The Tower of Silence

The Tower of Silence

There was a poignant ceremony in the east end of Glasgow last week as the memorial to An Gorta Mor was unveiled in the grounds of St Mary’s church. Sculptor John McCarron’s work ‘The Tower of Silence’ will stand in mute witness to the horrors inflicted on the poor of Ireland in the mid nineteenth century. Through a combination of heartless indifference, appalling racist attitudes and the ugly face of unrestrained capitalism, the greatest empire in the world at the time allowed over one million of its people to die in a catastrophe they had the power to halt. Ignoring centuries of mismanagement, underdevelopment and the exploitation of England’s first colony, Charles Trevelyan stated with brutal indifference…

‘The famine has been sent by God to teach the Irish a lesson. The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.’

The Great Hunger is the defining moment in Ireland’s relationship with England. It casts a long shadow and made up the minds of many in Ireland that the country would be better freed from the colonial control of London. The so called ‘famine’ has played its role in defining the identities of the two great communities of Ireland. For Catholics, it marks the low point of English indifference to their suffering and has left an enduring mark on their psyche. For the descendants of those Protestants sent to colonise the north east of Ireland in the years after 1609, the famine is portrayed as a Catholic catastrophe which they avoided due to their thrift, hard work and God’s grace. The truth though is far more complex than either of those scenarios.

Recent research into population trends in Ireland suggest that the Great Hunger had a major impact on poor Protestants as well as their Catholic neighbours. Ian Gregory and Niall Cunninghame’s work, ‘The judgement of God on an indolent and unself-reliant people’?: the impact of the Great Irish Famine on Ireland's religious demography,’ uses Census records and information from church records to establish how the famine affected both communities. Their findings on the loss of population in Ireland in the mid nineteenth century are stark indeed…

‘In the period between 1834 and 1861 the population of Ireland fell by 27%. This was driven primarily by Famine-related deaths and emigration, although fertility decline may also have been relevant.  Subdivide this by religion, comparing data from the 1834 Commission and the 1861 census and superficially, these results seem to support the idea that Catholics were the main victims of the Famine. Of the 2.15 million people lost over the period, 90.9% were Catholic, and for every Protestant lost 7.94 Catholics were lost. This ratio is, however, slightly misleading as before the Famine Catholics outnumbered Protestants by 4.24 to one.’

The population of Catholics and Protestants were both significantly affected by the great hunger, both in terms of deaths and people leaving to try and find a better life elsewhere.  The study looked at areas of north east Ireland with higher Protestant populations and found that both communities were hit hard by the catastrophe…

‘Where there were significant Protestant populations these were often at least as badly affected by the Famine as Catholics. The nine dioceses that were more than 15% Protestant in 1834 contained 81.6% of the Protestant population. These dioceses experienced a 15.9% decline in their total populations between 1834 and 1861 which, while not quite as high as the 27.7% losses experienced across Ireland as a whole, was still little short of catastrophic. Importantly, these losses were almost evenly divided between the two religions: the Catholic population dropped by 16.9% while the Protestant population fell by 14.5% suggesting that in these areas the Protestant population was as vulnerable to the Famine as Catholics.’

The famine affected the rural poor more severely than the urban dwellers. In the north east of Ireland there was more industry and work to be had and this soaked up some of the impoverished excess population from the countryside. The lack of industrial development in Ireland as a whole though meant there were few options for the poor in the rural south. The deliberate lack of industry in the south and west of Ireland, combined with a growing population of rural poor living on the margins, contributed to the impending disaster. That being said, the government of the day did too little too late to alleviate the disaster their misrule had contributed to. It is recorded that food was being exported out of Ireland throughout the years of the great hunger, often under armed guard.

Gregory and Cunningham’s study is clear that the famine was indiscriminate in who it affected. Despite much mythology and overt use of the famine in political discourse, it seems clear that it had an impact on Irish Protestants which many today would be surprised to find…

‘Far from being a Catholic famine, the Great Irish Famine was a famine of the rural poor. Over much of Ireland this group was predominantly Catholic, and thus the Catholic population was disproportionately affected. However, the impact on Protestants increased in areas with larger Protestant populations to an extent that in mixed areas it is impossible to say which denomination was more severely affected. As a result, the Famine and its immediate aftermath did not result in major changes to Ireland's religious geography. The Famine remains a defining catastrophe in Ireland's history and has an enduring power to reinforce the stereotypes from which both communities continue to construct their own self-identities. The experiences of the two communities were more similar than either would tend to assert.’

