Article ‘The Rise and Decline (?) of Anti-Catholicism in Scotland’

I was fascinated by your article, Mark, it’s incredibly well written, informative and possibly your best article in the last few years.

I hope it reaches a far wider audience than FF.

Re your pet topic: when/why did we become a Protestant club? Was it in response to Ireland’s position regarding WW1 and the events of 1916 or does it go as far back as a local response to the formation of an Irish Catholic football team?

Or are there other reasons? Our history always strikes me as muddy on this issue.
 
Steve Snedden said:
I was fascinated by your article, Mark, it’s incredibly well written, informative and possibly your best article in the last few years.

I hope it reaches a far wider audience than FF.

Re your pet topic: when/why did we become a Protestant club? Was it in response to Ireland’s position regarding WW1 and the events of 1916 or does it go as far back as a local response to the formation of an Irish Catholic football team?

Or are there other reasons? Our history always strikes me as muddy on this issue.
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We were a Protestant club from the start. The tripe about Harland & Wolff buying a yard in Glasgow etc is just that - tripe.

By the time Celtic got off the ground and invited us to play them in their first ever game we were already the country's best supported club.
 
mdingwall said:
We were a Protestant club from the start. The tripe about Harland & Wolff buying a yard in Glasgow etc is just that - tripe.

By the time Celtic got off the ground and invited us to play them in their first ever game we were already the country's best supported club.
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While not disputing your assertions in any way Mark, they do seem to contrast with what most people think (perhaps wrongly)?

Just wondered what the evidence is on Rangers being a "Protestant club" in the early days? Obviously it wasn't exclusive since there were several catholic players?
 
laudofan said:
While not disputing your assertions in any way Mark, they do seem to contrast with what most people think (perhaps wrongly)?

Just wondered what the evidence is on Rangers being a "Protestant club" in the early days? Obviously it wasn't exclusive since there were several catholic players?
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Call me an oddballl - but I like facts.
I’ve never seen much evidence that for the first 30 years or so there were any Catholic players on the books - then we had a wee flurry of them for a very short time.
 
Well written article. I temd to agree with most of the conclusions. It reinforces the strong narritive that ’anti-catholism’ is pedalled only by those confined within the parkhead gates, together with certain tabloids, BBC and Clyde radio.
 
mdingwall said:
Call me an oddballl - but I like facts.
I’ve never seen much evidence that for the first 30 years or so there were any Catholic players on the books - then we had a wee flurry of them for a very short time.
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As I say, I'm absolutely not disputing anything you say, just curious.

I presume there was never anything "in writing" (e.g. as Celtic had about being "a club for young Catholic men" etc.) and that the assertion that Rangers were a "Protestant club from the start" is based on there being no evidence of players being Catholics?
 
For all the propaganda from the RC bigots that Scotland is a dark, bigoted, anti-Catholic country, the historical facts just don't support that. The Reformation after 1560 was a bloodless revolution and in the last 500 years only one RC - John Ogilvie - was executed. You could argue that was for not swearing allegiance to the king. Of course they had to make a saint out of him.

If you listen to their bullshit they think they were treated worse than the Jews in Nazi Germany. I blame the schools.

I'm tired of their eternal victim propaganda and challenge it at every opportunity.
 
EverGer said:
It baffles me stuff like this still gets discussed etc now a days. I honestly couldn’t tell you what religion about 99% of people I know and work with are. It’s 2019 and people still discuss these fake stories in a book.
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I could tell you the religion of almost everyone I know. Sadly, it’s the plastic Irish, crucifix wearing, loud mouth Celtic supporting ones that like to tell the world that what they are
Thank god I was born free.
 
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"Would that some of those most passionate about the subject (institutional anti-Catholicism in Scotland) had the benefit of such a fascinating – and conclusive – event."

I take it that Haggerty wasn't there then?
 
Burgos St Bear said:
For all the propaganda from the RC bigots that Scotland is a dark, bigoted, anti-Catholic country, the historical facts just don't support that. The Reformation after 1560 was a bloodless revolution and in the last 500 years only one RC - John Ogilvie - was executed. You could argue that was for not swearing allegiance to the king. Of course they had to make a saint out of him.

