Northern Irish Migrants in Glasgow and the Troubles in Great Britain: Echoes of Conflict in a ‘Home Away from Home’

Abstract

This article diversifies and deepens our understanding of Northern Irish settlement in Great Britain during the era of the Troubles (c.1969–1998) by exploring a previously under-researched destination: the West of Scotland. Featuring oral history interviews with Northern Irish migrants in Glasgow, it considers how centuries of cultural exchange between the two places shaped migrants’ memories and subjectivities. Our narrators’ childhoods in Northern Ireland were punctuated by sectarian rancour and conflict. The presence in Scotland of similar – albeit less violent or systemic – sectarian attitudes often acted as mnemonic triggers to a conflict migrants felt they had left behind, reopening psychological wounds and reviving repressed traumas. Informed by theoretical conceptions of home, the analysis examines convergences between home and elsewhere, disrupting the idea of migration as a severance between the two. The article therefore offers a new perspective on both the Northern Irish presence in Great Britain and on interreligious relations in the West of Scotland.