As an undergraduate at York University in the 1980s, my degree was split between the Politics Department and Laurie Taylor’s sociology fiefdom.
The former was, in the main, a rather dusty environment run by two old Scottish gentlemen who seemed overly concerned with the shambolic unwritten “British Constitution.”
I thought then that so-called Great Britain was a dangerously archaic late 17th-century polity that needed a significant overhaul.
Moreover, it seemed to be in general denial about the shameful history of the global plunder that built the British Empire.
The latter was much more to my liking.
However, there was one point where I was the beneficiary of this somewhat bipolar academic arrangement.
In the politics department, I elected to submit an undergraduate research project.
It was, in effect, a baby PhD.
It turned out that I knew more about the subject being researched than my supervisor, a kindly English chap with the best intentions.
When the more iconoclastic bunch in the sociology department heard of my research, they wanted to help.
In truth, it was more suited to their end of the campus.
It was through there that a Dutch sociologist’s work was shared with me.
As I recall, it was a journal article summarising his PhD thesis.
The researcher had spent considerable time in the Lower Falls area and the nearby Shankill Road in the months after the 1981 Hunger Strike in the H-Blocks.
As regular readers will know, I have occasionally referred to the benefit of the outsider carrying out a “commonsense inventory”.
This professional observer from the Netherlands spotted something that stuck with me.
Being in pretty much identical socio-economic localities, he noted that there was something in the Lower Falls homes that was lacking in the Loyalist area.
Books.
It has been stated that the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was mainly a result of the 1944 Education Act.
It was a Beveridge Report reform that the old Stormont Parliament couldn’t block.
By the mid-1960s, there was a growing number of graduates from working-class nationalist backgrounds in the Six Counties.
There wasn’t a similar movement from the other side of the city, as it were.
In the year of the Belfast Agreement, I found myself covering a sabbatical year at Magee College Derry.
Around 80% of my students were from, sociologically speaking, a working-class nationalist background.
They were also overwhelmingly female.
It quickly became apparent that they had been reared in homes with a love of books and an aspiration for learning.
Perhaps that visiting sociologist was onto something when my Magee students were just toddlers in a statelet that didn’t want them.
To paraphrase the immortal Bobby Sands:
“Our revenge will be the laughter of our graduate children”.
I was thinking of this as I watched this fascinating interaction between Stephen Nolan of the BBC and a chap outside the Sandy Row Rangers Supporters Club in Belfast.
In fairness, if you want to find a racist, then standing outside a Rangers Supporters Club isn’t exactly in Woodward and Bernstein territory!
Any sociologist would recognise that if there is already a subculture based on settler paranoid supremacy, then slotting in another lesser group for ethnic cleansing isn’t a stretch.
Sadly, their moral compass constantly directs them to the wrong side of history.
Consequently, the preponderance of Sevco tops in the Belfast riots wasn’t coincidental.
Quite often, it is the fashion choice of the Fascist.
The cultural affection for Nazi imagery isn’t some aberrant juxtaposition for the Ibrox klanbase.
In many ways, it is central to who they are.
The featured image is the observation of @squinteratn, the diarist in @ATownNews, on why the apparel of a certain football club seems to be noticeably prevalent in racist rioting.
I wrote this piece twelve months ago about the choice of Tifo at a Sevco match.
Therefore, it isn’t a stretch to look at the disorder in Belfast and the nativist worldview of the Ibrox klanbase.
Then, in a way too contrived for a novel, there was a minor copycat incident on the Falls carried out by youths.
This came after three nights of what definitely looks like an orchestrated pogrom in Belfast.
Almost immediately, the grown-ups rallied to protect and support the shop that had been attacked.
As Loyalist parts of Belfast burned across the city, Féile an Phobail debated and celebrated.
Once more, the juxtaposition between the two communities in Béal Feirste is too stark to be believable in a piece of fiction writing.
If we have an issue with any dysfunctional community on this small island, then they don’t have dark skin or pray at Mosques.
You will know them by their noise.
For the academic record, my thesis was on the origins of the split in the IRA after events in Belfast in 1969.
It got a First.
Absolutely wonderful journalism. The Hambrox fraternity will shout bigotry but not so. As a graduate of UoG for both a first and higher degree educational enlightenment is more pervasive and effective than banging seven bells out a bass drum, pardon the poor allusion. Keep up the good work.
Phil, you nailed it both eruditely and concisely. The English Government have tried to breed the “Fenians” out of the six counties, Thanks. For your musings.
Important point.
Firstly, it’s the British government.
Moreover, the demographic landscape of the North East of this island is down to the fact that the Ulster Plantation was 17th Century Scotland’s first colony.
I remember an article in the Sunday Observer written by Mary Holland around 1980. Mary visited the H-Blocks. She discussed how in the loyalist blocks, all the books were about body building and sports biographies. Whereas, in the Republican blocks is was all Marx, Franz Fanon, Sartre, Gramsci, et.al. I knew at that point the Republicans would triump.
My old History teacher at the Ninians Kirkintilloch, in the 1960s was an excellent teacher and human being. He always said that history was to be learned from and should prevent the same mistakes from being made. Sadly that cannot be said of today, what with the resurrection and promotion of extreme fascism around the globe. Looking at that photo of the clowns with banner, clearly points to the lack of awareness and intelligence of that particular demographic. Mr Duffy ,my teacher, was accurate in every way. Ref. The last few lines of Eric Bogle’s , Green Fields of France.
Excellent post Phil.
As someone once said ” they went to band practice – we went to college “
Love that. Makes sense all these years later when you see what’s grown from the seeds sown.
