The Irish In Scotland - Employment

Aims To examine what sort of work was done by Irish immigrants Success Criteria You can: Describe in detail jobs done by the Irish. Explain the impact of the Irish on Scotland’s economy

Glossary Economy – the trade and industry which makes a country wealthy. Skilled – having the ability or training to do a certain job. Semi-skilled – having a small amount of training to do a job. Manufactories – factories where goods are produced (made). Carters – workers in coalmines who pushed the coal along in carts. Masons – workers employed in building or construction.

This picture shows men and women at work in the potato fields This picture shows men and women at work in the potato fields. The men are cutting ‘drills’ for planting. The women follow behind taking manure from a cart that carries it and spreading it in the drills. The final group of women are planting the potatoes. This picture was drawn in 1844 by Henry Stephens.

Fifteen-year-old Bridget Gallacher came to Scotland in 1892 and went to a farm near Paisley: Source A I was hoeing potatoes at two shillings a day. We began work at 8.00am and left at 7.00pm. An hour was allowed for dinner. After this I went to another farm and stayed a week. There I hoed turnips. Next I went by train up country. I was employed lifting potatoes. They gave me an outhouse to sleep in. I was on this farm for a month then went to Dumfries. After this I went to Perthshire potato lifting. Irishmen were digging them up and were lifting them. I spent £3 on clothes and made £6 or £7 clear.  In 1862 Robert Skirving, a Scotsman, saw workers in farm fields who were putting in drains to improve the land: Source B (B) Go into any field of drainers where 20 or 30 men are at work and you will find that the whole, with the possible exception of the contractor, are Irishmen.

Glasgow and Lanarkshire A very large number settled in Glasgow, in 1848 nearly a thousand Irish a week landed from boats in Glasgow. By 1841 nearly a quarter of the people in the West Lowlands area were Irish born or the children of Irish parents whilst almost a third of Glasgow’s population were of Irish origin. They came because the area had so much work to offer including many unskilled and poorly paid jobs that Irish people often had to take. They worked in factories and coal mines, as carters and labourers.

Bishop Scott observed the Irish in Glasgow: Source C A few have raised themselves to the rank of respectable shopkeeper: there are several who keep whiskey shops. The bulk of the male population are weavers or labourers on roads, canals, coalpits, draining, ditching, serving masons, coal porters etc and the female population are generally employed at the steam looms or in the cotton manufactories.

A man who ran a cotton-spinning works in Paisley stated:  Source D The Irish in Paisley almost (all) belong to the poorer classes. I can only remember one Irish shopkeeper. They are employed on the more disagreeable and lower descriptions of labour. Employment in the cotton mills is considered of this class. When hands (workers) are wanted, the Irish readily obey the call.  

Dundee In 1851 nearly 19% of Dundee’s population were born in Ireland. In Dundee they found work in the linen and jute industries for many Irish were already used to that sort of work. Reverend John MacPherson observed of the Irish in Dundee Source E They are chiefly employed in preparing and weaving canvas and coarse cloth. Women and junior members of the families are employed in the spinning mills. A number of men are employed in the work of the harbour. A considerable number are employed in serving masons (i.e. as builders’ labourers), many of them come without the knowledge of any trade.

Other Parts of Scotland The many different jobs to be found in Edinburgh had brought 13,000 to the city and county by 1861. A number went to Fife and a few to Aberdeen. In Aberdeen the Reverend Charles Gordon noticed that most Irish people worked in textile mills and gave his views on why Irish people usually did poorly-paid work: Source F I have observed that most of these Irish people have been deprived of learning to read and write or make any kind of use of books.

The heavy industries and coal mining brought many Irish people to central Scotland. By 1861 almost 5,000 Irish-born lived in the county of Stirling. In 1861 45% of the coal miners of Coatbridge were Irish born. Even more 47% worked in the ironstone mines. A mine owner explains Source G The Irish in coal mines (have) a good character. They are more obedient than the natives. They are very much disposed to learn anything you put to them. We find them very useful as labourers: at present we could not do without them.  

