This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. ‘They do not become Good Scotsmen’: A Political History of the anti-Irish campaign in Scotland 1919-1939 David L. Ritchie Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Edinburgh 2013 1 Abstract This thesis examines the Scottish Presbyterian Churches anti-Irish campaign in the inter-war period with particular emphasis on the governmental response. It can, and has been, argued that the Church campaign was driven more by sectarian sentiment than by any other motive, however, the Church made a determined attempt to make their case on racial grounds. Discredited as those theories now are this thesis will carefully examine intellectual basis of the Church’s case. It has not thus far been considered how much the Church’s arguments were influenced by academic opinion in the United States and by the American experience of immigration restriction. It has also been argued that politically the campaign was a failure as no measures to restrict Irish immigration were ever imposed. Equally, it has been held that politicians of all parties were either hostile or indifferent to the Church campaign. It will be demonstrated here that this was far from the case and that the Church had its supporters on all sides of the political divide and that at various times the issue was seriously considered by Governments whether Unionist, Labour or National and that arguments for restriction did not emanate solely from the Scottish Churches or indeed solely from Scotland. 2 Declaration of own work I declare that this PhD thesis entitled ‘They do not become Good Scotsman’: A Political History of the anti-Irish campaign in Scotland 1919-1939 is entirely my own work. Chapter five ‘The Civil Magistrate’ has been published in amended form in the Innes Review 63, 1, Spring 2012. Some of the material in chapter seven has appeared in Scottish Local History 83 Summer 2012 under the title ‘A Very Edinburgh Riot.’ David Lloyd Ritchie 0458079 3 Dedication For my mother, June Ritchie, who probably never wants to hear the word thesis again but without whose unvarying support and encouragement this would never have been written. Acknowledgements A great many people have assisted in the writing of this thesis. I have been exceptionally fortunate in my supervisors, Professors Tom Devine and Ewen Cameron, whose advice and support have been invaluable. Their good humour, patience and wise and original suggestions were of particular help, especially at the moments when I had, frequently, run out of those particular qualities. I must also record a special thank you to Anne Brockington of the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies who has come to my, and many others, administrative rescue on more occasions than I can remember. I would also like to thank Dr Michael Rosie of the Sociology Department of the University of Edinburgh for his insights into John Cormack and for the many entertaining discussions on that and other subjects. Dr Mairtin O’Caithin of Queens University Belfast for first pointing me in the direction of the Irish Disturbances files in the National Archives of Scotland which sparked my original interest in this subject and Dr Colin Barr of Ave Maria University, Naples, Florida for his help on the career of Cardinal Cullen. I am also grateful to the staff of the National Records of Scotland, particularly Duncan Clark, for their assistance. The financial assistance of the Justin Arbuthnott British Irish Fund and the James MacMillan Scholarship made this research possible. I would also like to thank the postgraduate community and all staff, past and present, of the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, and particularly my colleagues in the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies. Individually and collectively they have made the past three years a happy and rewarding experience. 4 Contents Page Introduction 6 Chapter One Sinn Fein and the Scottish Office 1919-1923 15 Chapter Two An Inferior Race 45 Chapter Three The Catholic Response 72 Chapter Four The Civil Magistrate 91 Chapter Five Aliens or Subjects 117 Chapter Six The Committee for Kirk Security: ‘Church Interests’ 1930-38 160 Chapter Seven Sectarianism in Suburbia: the John Cormack Phenomenon 197 Conclusion and Epilogue 234 Appendices Appendix One Church and Nation Committee, Pamphlet on Irish Immigration, open letter to Sir John Gilmour 241 Appendix Two Irish Immigration Briefing Paper for the Secretary of State for Scotland, 24th December 1926 245 Appendix Three Elliot Election Strategy Document February - April 1929. 