If you know your history

 

If you know your history

Back in the year 1830, an Irish bare-knuckle boxer by the name of Simon Byrne fought a Glasgow man called Alexander McKay. The bout took place in England and was, even by the standards of the time, a brutal affair. The two fighters slugged it out for 47 bloody rounds until McKay was felled by a punch to the throat. Alas, the poor man died from his injuries the following day. When news of McKay’s death reached Scotland, there was a simmering anger in some circles which found release in attacks on the Irish community there. In Dundee a bar room brawl caused by a dispute over the fight led to widespread rioting. Thousands stormed into the Irish part of town and brutally assaulted any Irish person they could find. The Catholic chapel was destroyed and three people were killed and over 200 injured. A contemporary account of the disorder stated…

‘After putting any Irishman they could find to rout, the mob then proceeded into town and proceeded into the houses of all of those they knew to be natives of the sister kingdom (Ireland)  dragging them out of their beds and beating them mercilessly, smashing all their windows and even carrying away and burning the very wooden stairs that led to their habitation. Tuesday night was most alarming, the mob parading the streets and no Irishman durst be seen, if recognised they were instantly knocked down and maltreated, the Police not daring to interfere with so numerous a mob. On Wednesday 18,000 rioters gathered at the cross when the rioters proceeded to the Roman Catholic Chapel which was partially destroyed, breaking all the windows and other articles in the interior. The people assembled again on Thursday, seeking out the poor Irish and chasing them from the town from which many were glad to escape with their lives.’

Similar scenes took place in Glasgow, though the much larger Irish community there was better able to defend itself. After two days of street battles, the military were called out to quell the disorder although they merely added fuel to the fire by behaving in a less than impartial manner. One newspaper report of the stime stated…

The disturbances in the High Street and Saltmarket were attended with very fatal results, with the death of no less than four men, one of them a foot soldier, having lost their lives. When the dead body of the soldier was carried to the Barracks, the whole of his Regiment turned out into the street, adding frightfully to the previous disorder. The Dragoons, on the requisition of the Lord Provost, were now employed to quell the riot of the citizens and the tumult of the foot soldiers, and to apprehend the persons composing the mobs, and the murderers. A great number of persons were in consequence taken into custody, and lodged in the jail and other places of security. Before the tumult was effectually quelled, however, and while the exasperation continued, the mob had repaired to Great Clyde Street, and there broke the windows of the Roman Catholic Chapel, and otherwise destroyed that building.’

All of this came back to me as I watched the relatively small-scale disturbances in Glasgow caused by a mob claiming to be concerned citizens out to defend our women and children from migrants. As with the attacks on the Irish community almost 200 years earlier, there was that classic piece of mental gymnastics all racists demonstrate, when they blame an entire community for the actions of the few. So it was that random people of colour were insulted and assaulted by a mob chanting ‘send them home.’

One great irony of this was seen in Glasgow Green, where one of the mob attacking anti-racist demonstrators was wearing a Celtic shirt. This took place in the same park were an anti-Irish mob engaged in serious rioting as they tried to break into the Irish district in 1830. The same park where the Billy Boys clashed with the Irish gangs between the wars. If the rage filled man in the Celtic shirt knew his history, he’d perhaps have more empathy for the migrant community in Glasgow. The newspaper report of the 1830 riots could have been speaking about the 2026 disturbances when it said…

‘Early in the morning there were many regular pugilistic contests in the Green, and notwithstanding the difficulty of apprehending delinquents in such as situation, the officers succeeded in securing a number of the ringleaders.’

The trouble with less intelligent people is that they try to make you fit into the stereotypes they already have in their ill-informed minds. Anti-racists are labelled as ‘antifa’ and those with more enlightened approaches to interacting with people coming to our country are described as traitors.  Of course, every sensible democracy should have debates about immigration but the naked racism we saw in Glasgow is unacceptable. The attacks on people based on their skin colour, are a stain on our country and need to stop. We who live in the city can see plainly who is behind much of it. They’ve merely switched their target for the time being.

