The Lord Is My Banner (Part 2)

 

For me, the blackest mark against the current SNP administration remains the destruction of vocational education and the closure of regional Colleges and courses across Scotland, in favour of maintaining free University education. So much for devolution and subsidiarity.  

This is a ‘sair yin’ for me, not just because my brother was made redundant from his job as a lecturer a few years back but also because I benefited from a ground breaking course in Graphic Art and Design at the James Watt College in Greenock back in the 1990’s.

I was one of the first students in Scotland to go straight into an apprenticeship within a Glasgow Design House on completion of a four year Advanced Diploma.

The quality of this course was, in no small part, down to the lecturers who taught us a wide range of theory, typography and traditional art and craft alongside modem graphic design techniques.

For example, in the morning you could be making woodcut prints and in the afternoon class you’d be learning to use one of the shiny new an Apple Macs which were all the rage.

This was also the beginning of my political education too, since it was where I was introduced to the art and design of William Morris and John Ruskin, (as well as the now thoroughly disgraced and repulsive Catholic artist Eric Gill.)  

Most of all, I came to understand the value of vocational education and the importance of how it prepares students for work in a specific trade or craft. What I mean to say is, we were never made to feel like provincial second class students. Rather, our small town was important and only the best education was good enough for us townies.   

As it happens, the bottom eventually fell out of the Graphic Design boom, and as the economy began to shrink by the end of the 90’s, even the dugs in the street had a design qualification.

 I eventually retrained as a Community Worker but I still get thrill seeing high quality graphics and strong visual imagery being used appropriately as to communicate the gospels, offering due honour to God. Indeed, for Catholics, art is important; we’ve been defending our legitimate use of images as an aid to prayer for centuries.

20 years later, my love for John Ruskin and William Morris continues and has been reawakened once again as our local council begins to respond to ‘Black Lives Matter’ by removing the Gourock coat of arms from public buildings.

Our town crest is associated with the Darroch family who made their money via slaves and plantations. Believe it or not, our coat of arms actually displays the image of a captured runaway slave stabbing himself in the neck with a blade rather than return to a life of bondage. Seriously!

 

Time is now up for this crest and with its departure will go the memory of the Darroch family, shunned and forgotten much like Eric Gill but what do we replace it with? The old Barony Burgh of Gourock cannot be without a town crest, we need a symbol of our civic autonomy. It’s all we’ve got left!

Much like the Victorians, Morris and Ruskin, my inclination is to always look to the romance of the Middles Ages and the medieval period, to a time before capitalism, industrialisation and enclosure, taking inspiration from what remains true and beautiful.

Centuries before the Darrochs bought their title and returned from the colonies to take up residence at the ‘big hoose’ as the newly minted Lairds of Gourock, the land belonged to the Earls of Douglas who once occupied Gourock Castle.

As such, I’m in favour of my town adopting the old clan crest of the Earls of Douglas, the Douglas coat of arms features a symbolic image of the embalmed heart of King Robert the Bruce. Apparently ‘Good Sir James Douglas’ planned to take The Bruce’s heart to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem as an act of penance. Instead, Sir James ended up in Spain in the service of King Alfonso XI where he was slain during the Battle of Teba in 1330.   

 

Talking of Spain and graphic art, I also noticed an interesting online debate about which Spanish team Celtic fans should support while Scottish football remains suspended due to the restrictions on sport caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

It all began when the Spanish club Real Betis put out a hopeful and light hearted tweet pointing out the fact that Betis play in green and white stripes and therefore, this is the team which Celtic fans should naturally be adopting, now that La Liga has been restarted.

The good folks at the Real Betis comms and media dept even went to the trouble of posting a graphic of the familiar Celtic four leaf clover superimposed onto the Real Betis club crest, as to reinforce this flimsy connection with imagery.

 

The only slight problem was that, like many Spanish clubs, Betis proudly display the Royal crown upon their badge, there’s also a clue in the name ‘Real’ Betis, which gives an indication of their monarchist leanings.

For some horrified Celtic fans commenting on this tweet, the image of the crown was untouchable as was the idea of supporting a ‘royal’ club. No, cheering for a club with a crown is strictly forbidden and non negotiable.

 Without getting into republican politics, I found this debate and a few of The Hoops fans strong aversion to the symbolism of the crown to be quite interesting.

Especially since King Alfonso XIII gave Betis his Royal patronage in 1914 and his wife Queen Victoria Eugenie (a Catholic convert) was born and raised at Balmoral Castle here in Scotland. The King even visited Scotland and it’s also worth noting that huge numbers of Irish Catholic patriots loyally served that same Spanish Crown for centuries within the Regimiento Hibernia.

Even today, there are many Irish names to be found among the old aristocratic families of Spain. Or in other words, long before Catholics were being forced out of Ireland to Scotland, they were also being driven to Spain

Even so, art and imagery can be an emotive subject, not just for Celtic supporters but for all Catholics, whose taste in liturgical art tends to follow the pattern of our tastes in music at Mass.

