Edinburgh Divided : John Cormack and No Property in the 1930s : John Gallagher

Edinburgh Divided : John Cormack And No Property In The 1930s

By Tom Gallagher

Published by Polygon, Edinburgh, 1987. First Edition. Paperback with 208 pages.

CONDITION
In fine condition. Covers very good and spine unbroken. Pages very clean throughout. A fine copy.

SUMMARY
The study of a grubby local phenomenon caught many eyes by rebutting the strange, persistent notion that "religious unrest" had never been the capital's kind of thing. Real hatreds, ran the myth, belonged "in the west".

When the book appeared, I thought I knew something about Cormack and his "Protestant Action". What I knew was folk memory. Some trouble at the Usher Hall? Some sort of riot up in Morningside? Some miniature demagogue down in Leith getting himself on the council by claiming that Catholics got their pick - quite how was mysterious - of council jobs and houses?

Gallagher's tale was more substantial than any legend. On his first page he quoted Willie Gallacher, Communist MP for West Fife, stating in the early 1930s that "in Scotland the Fascists are not anti-Jewish but anti-Irish". The author noted the identification of religion with nation, but as Gallagher explained, this was not new. The Kirk had been campaigning for years against Irish - that kind of Irish - immigration. (Herald)

(Loc : Skeleton Shelf)