There was an incident in Belfast a few years ago when a Loyalist Flute band stopped outside St Patrick’s Catholic church and marched in a circle playing that odious and fairly moronic ‘famine song.’ Apart from the absurdity of the descendants of those ‘planters’ sent to colonise Ulster telling the native Irish to ‘go home’ there was also a complete lack of awareness of the fact that many of their own people perished in the famine. As studies have shown, the great hunger claimed the lives of at least a million people in Ireland and caused a further million to leave the country. It is thought that around 100,000 of those who were lost were Irish Protestants.

An Gorta Mor was a catastrophe we should remember with honesty and reverence for those lost regardless of their religious denomination. Some, such as historian Tom Devine, have questioned the placing of the Tower of Silence in the grounds of a Catholic church but St Mary’s has played an important role in the story of the Glasgow Irish and as the memorial’s sculptor John McCarron has said, the sculpture commemorates all of those lost, of all faiths and none.

What would be a fitting memorial to those who perished in the great hunger would be the end of any petty squabbling and a coming together to remember a truly catastrophic event which affected all communities. As for those who play or sing ‘the famine song,’ perhaps they lack the intelligence to see the absurdity and ignorance of the lyrics. Or perhaps they are lost in tribalism where mythology is more important than facts.

The poor of Ireland, exploited and marginalised, did not die because there was no food in the land; they died because they had no money to buy it. That the forces of commerce would rather let people die in their hundreds of thousands than lose money was and remains the great evil of the famine years.

 

Oh God that bread should be so dear and human flesh so cheap.

RIP all victims of An Gorta Mor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Bonfire of the Vanities

 

 

Bonfire of the Vanities

Far too many football blog sites are exercises in confirmation bias and often fail to distinguish between what is factual and what they would like to be true. Of course, we all know that football is a game of fierce passions and rivalries and supporters often only see the best in themselves and the worst in their rivals. In the never-ending war of words, truth is often the first casualty.

Few things have been debated as fiercely or with as much passion as the liquidation of Rangers FC in 2012. It was a staggering event at the time and looking back it remains incredible that such a well-supported club could be so badly mismanaged that it crashed and burned on the bonfire of David Murray’s vanity. The hubris of the Murray years should have been brought to a halt by the world financial crash of 2008. With banks failing, a debt-ridden business like Rangers FC should have heeded the warnings. Some were comforted by the idea that Rangers were too big, too important to fail but as many big High Street businesses found, no one is too big to fail.

The repercussions of Rangers’ liquidation are still felt today as supporters argue over what it actually meant for the club itself. One of the gambling companies which advertises its dubious wares on social media got more than it bargained for when it posted an add showing Steven Gerrard in front of the number 55 with the accompanying text; ‘Just 9 years after being demoted to the lowest tier of Scottish football Rangers are champions.’ Fans of Celtic and other clubs were quick to tell the firm involved that Rangers were not demoted but rather the Ibrox club was liquidated. The summer of 2012 saw the assets of the dead organisation purchased Charles Green’s Sevco company as many players exercised their right to walk away and join other clubs.

We then had a period where the governing bodies of Scottish football tied themselves in knots trying to accommodate the new Rangers into the league. When revelations about the use of EBTs and the attempts to hide them from the relevant authorities came to light, there was understandable anger among many in Scottish football. What some saw as industrial scale cheating and financial doping was seemingly being swept under the carpet in the haste to place the new Rangers in the top division. Supporters from Annan to Aberdeen were in open revolt and there was a vote on whether the ‘phoenix’ club should be allowed into the top division. When this vote came down firmly on the ‘No’ side, it was then suggested they were placed in the second tier of Scottish football. Once more there was a groundswell of opinion that the new entity should start in the bottom tier of the game as any other new club would. Money though seemed to be trumping morality and at a meeting at Hampden to discuss this proposal, the football authorities tried to force the issue. Raith Rovers Chairman, the late Turnbull Hutton, spoke for many when he said to the waiting press outside Hampden…

‘We are being bullied, railroaded and lied to. We are being lied to by the Scottish FA and the SPL. We are being threatened and bullied. It is not football as I know it. It was a ridiculous document which came out last week whereby the threat was there that if you don’t vote for an acceptance into the First Division, a breakaway SPL2 will come along and those who didn’t vote wouldn’t be invited. What kind of game are we running here? It is corrupt.’

