Revising the Irish in Scotland: The Irish in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scotland

Abstract

This chapter examines the role of the Irish in Scotland, in order to reassess currently held views of the part which they played in the recent history of Scotland. It then addresses the historiography of the Irish in Scotland, sectarianism, religion, politics, employment and assimilation, and finally it seeks to place the Irish in Scotland in the context of the global Irish diaspora. The Irish had a huge impact on Scottish politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To a large extent this was due to the important place of the Irish Question in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. Protestant or Unionist Irish immigrants had a close association with the Conservatives, as did the Orange Order. Working-class Protestants, many of whom had an Ulster background, helped to establish the Tories as a strong party in twentieth-century Scotland. In the twentieth century the Irish Catholic community in Scotland has become closely associated with the Labour Party.