248 Appendix Four Memo submitted to the Economic Advisory Council Committee on Empire Migration by William Adamson October 1930. 254 Appendix Five Empire Migration Committee, Miscellaneous Questions on Irish Immigration into the United Kingdom 11 th July 1931. 259 Appendix Six Correspondence between Government departments July-August 1931 262 Appendix Seven Letter from Patrick McGilligan to J.H. Thomas 12 th January1932 269 Appendix Eight Observations on the letter from the Minister of External Affairs by John Jeffrey, Department of Health Scotland, 8th March 1932. 271 Appendix Nine Memorandum by the Home Secretary 8 th March 1932 Proposed Measures against the Irish Free State 274 Appendix Ten Draft memorandum to Cabinet from Secretary of State for Scotland 278 Bibliography 283 5 Introduction In the last twenty years, partly as a result of constitutional change and partly because ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland has occasionally caught the media and political, if not necessarily the public, imagination there has been an increased interest on Scotland’s history of religious controversy. It remains an emotive issue for many and there are few aspects of recent Scottish history that attract such a rich amount of mythology. James MacMillan’s controversial lecture at the Edinburgh Festival in 1999, ‘Scotland’s Shame,’1 in which he argued that Scotland was an inherently bigoted and anti-Catholic country, caused considerable comment at the time, not least amongst historians. It prompted a volume of essays edited by Tom Devine Scotland’s Shame? Bigotry and sectarianism in modern Scotland in 2000. This collection, while emotive and even polemical in some of the contributions, either for or against MacMillan’s argument, is an invaluable guide to the thinking behind some of the current scholarship on the period. It does also raise one other and possibly controversial point in itself but one that should not, in that fine and apposite Victorian phrase, be burked, the similarity in background and often geographical origin of many, although certainly not all, of the contributors. Tom Gallagher in his preface to Edinburgh Divided makes the point: ‘I grew up a Catholic in a working class area of Glasgow, which some readers may consider a double disqualification for writing such a book about Edinburgh.’ 2 It is fair to say that there has generally been something of a West of Scotland perspective on the subject. It is perfectly understandable that scholars with a personal experience should be particularly drawn to the field but perhaps that has resulted in one particular approach becoming the dominant narrative for the period. In the case of the Presbyterian Churches’ anti-Irish campaign between the wars there has been a certain unanimity about the nature, conduct and response to that campaign. The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether there is another narrative and approach, one that will hopefully complement previous scholarship and at the same time provide a fresh perspective. 1 For the full text of the lecture see T. M. Devine(ed.), Scotland’s Shame: bigotry and sectarianism in modern Scotland , (Mainstream, Edinburgh, 2000), pp13-25. 2 T. Gallagher, Edinburgh Divided John Cormack and No Popery in the 1930s, (Edinburgh, Polygon, 1987), p5. 6 In 1985 Steve Bruce published No Pope of Rome: Anti-Catholicism in Modern Scotland with the intention of filling ‘an embarrassingly large gap in the literature on Scotland and Protestantism.’ 3 Certainly Scottish historiography on the subject prior to the publication of this book, with the exception of James Handley’s The Irish in Modern Scotland 4 was somewhat thin, particularly on the inter- war period. Since then many scholars have sought to fill this particular gap and the body of work devoted to the subject is now substantial. Any scholar of the period must take as their starting point the pioneering works of Bruce, Tom Gallagher’s Glasgow the Uneasy Peace: religious tension in modern Scotland 5 and Edinburgh Divided: John Cormack and No Popery in the 1930s 6, Callum Brown’s The Social History of Religion in Scotland since 1730 7and Stewart J. Brown’s seminal article in the Innes Review ‘“Outside the Covenant”: the Scottish Presbyterian Churches and Irish Immigration, 1922-1938’.8 All these works are products of the 1980s and early 1990s and, in the intervening period a considerable body of scholarship has followed. As Michael Rosie has it: ‘These authors are to be commended for their pioneering work but like all pioneers they could only sketch the outlines and contours of the phenomena they were explaining.