Elements in the Scottish media printed scare storied of ‘financial meltdown’ and one even talked in hugely exaggerated terms of several clubs dying within weeks if the new Rangers were refused entry to the championship. The tattered credibility of the sporting press in Scotland suffered greatly in that era as elements couldn’t or wouldn’t present a balanced view of what was occurring in Scottish football. Yes, there was intimidation of journalists and even threats to their safety but with some honourable exceptions, they really were posted missing at a vital time in the history of Scottish football. Within a year of Rangers demise which was heralded with headlines about the death of the club and the end of its history, the fourth estate was engaged in historical revisionism of the sort holocaust deniers would be proud of.

Jim Traynor, a bellicose pressman of the time, summed up this patently hypocritical revisionism when he had a change of heart after the new Rangers employed him. He said in 2012…

‘No matter how Charles Green tries to dress it up a newco equals a new club. When the CVA was thrown out Rangers as we know them died.’

Once employed at Ibrox and with his monthly salary dependent on towing the party line, he stated without any hint of embarrassment..

‘Why is it so many are continuing to write and broadcast that this is a new club when it is just the owners who are new. Is it a basic lack of intelligence or something more sinister?’

One fan who saw the plight Rangers were in before their eventual liquidation in 2012, bet that the club would be relegated with bookmakers Coral. When Coral refused to pay out in the aftermath of Rangers collapse and the new entity beginning life in the fourth tier of Scottish football, the matter ended up in the courts. After a hearing which looked into circumstances of Rangers demise and how the new entity ended up beginning life in the fourth tier of Scottish football, the judge ruled that Rangers had not been relegated and found in favour of the bookmakers.

All of these arguments about whether Rangers as it currently exists is a new or old club are in some respects a smoke screen hiding the real issue here. The EBT scheme which saw Rangers pay tens of millions of tax-free pounds to players they might not otherwise have tempted to Ibrox was and remains the real bone of contention. To be clear, these payments were not illegal but as the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled, they were payments for playing for Rangers and as such should have been subject to tax. For Rangers to pay players in such a manner and to record it in side letters they subsequently hid from the SFA, broke player registration rules. As such players who represented Rangers whilst receiving EBT cash were in breach of SFA rules which state all contracts and payments be recorded with the governing body. It stretches credulity to ask us to believe that Rangers expected scores of footballers to pay back the EBT money they received. The money paid was not loans but wages, and those at in control at Ibrox at the time knew that.

The failure of the Scottish Football authorities to accept the magnitude and gravity of the EBT scandal and to apply the rules on playing improperly registered players demonstrated, at best, a lack of moral fibre. Perhaps they just wanted it all to go away and engage in damage limitation.

The new club/old club debate will probably rumble on for years. There are so many contradictions and vested interests which muddy the waters. Rangers will doubtless celebrate ‘150’ years of the club next year but when sued by a man abused as a boy by former coach Gordon Neely, referred him to the administrators of the old Rangers. If they are the same club then perhaps they should accept moral responsibility for what went on at the old club?

I hesitated to use the above example as I abhor the point scoring which goes on in Scottish football in relation to abuse scandals at various clubs. Let me therefore balance that paragraph by adding that Celtic too has a moral duty to those affected by what occurred at the Celtic Boys Club.

In the final analysis the dichotomy is a simple one; supporters will say that the soul of their club lies with them and can never die. Legally clubs can die as Third Lanark and others proved but what happened to Rangers in 2012 will probably be argued over forever. The mythology of a famous old club being kicked when it was down appeals to some, just as the idea of an arrogant and corrupt institution collapsing under the weight of its own arrogance and greed appeals to others. There is no doubt that many Rangers fans are of the opinion that they were unjustly treated in 2012 and a myth of jealousy, hatred and victimhood has grown in their minds.

In a post truth world where objective facts seem less persuasive than appeals to emotion, it remains for each of us to make up our own minds about the past. As time moves on it may become less important whether Rangers are a new club or remain the club Moses McNeill knew in 1872. There is little doubt though that those who argue that Rangers are the same club would be arguing the complete opposite had Celtic gone under in 2012 and that lack of objectivity makes honest discussion difficult.

The building of trust in those who run our game is an ongoing process which is far from complete though. They faced a very difficult situation in 2012 and didn’t handle it particularly well. Let’s hope our game revives and should we ever face the same situation again that the protocols and rules are clear and transparent as the confusion of 2012 added to the mess.