For example, some enjoy popular contemporary hymns such as ‘Colours of Day’ while others like me, would rather climb Lough Derg barefooted, wearing sackcloth and ashes, chanting mea culpa, at the top of our voices, while enduring the black fast as we crawl up the mountain, than have to sing ‘Shine Jesus Shine’.

Similarly, many among the faithful favour the recent trend towards Byzantine Iconography within our Churches. My own diocese for example, is very blessed to have the beautiful Icon of ‘Our Lady of Paisley’ by Bernadette Reilly, providing us with a visual focus for the restoration of an ancient and venerable devotion within our Paisley diocese. 

 

 

While others among the faithful would much rather we stuck with traditional western statues and Latin art from the late Gothic and early renaissance period, following the style of Giotto.

Possibly, what we can perhaps all agree on is that the use of some of our more overly-sentimental and kitsch imagery should be replaced with more appropriately Catholic iconography.

The absolute tackiest image I’ve seen so far has to be a particularly awful painting of a kilted and crowned child Jesus with wounds, dressed up in tartan plaid with the lion rampant and the glens in the background. It’s like a picture from a shortbread tin combined with a 1950s school book for 5 year olds.

 

 







I’ve noticed this image doing the rounds for a while now here in Scotland and it’s even popped up at one or two processions and pilgrimages. Yet surely we can do better than this, surely we can find a more suitable image which better articulates our faith, tradition and fidelity to our country?

For example, if you’ve ever seen the great annual pilgrimage to Chartres Cathedral, then you’ll have observed the faithful carrying all sorts of flags and banners. Flags such as the French tricolour bearing the image of the sacred heart with the words: “The hope and Salvation of France”.

 

Meanwhile, others waive the pre-revolution banner of the Kingdom of France because it is adorned with the Fleur-de-lis, the symbol of Our Lady, the patroness of France.

I’ve even seen replicas of the standard of St. Joan of Arc at Chartres, a standard which was made for the Maid of Orleans by Hamish Powers, a Scotsman living in the city of Tours, proving conclusively that we Scottish Catholic Graphic Artists have excelled at Design since the Middle Ages.

 

It also worth noting that a Scottish priest called John Carmichael was amongst the victors with St Joan. Father Carmichael’s first act upon becoming bishop of Tours was to institute a Messe Ecossais for the souls of the Scottish dead.

So, what banner or standard should we carry on our pilgrimages and processions if not the ‘Bonnie Infant of Brigadoon’?

I suggest looking again to Spain and I propose a blue flag bearing a white cross of Burgundy

 

This design is a variation on the old flag of Spain, it’s the same flag which the aforementioned Catholics from Ireland seeking refuge in Spain following the Flight of the Earls is 1607 fought under during the Dutch Revolts and Thirty Years War.

The Cross of Burgundy was later adopted by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Los Reyes Catolicos) following the Reconquista. It was however originally associated with the Dukes of Burgundy who, according to legend, took this symbol of St Andrew, Apostle to the Scots, as to honour their Scottish soldiers, men like the Earl of Marr and the aforementioned Earl of Douglas.  

And ultimately, that’s what this graphic is; an image of two pieces of rough wood which symbolise Andrew’s suffering for the faith. It’s not about Dukes or Kings, Knights or great historic battles, it’s about a humble fisherman who left his nets upon the shore to follow Jesus of Nazareth and spread the gospel far and wide from the Sea of Galilee to the east coast of Scotland and maybe that’s what we need to do too – Strip it back to the wood.     

Naturally, I’m little squeamish about the Burgundian cross, it was used by conservative monarchist movements such as the Carlists during the Spanish civil war, Carlists who incidentally, were no friends of King Alfonso.

The meaning associated with graphics can be a complicated and highly controversial affair, especially for us. Think for example, of the similar red St Patrick’s cross on a blue background which is simultaneously the flag of Eoin O'Duffy’s Blueshirts, Ulster Nationalism and even the South African ‘voortrekkers’ flag.

Or think on the striking image of Christ alongside the cross of St Patrick that makes up the standard of the Irish Brigade who fought alongside the Marquis of Montrose and the Scottish Royalists, in the service of Charles I. Has there ever been a more powerful symbol of unified Gaeldom or Scottish and Irish Catholicism?  

But much like some Celtic fans objections to the Spanish crown; when it comes to imagery, the devil is always in the detail rather than in our perceptions.

In reality, the blue cross of Burgundy is a saltire much like our nation’s own, yet slightly different, a standard which reaffirms and re-emphasises the actual wood of the cross, restating our own willingness to carry our own crosses and follow Jesus, like Andrew.

After all, we are not ahistorial, post-modernists or iconoclasts, rather we are inspired by the medieval world, like Morris and Ruskin; we take that which is beautiful and good and leave the rest.