Glasgow’s Two Famine Memorials and the Rising Prevalence of the Issue of Anti-Irish Racism in Scotland
Until very recently, Glasgow remained the only city in the world with a significant Irish diaspora but without a Great Famine memorial; and yet today, it is home to not one, but two such memorials: an Irish and Scottish Highland memorial inaugurated in June 2018 and funded by the City Council, and a...
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| Veröffentlicht in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/etudesecossaises, |
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Sprache: | Anglais |
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Études écossaises
2026
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| Online Zugang: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Zusammenfassung: | Until very recently, Glasgow remained the only city in the world with a significant Irish diaspora but without a Great Famine memorial; and yet today, it is home to not one, but two such memorials: an Irish and Scottish Highland memorial inaugurated in June 2018 and funded by the City Council, and a privately-funded Irish—only memorial unveiled in July 2021. This paper examines some of the issues raised by these memorials within the wider context of an ongoing national discussion over the nature and persistence of what has been commonly termed “sectarianism” in Scotland. It seeks to shed light on the extent to which disputes over their erection, which have given birth to conflicting messages concerning the place accorded to Irish descendants in modern‑day Glasgow, have mirrored the ways in which discussion of sectarianism has evolved since it became a topic of wide-ranging public debate at the onset of devolution in 1999. The paper argues that, since the 2010s in particular, debates on the nature of sectarianism have moved away from a focus on intra-Christian religious discrimination and bigotry, as well as on the link between sectarianism and football, to also include (and increasingly so) an ethnic or racial dimension. More specifically, it discusses the extent to which various groups, including elected representatives, saw the erection of the two famine memorials as an opportunity to make the point that the term “sectarianism” is a misnomer for anti-Irish racism, and that anti-Irish racism is still a problem in modern‑day Scotland and especially Glasgow. |
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