A Famine Memorial in Glasgow - But is it a Catholic Famine, or a Protestant Famine?

I read an interesting article in Scottish Review today on the proposal for Glasgow City Council to build a memorial in the city to all those who died during the Irish Famine, or An Gorta Mor.

You can read it for yourself here.

Interesting because the writer, Alasdair McKillop, seems to have totally missed the point of erecting such a memorial.

In a statement you can read in full here, Glasgow City Council stressed of the plan that:

"It follows a motion from Councillor Feargal Dalton, a member for the Partick West ward, who secured the agreement of fellow elected members that the famine has had a significant cultural, economic and social impact on the modern day character of Glasgow. Seconded by Bailie James Scanlon, a member for Southside Central, the motion also recognised the efforts made by Glaswegians to provide relief and sanctuary to those affected at the time."
 

Leaving aside a rather curious reference to the Orange Order (is it really a force for good in Scottish society?), McKillop rightly points out the positive contribution made by both Catholic and Protestant Irish since the era of the Famine.

But why is this reason to call into question the appropriateness of a Famine Memorial?

Well McKillop would have us know that Irish people, both Catholic and Protestant, emigrated to Scotland both before and after the Famine, and that all of them deserve a memorial too.

Does this mean then, that there should NOT be a memorial in Glasgow to the victims of the Irish Famine?

McKillop gets to the crux of his argument with this paragraph:

"The other issue that might be raised at this early stage is the relationship between the memorial and Irish Protestant movement to Scotland. During the 19th century, Protestants accounted for between a quarter and a third of all the Irish immigrants who arrived in this country. During the famine, however, Protestant migration would have been relatively less significant because the heavily Protestant eastern parts of Ulster escaped the worst of the crisis. On the other hand, there is evidence of considerable Irish Protestant poverty in the east-end of Glasgow in the years following the famine."
 

So there you have it. The Famine is too Catholic. Not enough Protestants were affected by it (apparently), so a Famine Memorial would exclude in some way the Irish Protestant immigrant experience.

Alasdair McKillop suggests there is a need, "to consider a memorial with a broader, more inclusive approach to the history of Irish immigration."

In saying this, he completely misses the point.

The proposed memorial will not be a monument to Irish immigration to Glasgow. It will be a memorial to the victims of the Famine.

Must they be denied a memorial because the vast majority (apparently) were Catholic?

McKillop closes with this:

"Some of those who have been most vocal in supporting the creation of the proposed memorial have noted that Glasgow lags behind cities such as Boston, Liverpool, New York, Sydney and Toronto when it comes to commemorating the Irish famine. Will they show the same enthusiasm for using the memorial to acknowledge the Irish Protestant experience in Scotland, and, in so doing, bring us yet another step closer to the countries and continents mentioned above?"
 

I just wonder how cities such as Boston, Liverpool, New York, Sydney and Toronto managed to build their Famine Memorials without upsetting their Protestant populations?

Let's not confuse two related, but separate issues.

If a monument was to be built to commemorate Irish immigration to Glasgow, then of course it would be only right to make it plain that these immigrants were from both the Catholic and Protestant tradition. If there is a demand for it, I'd be all for it being built.

The proposed Famine memorial though will commemorate the people who died in the greatest humanitarian disaster of the 19th Century.

Whether the majority of the victims were Catholic or Protestant is supremely unimportant.