III. Irish Immigrants in Scotland: Their Priests, Politics and Parochial Life

Abstract

In the belief that the immigrant Irish were not merely degraded but degrading, and in support of a cataclysmic theory of history towards which he was advancing, Friedrich Engels in 1845 was convinced that “the Irish immigrants in England have added an explosive force to English society which will have significant consequences in due course’. By ‘English society’ Engels intended that of Scotland also, but a century later the historian of die Irish in Scotland, Dr James Handley, was writing: ‘Whether die immigrant has revolted instinctively or not against die bleakness of Scottish industrialism … the fact remains mat he has not made his presence effectively felt among the forces that attempt to control it’. If, however, Engels expected too much of the Irish, Dr Handley appears to have done diem less than justice, although his use of the word ‘effectively’ may have a special significance for him.