The Scots, the Irish, the English, and multiculturalism

Howard Sutherland writes:

Canny, those Scots. Your correspondent’s observations ring true with me, especially about the Irish and the Tories. Wariness re Asians and blacks would seem naturally to follow.
Your post about the true nature of the Scots reminded me of something. Irishmen flooding Glasgow in the late 19th century made Glasgow a largely Irish city, to the consternation of Scotsmen. It helps explain why Edinburgh and Glasgow are so different. Edinburgh is still a Scottish city. Similarly, Liverpool is the English Glasgow (i.e., England’s Irish city—all of the Fab Four were ethnically Irish), and for the same reason: shipbuilding jobs on the Irish Sea within easy reach of John Bull’s Other Island. Precious few ships to build now, but the Irish remain.

What I was reminded of was a ditty that Glasgow Rangers fans (Scottish and overwhelmingly Kirk of Scotland) would sing to taunt Glasgow Celtic fans (largely Irish, at least in origin, and overwhelmingly Roman Catholic) at their cross-town football matches. To understand it, one has to remember that Bobby Sands was an IRA man who starved himself to death in the Maze prison in 1981. Here it goes, as best I remember it, to the tune of She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain:

Do you want a chicken dinner, Bobby Sands?
Do you want a chicken dinner, Bobby Sands?
Do you want a chicken dinner, you filthy Fenian f***er;
Do you want a chicken dinner, Bobby Sands?

Friendly stuff, eh? As someone who has a lot of Scot in him, I applaud a certain defensive ethnocentrism among homeland Scots. Now that Scotland has, thanks to “New” Labour, what Billy Connolly calls the “Wee Pretendy Parliament,” the Scottish Executive has been trying to attract immigration to Scotland. Asian, African, jihadist… Scotland’s enlightened social engineers don’t care. Seems the real Scots do. Good for them.

The Scots could teach their English cousins a lesson. Unfortunately, part of the reason so many Englishmen are geldings today is the success windy Scottish and Welsh Leftists have had in suppressing any national feeling among the English as a presumed threat to the ethnic sensibilities of the “Celtic Fringe” (which, of course, includes Ireland). In the same way that white Americans are browbeaten about blacks and Indians, the English are constantly browbeaten for their ancestors’ roughness with their neighbors.

It is very short-sighted (and so very Labourite) to encourage multiculturalism among your next door neighbors and closest kin if what you want to achieve is a lack of it at home. The borders are completely porous.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 02, 2005 10:15 AM | Send