), 111

Education (England and Wales) Act (1902), 108, 114, 115, 116, 121, 124 Education (Scotland) Act (1872), 107, 111–12, 115 Education (Scotland) Act (1918), 19, 44–5, 46, 78–79, 93, 100, 104, 107, 109, 115–20, 121–3, 124–5, 127, 129 Education Bill (1931), 93–4 Edwards, Owen Dudley, 15, 146 emigration, 72–3, 105 England, 3, 5, 19, 21, 31, 33–6, 27, 42–3, 76, 94, 102, 121 English identity, 65–6, 67, 147, 148 Episcopalians, 16, 65, 67, 121, 34–5, 37 schools, 45, 78, 107, 111–12, 115, 118 evangelic missions, 78, 141 Falkirk, 38 Fauldhouse, 138 Ferguson, Hugh, 96, 98, 99, 126–7, 143 Fife, 37, 127 Findlay, Donald, 41, 150 Finn, Gerry, 22, 23, 44, 46 football, 3, 4, 13, 26 see also Old Firm France, 19, 73, 108, 148 Free Church of Scotland, 123 Gallagher, Tom, 10, 54–5, 60, 63, 70, 94, 102, 126, 138, 139, 141 gays & lesbians, 2 Gellner, Ernest, 148 Germany, 3, 17, 18, 19 Gibb, Andrew Dewar, 103–4 Gibbon, Lewis Grassic, 104 Gilmour, John, 97–8, 101 Glasgow Herald see Herald Glasgow Observer, 92, 95, 117 Glasgow, 10, 11, 14, 38, 39–40, 78, 79, 87, 91, 92, 101, 125, 126–7, 130–5, 142–3 Anderston, 82 Bridgeton, 82, 99, 136 Cathcart, 53, 133

Index Council/Corporation, 39–40, 44, 127–8, 135, 138 Dalmarnock, 131, 136 Dennistoun, 136 East End, 128, 133 Education Authority, 93, 98, 121–3 gang violence, 82–3, 138 Govan, 11 Govanhill, 53, 131 Hillhead, 104 Industrial Schools, 113 Kingston, 136 Kinning Park, 131 Parish Council, 101 Partick, 20, 136, 138 political violence, 83, 135–6 religious disturbances, 20, 81–2, 138 School Board, 112, 113, 114–15, 127 Shettleston, 92 Springburn, 95 St. Rollox, 94 Truant School, 113 University, 122 Goodman, George, 141 Gorman, James, 134 Graham, Henry Grey, 84–6, 110, 116–17 Graham, James, 130 Gray, Gordon, 12 Greenock, 94 Grieve, Christopher, 104 Hamilton, 81 Handley, James, 15, 70, 88, 115, 120–1, 126, 144 Heinrick, Hugh, 21 Henry, Esta, 138 Herald, 9, 101, 112, 135, 149 Herberg, Will, 108 Hibernian football club, 13, 23 Hickman, Mary, 55, 109 Highlands, 14, 30, 63, 111 Protestants in, 30–1, 45 Hobsbawm, Eric, 88, 95 Holyrood see Scottish Parliament Horne, Robert, 104 House of Lords, 119 Hunter-Weston, Aylmer, 98

181

Independent Labour Party, 83, 92, 95 intermarriage see mixed marriage Inverclyde, 37–8 Ireland, 1–3, 6, 11, 17–18, 24, 36, 101, 117, 121, 122 Irish ancestry/heritage, 5, 13, 16, 21, 69, 80 see also Irish identity Irish Diaspora, 5, 13–16 Irish Free State, 87, 101, 102, 103 Irish identity, 16, 63–5, 66, 68–9, 148 of Catholics, 63–5, 67, 68 in Northern Ireland, 16, 24 the ‘Scottish equation’, 15, 56, 68, 147–8 Irish immigration, 14–16, 30, 68–9, 103 Catholic Irish, 3, 5, 21, 30–1, 63, 100–6, 121 opposition to, 98, 100–6, 129 Protestant Irish, 14–16, 30 Irish nationalism, 20, 21, 24, 48, 90, 91–2, 100, 101 Irish republicanism, 11, 13, 30, 127 Italians in Scotland, 14 Italy, 18, 19, 108 Jamieson, Douglas, 127 Jenkins, Philip, 1–2 Jews, 45, 95, 138 John Paul II, 11 Johnston, Tom, 102 Joynson-Hicks, William, 101 Keith, Henry, 120 Kellas, James, 53 Keller, Adolf, 73–4 Kiely, Richard et al, 147 Kilsyth, 100 ‘Kirk’s Disgrace’ see Church of Scotland Kirkwood, David, 94 Knox, Ronald, 80 Knox, William, 95 Kormack’s Kaledonian Klan, 140 Ku Klux Klan, 140 Kuper, Simon, 10

