Social History In 50 Objects Number 3. - The Pacific Star

 


I mentioned in yesterday's post that my Grandfather Dennis Haggerty worked as a docker for period after the war.

Granda Haggerty was in the Royal Navy during the war and was awarded the Pacific Star but he never wore any of his medals or ever wore a poppy either.

This is because Granda was still fighting the Japanese in the Pacific right up until VJ day and by the time he got home, he couldn't get his old job back or find any other work or receive any financial help from the Earl Haig fund. For Wee Dinny, post-war Scotland wasn't 'a land fit for heroes'.

However, my Granda came back from the Pacific Campaign with a deep respect and admiration for Australians, and he actually wanted to move to Australia but my Gran didn't want to move way.

The other thing my Granda brought home from the war was a dislike of what he called "Teuchters' and 'Wee Frees' from the Isles and this antipathy towards Highlanders continued into his working life at the docks, in the shipyards and working on the boats too, where he faced regular anti-Irish racism and anti-Catholic bigotry at the hands of the 'Teuchters' and 'Wee Frees'.

My Granda's father came from County Mayo, he had been in the Leinster Regiment in WW1 and it was hoped that following both WW1 and then again after WW2, the old prejudices would be forgotten. Yet, despite Irish Catholics loyal service in both wars, the hostility continued.

Similarly, on St Patrick's Day 2024, our most preeminent local history expert Shaun Kavanagh, gave another excellent talk at the Beacon Arts Centre on relations between Irish Gaels and Highland Gaels in Greenock during the 19th century.

Fine academics like Shaun have undertaken serious scholarly research on this topic but Shaun also tells an exciting and fascinating tale of eviction, displacement, immigration, riots, pogroms, nativism, gang violence, fierce workplace competition for employment, local politics, protectionism, clanishness, mistrust, religious bigotry and the same old bitter sectarianism which persisted into the 20th century, experienced by men like my grandfather.

For me, this lack of shared common good and a pursuit of mutual self-interest between fellow displaced Gaels in Greenock, is a great travesty.

For example, my own parish of St Ninian's in Gourock was established by poor tenant farmers evicted from Gweedore in Donegal. 

From here in Gourock, parishioners formed a branch of the Irish Land League called the Thomas Sexton branch, they used to meet in the Gamble Halls in Gourock and they continued to support the Land League back in Ireland. Especially, Fr McFadden the famous 'Fighting Priest of Gweedore'.

Around about the same time a Highland Crofter and land reform radical called John Morrison Davidson stood in Greenock as a candidate for the Scottish Land League Party.

The brilliant folk song made famous by Hamish Henderson 'John Maclean's March', makes a hopeful reference to this vision of solidarity between Presbyterian Highland Gaels (Maclean was of Gaelic Highland stock) and Irish Catholic Gaels - 'Hallo Pat Malone, I knew ye’d be here, son. The red and green, my lads, we’ll wear side by side'

Today my Granda's Pacific Star sits proudly on my mantlepiece as reminder of my family history - both Irish Catholic and Free Church Presbyterian and the common good which was eventually to be found in our Labour and Trade Union Movement.

So don't let them divide us today - Unionist or Nationalist, Republican or Loyalist, Scottish or English, Highland or Lowland, Liberal or Conservative, Town or Country, Student or Pensioner, Religous or Secular, Catholic or Protestant, Gay or Straight, Black or White, Muslim or Hindu, Immigrant or Indegenous, Trans or Terf.

Our interests still lie in standing together as a class for ourselves against those who would seek to exploit us...Solidarity yesterday, today and forever!

Popular posts from this blog

Have Gourock’s Catholics Brought The Bands To Town?

Image
  It’s probably worth stating from the outset that I am not actually opposed to Orange Walks and I didn’t submit an objection to the upcoming parade through Gourock. This is because, like many people on the west of Scotland, my own identity, religious heritage and ethnicity is a rich mix of Scottish Free Church Presbyterian, Irish Catholic and German Lutheran, alongside Episcopalian, Welsh, Ulster Scots and Highland Gael on my wife’s side.  As such, I can generally see things from both perspectives and I often suspect that much of the tension which surrounds marching season, is rooted in suspicion, rather than reality. For instance, a significant number of Scottish Catholics feel that those banging the big Lambeg drum outside the chapel each summer, are the descendants of the very same ‘Peep-o'-Day Boys‘, who once carried out the mass wrecking of Catholic cottages and burned their Irish forefathers out their homes, centuries ago. For some within the Catholic community, these se
Read more

Social History In 50 Objects Number 1. - Pioneers Of Total Abstinence

Image
  This beautiful little pin of the Sacred Heart came down to me from my Mum's Haggerty and McGarry side of the family, it once belonged to a Great Aunt who had been a member of the 'Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart'. PTAA members were known as pioneers and they had a special devotion to the Sacred Heart, pioneers wore a lapel pin just like this one. Abstinence and temperance have always been a big deal in Greenock, John Dunlop established Britain’s first temperance society in Greenock in in 1829. A few years earlier in 1820, the famous sugar baron Abram Lyle was born in Greenock, in the same year the Scottish radical James Wilson was executed for breaking prisoners out of Greenock jail during the Scottish Radical War. Abram had been the grandson of a weaver and the son of an alcoholic cooper, who left his son in debt and it was Abram's deep Christian faith which drove him to promote sugar and confectionary as an alternative to alcohol. Lyle once
Read more

Social History In 50 Objects Number 2. - Dockers Brass Tally

Image
  My Granda Haggerty worked as a docker for a period after the war, so today's object is my dockers brass tally which originally comes from East London. Y esterday I wrote about Cardinal Manning's involvement in the Temperance movement here in Greenock. Manning was also instrumental in resolving the London Dock’s strike of 1889; many of the Dockers were Irish, whereas lots of the shipyard workers at Thames Ironworks in East London were Scots mainly from Dundee, while Germans were mostly employed in the Sugar refineries in places like Whitechapel. Indeed, Cardinal Manning’s sincere empathy for the Irish poor informed his political outlook and his strong support for workers rights and trade unions. This brass tally of mines is a ' Docks and Inland Waterways Executive' brass tally from 1948 following nationalisation of the Docks by Attlee's post-war Labour Government. Before the Dock Labour Scheme was created in 1946, bringing with it at least some guarantee of p
Read more