As for the man in the Celtic shirt who was standing with the worst elements of our society, I’d start by reading a history of Celtic. Maybe then you’ll realise that your actions go against everything this football club stands for. You don’t get to be a Celtic fan and a racist.  As Indiana Jones said to a Nazi character in one of his films, ‘maybe you should stop burning books and try reading some.’

Brass money and wooden shoes

 

Brass money and wooden shoes

A good friend of mine took a trip to Donegal a week or so back and found the place retained that windswept beauty which makes it a popular destination for tourists as well as those with family connections there. The trip home on the ferry wasn’t quite as relaxing though as many of the passengers were orange folk making their way to Scotland for the annual parade in Glasgow. We’re often told that the order is a fraternal organisation which celebrates the religious and civil freedoms brought about by the Williamite victories in a war 336 years ago. With a total lack of self-awareness, they treated their fellow passengers to such folk classics as ‘no Pope of Rome’ and the ‘Famine song.’ It seems those religious freedoms and liberties don’t extend to their Catholic neighbours.

As with many facets of history, the mythology created by the propagandists of the day are believed more readily by some than the hard historical facts of what actually occurred. When William of Orange, a very capable battlefield general, took to the field in that far off war, he was facing his father-in-law James II, having married James’ daughter, Mary in 1677. James was allied to the French King Louis XV, known as the ‘Sun King’ and the man who built the magnificent palace at Versailles. Louis was an absolutist monarch who was trying to control the power of the Catholic church in France and expand French influence in Europe. This led to a power struggle in Europe which became known as the ‘Nine years war.’  Pope Innocent XI sought an alliance with, among others, William of Orange, in order to hinder Louis’ ambitions. Indeed, the pope came from a banking family which actually helped fund William’s war with James II. So it was that when news of William’s victory at the Boyne reached Rome, Pope Innocent ordered a mass of thanksgiving. It was more important to him that the French King’s ambitions be curbed that James should win back his throne.

When James’ army was decisively defeated at the battle of Aughrim in 1691; a bloodbath that left 7000 dead, his cause in Ireland was lost. He fled to the continent leaving the Irish who supported him to their fate. This earned him the nickname among the Irish of ‘Séamus an cac.’ (James the shit.) Once William’s position of King of England, Scotland and Ireland had been secured, his supporters controlled the narrative and the tales of his glorious victory were spun. He never did ride into battle on a white horse- that made any commander a conspicuous target for the enemy. He was a brave and able commander, far more so than James but the white horse legend was a theatrical device to portray him as a Christian saviour. In a recent TV programme presented by Lucy Worsley, she said, ‘A white horse heralded the arrival of a divine conqueror or even Christ himself.’

You may recall a few years ago that some young folk in Bristol toppled the statue of a slave trader named Edward Colston and pushed it into the river. During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the West Indies and the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey. Colston was a fabulously wealthy man who gifted King William £1000 worth of shares in the Royal Africa Company. (about £200,000 today) It should be said that monarchs from Elizabeth I to George IV were involved in this sordid trade. Modern research suggests that by 1807 the British crown was the biggest buyer of enslaved people on Earth. As the company prospered, the king received a healthy income from this iniquitous trade.  Of course, we tend to judge people from the past through modern eyes but it is still disconcerting that the King of England was making money from the slave trade. When the trade was finally outlawed in the British empire in the 1830s, the government paid out £20 million in compensation (about £17 billion today) not to the freed slaves, but to the ‘owners’ who lost their ‘property.’  This was 40% of the UK budget in 1837.

This article isn’t a clumsy attempt to discredit William but merely to show that myth and history merge into each other until some can’t discern the difference. There is an Orange toast which goes; ‘to the glorious, pious and immortal memory of the great and good King William, who saved us from popery, slavery, knavery, brass money and wooden shoes.’ In reality he didn’t save hundreds of thousands of Africans from slavery but they’d rather forget that part. So too his alliance with Pope Innocent, but then mythology has always been more important than reality to some. William is the good guy riding on the white horse coming to save us, isn’t he?  

Like him or not he exerts great influence on British and Irish history, his colour is even on the flag of the Irish nation and his image adorns the walls of more than a few homes in north-east Ireland. I wonder what he’d make of it all today? He might echo the words of Voltaire who said, ‘History is nothing more than a pack of tricks we play on the dead.’