182

Index

Labour party, 6, 50–7, 60, 70, 83, 93, 101–2, 103, 112, 121, 122, 124, 127, 128, 131–9, 143 birth control, 92, 94 Catholics and, 12, 50, 52–5, 59, 60, 89–95, 96–7, 101, 105, 121, 122, 127, 129, 130–1, 134–5 Protestants and, 6, 77, 95–7 secularism, 93, 121 Spanish Civil War, 94–5 temperance, 92, 121 Lanarkshire, 13, 36–8, 80, 94, 121 Education Authority, 117–18, 123 Education Committee, 120 Lancashire, 86 Larkhall, 12 Latin America, 4 Lee, Jennie, 94 Leo XIII, 79, 90, 110 Liberal Democrats, 13, 51–2, 57 Liberal party, 24, 72, 79, 90, 91, 96, 97, 99, 111, 114, 121, 124 Lithuanians in Scotland, 14 Liverpool Protestant Party, 86 Liverpool, 19, 113 mixed marriages, 86–7 religious disturbances, 81–2, 86–7 Lloyd George, David, 114 London, 19, 101 Eucharistic Congress (1908), 79, 96 Long, Harry, 126 Lowenthal, David, 70 Lynch, Peter, 22 MacCormick, John, 104 MacInnes Shaw, A.D., 81, 95, 96, 98, 99 Mackenzie, Compton, 97, 104, 126 MacMillan, James, 9, 15, 31, 41, 44, 146–7, 149–50 MacQuisten, Frederick, 102 Mannix, Daniel, 92 Marx, Karl, 149 Maxton, James, 94, 122 McCrone, David, 69, 70 McDonald, Joseph, 120, 138, 140–1 McGovern, John, 92 McGregor, W.M., 142 McIntyre, John, 11

McLean, Ian, 130 Methodists, 34–5 Mitchell, Rosslyn, 95–6 mixed marriage, 13, 36, 83–8, 110 Moderate party, 83, 121, 122, 128, 129, 131, 133–7, 143 Moore, Thomas, 98 Morgan, Edwin, 150 Mosley, Oswald, 83, 137–8 Motherwell, 20, 96, 99 Diocese of, 36, 60 Muir, Edwin, 104 Munro Act see Education Act (1918) Munro, Robert, 115–16, 122, 124 Murnin, Hugh, 127 Murphy, William, 19 Murray, Bill, 23 Muslims, 40 Myths, defined, 9–10 nationalism, 1, 5, 69 Ne Temere see Catholic Church Netherlands, 3, 18, 107 New Party, 83 New South Wales, 86 New Zealand Tablet, 93 New Zealand, 86, 108 North America, 3, 5, 14, 17, 19, 31, 140 Northern Ireland, 2, 4, 6, 12, 16, 24, 28, 29–30, 36–7, 58, 103, 143 Armagh, 36–7 attitudes to, 42–44, 47–8, 50 Belfast, 36, 81 Carrickfergus, 36 Down and Connor, 36 North Down, 36 religiosity in, 34, 35–7 religious disturbances, 81–2 Stormont Assembly, 5, 54, 60 Old Firm, 3–5, 10–11, 12–13, 41 Orange & Protestant Party, 98, 143 Orange Order, 3, 7, 9, 14–16, 32, 45, 50, 60, 92, 95, 99, 123, 126–7, 136 and Conservatives, 97–100, 122 and violence, 20, 81–2 Oxford Review of Education, 44–5