My fantastic mum was Irish. I was brought up with education and aspiration. I hope I have not let her down.
Firstly Phil one brilliantly written article. I fully get the paradox that loyalism has clad itself in. Israel/Nazism/Fascism, as if they are groping around for a cause without a ‘rebel’. They are but probably haven’t realised yet dregs of the settler colonialism disease that has promoted the supposed superiority of the white person. As long as the U Ass of A, UK and Israel refuse to accept their role in exterminating the native population of the countries they ‘settled’ therein lies the problem. However promotion of books is one avenue that is admirable, however Empire and Colonial studies should be on our curriculum. Yesterday I was watching Al Jazeera and across the bottom of the screen was a survey carried out in 2021 stating that 80% of the population of England and Wales identified themselves as Caucasian. I was astounded that this debunked racist myth of a Caucasian race is still prevalent in western society. It sits along with Aryanism and Eugenics in the world’s most abhorrent ideologies. Once again thanks for your continual enlightenment.
Same old Sevco supporters sending out mixed messages. It wasn’t so long ago that they were flying the Star of David ( It’s blue & white and, in the spirit of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend, I’ll fly the flag of Israel while the Tims fly the Palestinian flag!”) but reserve the right to give Nazi salutes to opposition supporters in Tel Aviv.
So, recognising the underlying problem is lack of education (arguably more accurately ‘wilful rejection of education’), the challenge is how to engage the ‘left behind’, specifically those who leave themselves behind quite intentionally, such as the fellow outside the Sevco Enthusiasts Club in Belfast who I imagine would think the Butler Act refers to a thespian in a dramatic production whose character goes by the name ‘Jeeves’…….
What an advert for Castore.
Expand or perish? Is that nod to the big orange cran?
The Pogues have a song on their Hells Ditch album called Rainbow Man. It’s about Wolfe Tone,the ‘Rainbow Man’ who wanted to united colours . Spider Stacey wrote the lyrics that struck me when I seen the image of the Coolock Says No banner
‘ See the Judas Man in Red
All live in Rainbows dread’
Phil .
I just watched that interview.
Is that old guy feckin neanderthal or just a completely rascist old prick.
That thing will be teaching his grandkids hatred as he probably taught his own kids hatred.
God help Ireland if they ever achieve unification ..
Probably the huns in the north will be relocated to Ayrshire in Scotland to be a further blight on our landscape and a drain on our health and social services .
Phil excellent. My teachers at the Middlesex Poly were Jock Young and Stan Cohen, also friendly with Ian Taylor.
First job was based in Townsend Street in the Shankill Road in 1971, interesting times. When we marched in Linenhall Street we were very much products of the 1944 Education Sct. We didn’t want to take anything, sharing and equality counted. I write Belfast: Out of the Shalows influenced by all that though it was fiction
Great piece Phil,
It sickened me to see the Irish tricolour along side the Israeli flag and union flag during this abhorrent display of racism in Belfast at the weekend.
I think it’s time for the decent people on this Island to mobilise against this fascist scum.
The growth of the Far Right in Ireland is a growing concern.
I wrote this piece last November.
https://philmacgiollabhain.ie/2023/11/26/racism-in-ireland/
Phil,
I won’t take credit for this post below…
It’s a reply from a friend of mine during recent discussions.. My views in a nutshell..
“There were Tri-colours there, right alongside the Butchers Apron. If any person thinks that they are an Irish patriot, and yet can stand side by side with Six Counties Loyalists, then they need to have their heads examined. The very same people that Gerrymandered our politics, discrimated against our people and maintained an apartheid statelet are facist scum pure and simple. The Loyalists, and their British enablers treated us as vermin, they are now doing the same to anyone else they look at as less than them. People they see as less than human. We were also subhuman to them not so long ago. No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish, their signs exclaimed. We were seen as less than the dogs in their pecking order. We were the first focus of their tiny minded hatred, for so long we Irish were their villains, their scapegoats, their sub-humans, the blame for all their wrongs. We were the subject of their discrimination, bile and hated. They dipicted us as half human apes, barely human animals, not needing to be treated as people, but as some sort of tame beast. We were their excuse for all the wrongs in the world. We were the foreigner’s that were the cause of all their problems, all their evils. We the Irish were to blame.
No sane person should have any time for these neo nazis, let alone an Irish person. This is the reaction politics of the 1930s Blue Shirts, the Italian Fascisti, the German National Socialists, it can only lead to a very dark place.
Irish Republicans were among the first to fight this cancer, when it raised its ugly head in the 1930s. The IRA
smashed up fascist Blue Shirt meetings time, and time again. No other organisation in Europe had as much success in grinding the fascists down, as the Irish Republican Army. Irish Republicans were among the very first to take the fight against fascism to the ultra right in Spain. That is our Irish Republican legacy, always Antifa, always inclusive, always for equality.
No Pasarán!”
Good article, excellent comment.
Beware infiltrators in every movement as we have found in the Scottish independence movement
I’ve written a novel about that very subject…
Phil’s book, Native Shore, on that very subject is a cracker. I highly recommend it.👍
I lent someone my signed copy and haven’t seen it since.
Native Shore was a standalone work of art, and a fantastic follow-up to The Squad. The gripping realism is unsurpassed, and I’ve read many such books in my time, written by famous and lauded authors that don’t come close.
Many thanks James.
I’m glad you enjoyed Native Shore.
In my opinion it remains relevant.
Brilliant comment sir! As Phil might put it, CHAPEAU SIR!
Great to see the good guys have come out in force across England to say fuck you to the racists.