If you listen to their bullshit they think they were treated worse than the Jews in Nazi Germany. I blame the schools.

I'm tired of their eternal victim propaganda and challenge it at every opportunity.
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John Ogilvie wasn’t executed because he was a Catholic.

He was a Jesuit priest who entered Scotland in disguise and under a false name. He then attempted to enter the King’s company - he was a spy and widely believed to be a potential assassin.
 
I enjoyed reading that Mark, cheers.

Was the sham organisation Call It Out mentioned at the event at all?

I'm sure they will think they know better or conveniently don't want to know where facts and legitimate scrutiny are present.
 
Burgos St Bear said:
For all the propaganda from the RC bigots that Scotland is a dark, bigoted, anti-Catholic country, the historical facts just don't support that. The Reformation after 1560 was a bloodless revolution...
.
..

If you listen to their bullshit they think they were treated worse than the Jews in Nazi Germany. I blame the schools.

I'm tired of their eternal victim propaganda and challenge it at every opportunity.
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I agree with your opinion on the victim propaganda. However although its a nice romantic idea that after 1560 was a mainly bloodless revolution unfortunately its not one that's based in any kind of reality. To highlight and dispel this victim myth its useful to familiarise ones self with the history of Europe starting slowly with the counter reformation beginning with, to cite but few examples, the Council of Trent 1545-63, the Excommunication of Elizabeth I 1570, Roman Inquisition, Imperial Diets, to the Patent of Toleration 1781 extending somewhat into the 19th century. By which time literally millions of protestant/people of other faith had been kidnapped, displaced, tortured and murdered and I'm hardly even touching on the French wars of religion 1562-1598 approx 3 million deaths or the thirty years war where the religious divide in central Europe, although apparent, became less defined approx 8 million deaths.

So no not particularly bloodless if they know their histories.
 
Graham - Gersnet Pod said:
I agree with your opinion on the victim propaganda. However although its a nice romantic idea that after 1560 was a mainly bloodless revolution unfortunately its not one that's based in any kind of reality. To highlight and dispel this victim myth its useful to familiarise ones self with the history of Europe starting slowly with the counter reformation beginning with, to cite but few examples, the Council of Trent 1545-63, the Excommunication of Elizabeth I 1570, Roman Inquisition, Imperial Diets, to the Patent of Toleration 1781 extending somewhat into the 19th century. By which time literally millions of protestant/people of other faith had been kidnapped, displaced, tortured and murdered and I'm hardly even touching on the French wars of religion 1562-1598 approx 3 million deaths or the thirty years war where the religious divide in central Europe, although apparent, became less defined approx 8 million deaths.

So no not particularly bloodless if they know their histories.
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Yes, I agree with you regarding the treatment of Protestants in other countries but the Protestant Reformation in Scotland was essentially bloodless.
 
mdingwall said:
John Ogilvie wasn’t executed because he was a Catholic.

He was a Jesuit priest who entered Scotland in disguise and under a false name. He then attempted to enter the King’s company - he was a spy and widely believed to be a potential assassin.
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Yes, he was an agent of the counter reformation and an enemy of the state who got the standard treatment for that time. I guess my point was that it is testimony to the Scottish reformers and Scottish people that a Protestant revolution was achieved without any significant persecution unlike many countries in Europe.
 
I was under the impression that Rangers were a Protestant club from the start simply because Scotland was on the whole a Protestant country,It was just a case of a case of numbers rather than a club decision.
If for example you go to a majority R.C. country it would be more than likely most clubs will be 100% R.C.
 
An interesting article and event.

On a specific point - has anyone ever been to an event where said Q&A hasn't been a bunch of white dudes making a point of never asking a simple question?
 
Have Irish Catholic emigrants to Scotland suffered ethnic cleansing and mass murder as has befallen Protestant Scots in Ireland, from the massacres of Scottish Protestants in Ulster in 1641, to the ethnic cleansing of Protestants in the Irish Republic post-partition after 1922, to the ethnic cleansing of Protestants in Londonderry from 1969 ? No serious historian could compare both migrations across the Irish Sea down the centuries and claim Irish Catholic victimhood in Scotland.