Index Paisley, 20 Paterson, Lindsay, 25, 124 Paton, H.J., 68–9 Peterhead, 102 Phillimore, John, 122 pillarisation, 18, 107, 108–10 Pius IX, 22, 110 Pius X, 79 Pius XI, 11, 74, 79, 90, 94 Portugal, 18, 19, 108 Power, William, 104 Presbyterian Church in Ireland, 12, 34–5, 42 Presbyterian reunion see Church of Scotland Primmer, Jacob, 127 prohibition see alcohol Protestant Action Society, 125, 126, 128–43 Protestantism competing traditions, 76, 97 global crisis, 6, 73–4, 78 Rangers football club, 3, 10–11, 12–13, 41, 42, 81, 150 see also Old Firm Ratcliffe, Alexander, 123, 127–30, 133, 135–6, 138 Reilly, Patrick, 15, 19, 26, 145–6 religion and politics, 2–3, 17–19, 49–71, 89–100, 107 religious conflict, perceptions of, 28, 32, 39–42, 47–8, 144–50 religious disadvantage, 25–6 religious discrimination, 25, 40, 79, 102, 129, 135, 145–6 religious identity cues, 12–13 religious marriages, 33, 35–7 religious separatism, 89, 96, 107, 108–10 see also pillarisation religious violence, 19–20, 80–3, 125, 138–43 Renfrewshire, 37, 98 Riddell, Neil, 94 Russian revolution, 77, 90 Scandinavia, 3 Scone, Lord, 127

183

Scotland on Sunday, 9 Scotsman, 77, 94, 101 Scottish Church Census, 37–9 Scottish Education Department, 111, 112, 113, 114, 118–20, 124 Scottish identity, 5, 7, 49, 54, 56–7, 63–70, 147–8, 150 as ‘left wing’, 69–70 Catholics and, 5, 54–5, 63–70, 80 changing forms, 148 constitutional change and, 7, 144, 146–7 ‘End of Scotland’, 72, 105 markers of, 147–8 Protestants and, 54, 58, 65–6, 67 the ‘Scottish equation’, 15, 56, 68, 147–8 Scottish National Party, 5, 49–58, 60, 70 and Catholics, 52, 54–7, 59, 63–4, 104 and Protestants, 54, 104 Scottish nationalism, 104 Scottish Office, 124, 140 Scottish Parliament, 1, 4, 5, 39, 44, 52, 57, 62, 144, 146–7, 149 Scottish Party, 103–4 Scottish Protestant League, 81, 123, 125, 127–37, 141, 142–3 Scurr, John, 93–4 Seawright, David, 53 sectarianism, 10, 40–1, 144–7, 148–50 definitions, 3, 22–4, 29, 32 ‘fog of anecdote’, 9, 26 ‘iceberg metaphor’, 70 popular accounts, 1–2, 9 secularisation, 1, 3, 4, 7, 11–12, 25, 28, 31, 32–6, 37–9, 48, 50, 80, 88, 144, 148 secularism, 30, 44, 47, 80, 107, 112, 124, 146 Sewell, Dennis, 1–2 sexual morality, 47, 92–3 Sinn Fein see Irish republicanism Skinnider, Martha, 115 Smith, Joan, 79 Soviet Union, 92 Spain, 18, 94–5, 108, 148 Sprot, Alexander, 96–7, 98

184

Index

Stewart, George, 73–4 Stirling and Falkirk Burghs, 127 Stirlingshire Education Authority, 118–20, 124 Stockport, 19 Struthers, John, 111 Sunday schools, 33 Switzerland, 3, 18 Syllabus of Errors, 22 Tebbit, Norman, 68 temperance see alcohol Templeton, William, 92, 98 Thatcher, Margaret, 55, 56 Thomson, George Malcolm, 103–4 Thomson, Robert, 127 Times, 83 Tranent, 120 Treble, James, 107 Ulster Loyalism, 3, 48 Ulster Unionism, 16, 48, 50, 96 unemployment, 72, 78, 121, 135, 137 Unionist Party (in Scotland) see Conservative party United Free Church, 75, 76, 141, 142

United Irish League, 91–2 United Reform Church, 35 United States, 50, 73, 101 Catholics in, 2, 108 Religious antagonisms, 17, 19 Urwin, Ian, 53, 59 ‘Use & Wont’, 121, 122 Wales, 3, 5, 33, 35–6, 42, 76, 94, 103, 114, 121 Walker, Graham, 9, 54 Walls, Patricia, 26 Watson, Frederick, 86, 87 Wells, H.G., 93 West Yorkshire, 19 Western Isles, 37–8 Westminster, 61–2, 137 Wheatley, John, 91, 92, 93 Whifflet , 117–8 White, John, 100 Whyte, John, 18 Wigtownshire, 15 Williams, Rory, 13, 26 Williamson, Cliff, 103, 108–9 Winning, Tom, 12, 44 Worsley, Peter, 148

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