These Irish workers had a significant impact on Scotland’s economy, as Alexander Carlisle who ran a cotton spinning works in Paisley said in 1836: Source H Our manufactures never would have (grown) so rapidly if we had not had large (numbers) of Irish families: the work of this town requires women and children as well as men. Without the Irish a sufficient population would never have been found for all the manufactures of the district. The large immigration of the Irish at the harvest season proves a (great) advantage to our farmers.

Scottish Historian Tom Devine says “The Irish made a substantial contribution to the development of the Scottish Economy. Freidrich Engels claimed in 1843 that the progress of the British industrial revolution would have been impeded but for the labour power of immigrants from across the Irish Sea ..his comment is even more valid for Scotland where Irish immigrants made up a bigger proportion of the population and where an abundant supply of unskilled and semi skilled labour was crucial to Scottish industrial success”

The Irish In Scotland – Living Conditions

Aims Examine the living conditions faced by Irish immigrants living in Scotland’s towns and cities. Success Criteria: You can describe the main features of slum housing at the time of Irish immigration.

Glossary Slum housing – a very poor standard of housing Tenement housing – a building of 3-4 storeys high which is divided into smaller flats. Killer diseases – diseases which are highly contagious and cause a high death rate among people who catch it e.g. cholera. Single end – a one bedroom tenement flat. Room and a Kitchen – a two bedroom tenement flat.

Living Conditions Irish immigrants came when Scotland’s towns and cities were growing rapidly. Many family homes just consisted of one room in a big tenement. Glasgow was the most crowded city in Britain! Those who could not afford to rent a room would live in ‘lodgings’ sharing a room with other strangers. In the early nineteenth century ordinary homes did not have water supplies, bathrooms or toilets. There were no sewers or drains either. Candles and oil lamps lit most ordinary homes.

Garngad, Glasgow 1925

Since most Irish immigrants worked at badly paid jobs, they could only afford homes like these seen in Glasgow by a well-to-do visitor: Source A I did not believe, until I visited the Wynds of Glasgow, that so large an amount of filth, crime, misery and disease existed in one spot. In the lower lodging houses 10, 12, sometimes 20 persons of both sexes sleep on the floor in different degrees of nakedness. The population of these districts is probably 30,000, they consist in great part of the Irish and of Highlanders.  

Terrible conditions existed in other towns and cities too. Source B In 1849 Dr Bell went round the poor areas of Edinburgh and saw scenes like this: In one room we saw twelve women asleep. They lay on boards riddled with rat holes. They had no covering save the rags in which they wandered about during the day. We woke up one of the sleepers, an old Irishwoman. She paid a penny a night for the privilege of sleeping in this den.

Disease The water in many rivers and wells was full of dirt. Human and animal waste was piled up in the streets. People who did not eat well, dress well or keep warm were especially likely to become ill. Terrible diseases like cholera, typhus and diphtheria flourished. Source C is an extract from the Commission of Enquiry into the State of the Irish Poor in Britain in 1836 “In consequence of the crowded nature of the Irish lodging houses, typhus is more common among the Irish in Glasgow than among the Scotch”

Irish immigrants who were not able to earn enough for food and rent suffered terribly. Until 1845 they, like most of Scotland’s poor town-dwellers, could not count on any kind of help. The 1845 Scottish Poor Laws set up local organisations who used money from local taxes to keep the very poor of their area from starving. But only people who had lived in the local area for 5 years (until 1898 when it became 3 years) were able to get help. Stories spread that the Irish came to Scotland to get the help available to the poor. In a sense the Irish were being accused in today’s terms of being “benefit scroungers”

In the second half of the nineteenth century (1850s onwards) local government began to improve. Money from rates and taxes was used to provide clean water supplies, drains and sewers. But serious over-crowding remained a big problem until well into the twentieth century (1900s).