Of course, there would have been occasions of employment discrimination against the Irish in Scotland, just as there would be in any other country where a local would most likely be offered a job before a stranger. Claims of institutionalised anti-Catholicism in Scotland are, frankly, just ludicrous.
 
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A definitive paper by an academic into the Harland & Wolf connection with Rangers needs to be written. Graham Walker of QuB springs to mind as an ideal choice to research it.
 
What would be interesting from my point of view would be to take a straw poll of people who strongly suspect that anti-catholicism is alive and well and thriving in Scotland and ask them questions about identity. For example do they identify first and foremost by religion? Race? Nationality? Political persuasion? Etc, etc. That would be quite revealing. Further still, ranking the answers by importance would give greater insight as to whether or not people are conditioned to feel the way that they do by external influences.

This might give a clue as to how manifest inherent feelings of discrimination are formed.
 
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The Tom Devine who, maybe 10 years ago, in an article in Scotland on Sunday equated being Catholic in modern day Scotland to the life of black people in the Southern states of the USA in the late 50s and early 60s....

Good article Mark. Friend of mine who is Catholic from Moodiesburn, living in England for 25 years, was talking about segregated schools. Anachronistic is his view. 'If they think that it is breeding a new generation of church goers then, judging by my family, they couldn't be more wrong'

But they are breeding bigots who are taught to feel that everyone else is not as good as them
 
Another point - a couple of people in the audience and on the panel mentioned how James McMillan has heavily backtracked in his "Scotland's Shame" stuff from years ago.
 
mdingwall said:
Another point - a couple of people in the audience and on the panel mentioned how James McMillan has heavily backtracked in his "Scotland's Shame" stuff from years ago.
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It's interesting to see that he has now focused his ire on the SNP and nationalists. I wonder how much this has influenced his view.
 
LOL 133 said:
Is this the same Tom Devine that claimed on national television that sectarianism in Scotland was anti catholic?
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The papists never use the term catholicism, they always use the term catholic, to personalise the subject and therefore make it discriminatory.
We should always give it its correct name Roman catholicism when discussing religion.
They also use the term catholic(meaning universal) to describe themselves, whereas the term actually applies to all Christian churches
 
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Excellent article and I wish I'd been able to attend. I've said on here before that Anti Catholic discrimination has been great exaggerated and, in fact, the way that we Presbyterian Scots treated a large influx of immigrants of a different culture was exemplary: We housed, clothed and fed them and gave them employment.

This was the right thing to do and, knowing what I know now, I'd still advocate the same action. We were absolutely the best of neighbours and we had the right approach.

What sticks in my craw is that we're, somehow, now being made out to be the bad guys by the more lunatic fringe and that to declare yourself a Protestant and Unionist in Scotland is like carrying a leper's bell.

This is a phenomenon of the last 20 years and one I'd love Tam Devine, Steve Bruce et al to give some consideration to.
 
Tim Hunter said:
The papists never use the term catholicism, they always use the term catholic, to personalise the subject and therefore make it discriminatory.
We should always give it its correct name Roman catholicism when discussing religion.
They also use the term catholic(meaning universal) to describe themselves, whereas the term actually applies to all Christian churches
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Two excellent points I'll keep in mind for future use.
 
TCWNS1872 said:
What would be interesting from my point of view would be to take a straw poll of people who strongly suspect that anti-catholicism is alive and well and thriving in Scotland and ask them questions about identity. For example do they identify first and foremost by religion? Race? Nationality? Political persuasion? Etc, etc. That would be quite revealing. Further still, ranking the answers by importance would give greater insight as to whether or not people are conditioned to feel the way that they do by external influences.

This might give a clue as to how manifest inherent feelings of discrimination are formed.
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Have a look at the research by Tajfel et al into "minimal groups". They found the very act of segregating people led to discrimination. The really intetesting point about their research was that the groups themselves did not even exist.
 
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