The angel gabriel’s trumpet : immigration, identity and religious disharmony in mid-nineteenth-century Greenock, Scotland

Abstract

Mid-nineteenth-century Scotland’s industrialising economy hinged on imperial trade which increased its dependency on immigrant and migrant labour. This thesis explores the long-term impacts of immigration and migration in relation to the development of a modern urban Scottish identity, in Greenock, a Scottish industrialised port town. Greenock was a first point of contact for different communities drawn together by trade—Scots, including Scottish Highland migrants, and foreigners, such as Irish immigrants. Greenock was a locus for the interplay of wider national, regional and international influences against local dynamics. Hence, there was constant inter-community negotiation of identities towards the reconciliation of a Scottish identity especially with the permanent settlement of Irish immigrants and Scottish Highland migrants after the 1840s famines. Using a combination of micro- and macro- frameworks, this thesis investigates intense and fluctuating Scottish attitudes towards the Irish immigrants within the single decade of 1850–1860 by considering the reasons for and effects of the 1850s Greenockian riots. It asserts that the concession-driven, give-and-take nature of Scottish-Irish negotiations distinctive of the port town propelled the rapid conclusion of violence, the growth of socio-cultural and political diversity and more significantly, the production of a unique Scottish identity.