ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how radical were Irish immigrants in Scotland in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Irish can still be viewed as hindrances to native radicalism because they lack the political experience, the sophistication and settled assurance to combine with Scottish working-class reformers in the 1830s and 1840s. Irish critique of existing economic and political arrangements has long been recognised in the expanding textile trades,12 particularly in the violent strikes organised by the cotton spinners. The evidence of Irish radicalism in connection with Chartism in the middle and later 1840s highlighted by Dorothy Thompson and others can be seen as applying in Scotland, too. A lot of Irish Catholics gave priority to expressing their loyalty to their religious leaders whenever tensions occurred and choices had to be made between political groups like the Catholic Association and priests like Bishop Scott.
