Why bigotry's not what it used to be; Sectarian Scotland: There may

The front pages of most Scottish newspapers over the last few days have painted a picture of Scotland as a hotbed of sectarian divisions. That picture was unrecognisable to most Scots and is certainly highly exaggerated, but it is an image we need to dispel fairly quickly if we are to maintain Scotland's positive image abroad as well as our understanding of our own country.

Today's sectarian divisions have their roots in the processes of industrialisation and emigration in the 19th century. Industrialisation in central Scotland brought Irish migrants to work in the new mass production industries of coalmining, shipbuilding and textiles. The result was a swelling of population in urban Scotland, with pressures on housing and employment. Such pressures, in addition to negative attitudes towards Catholics - 19th-century Glasgow had more members of anti-Catholic societies than Catholic residents at one stage - led to discrimination to protect employment levels and access to housing. In the 1930s, local politicians sought to ride to power on anti-Catholic prejudice in Edinburgh and Glasgow, with Orange lodges prominent in political campaigning.

Of course, Irish migration in the 19th century was not simply Catholic but inter-denominational. Indeed, some of the practices of religious discrimination were brought over from Ireland at the same time as the migrants themselves. However, the bulk of the Irish who came to Scotland were Catholic, and some became victims of discrimination - systematic at times in terms of jobs being reserved for non-Catholics. Such views were reinforced by the Church of Scotland's stated opposition to Irish immigration in the 1920s and the links between the Conservatives and the Orange Lodge in the inter- war years.

But for the majority of Catholics life in Scotland has been positive and the community has made considerable progress in terms of education, employment, housing and social status. Irish Catholics cannot be regarded as an oppressed minority any more in Scotland, though past discrimination has created a legacy of distrust and some prickly attitudes. However, while discrimination in the systematic sense has gone, attitudes and perceptions about religious groups remain.

This fact comes out in everyday conversation in the west of Scotland, ranging from light-hearted banter to verbal abuse and sometimes worse. The constant demand to know what school you went to is a curious west of Scotland practice, and the sectarian undertones of this question find no resonance in other parts of Scotland.

Of course, the issue of sectarianism is geographically specific in Scotland. To those north of Croy or east of Harthill, sectarianism and religious rivalry are, relatively speaking, a foreign land.

As a west of Scotland phenomenon, sectarianism is ill-understood by the rest of the country, which will have been bemused by the Frank Roy/Bertie Ahern affair or will have decided that it confirms its impression of communal rivalries in the wild west. However, rather than get carried away with recent events and assume that Scotland is seriously divided over religious issues, we should draw the opposite conclusion. Indeed, the point to be made about sectarianism from last week's events is its declining significance. Bertie Ahern's visit was called off on the pretext of disorder following a football match - not because of a major bombing campaign or organised protest against him, nor because of the force of hostile Scottish public opinion. Drunken yobs were the reason for the cancellation rather than anything more sinister.

And, largely, that's the current state of sectarianism in Scotland. Unpleasant as it is for local people in the west of Scotland and for others who come into contact with it, sectarianism is not the force it was and Scotland really doesn't resemble Northern Ireland at all. Indeed, politics is definitely not about religious divisions in 21st century Scotland - look at the derisory votes for the Scottish Unionists at the Holyrood elections in 1999.

Last week's events put one small part of Scotland under the microscope and the result was there for all to see. However, that should not distract us from realising how unsectarian Scottish society has actually become.

Dr Peter Lynch is a lecturer in politics at the University of Stirling and the author of Scottish Politics And Government

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