Meet those committed to maintaining Ireland's legacy in Scotland

The Johnny Doherty Branch, Comhaltas or Irish traditional music society of Carfin is dedicated to sustaining the traditions of Irish music, dance, language and culture that came to the Clyde valley from the Irish counties. Founded in 1979, Johnny Doc’s meets on Wednesdays in a modern language classroom in Taylor High School, Carfin’s Catholic secondary. For an exhilarating hour, I tried to keep pace on my accordion as a dozen brilliant amateur players raced through jigs and reels.

Johnny Doc’s members are attuned to history as much as music. They told me how, in the mid-1800s, agents swarmed through Ireland, paid most lucratively if they could persuade whole families to move to work in Lanarkshire’s steelworks and mines.

Some 13% of Lanarkshire’s population were Irish-born in 1841. Within 10 years the Irish population had increased by more than 50%, from 55,915 to 89,330.

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In Glasgow the Irish didn’t always settle long, one bouzouki player said, but those reached Lanarkshire found good work, so stayed put. Thirteen of his 16 great-great-grandparents came from Ulster.

Between tunes, people reminisced about cycling expeditions from Ravenscraig to Glasgow and weekly trips to play dances in Clydebank.

Building the club took perseverance and skill. When the chairman, Jim, first joined, other members clocked that he was a union man, so would make a diligent secretary.

With the rest of the committee, he made it into the most vigorous Comhaltas in the country. But Jim regretted how few young folk are involved now. Sustaining culture will take a new generation’s work.

Next day, after a night camped by the Clyde near the Covenanting hotbed of Dalzell Estate, I visited another local imprint of Irish immigration.

In 1922, Scotland was in the grip of severe economic depression. When hundreds of Catholic workers of Irish descent could not obtain a wage, a local priest commenced a visionary scheme of cultural work to construct the Carfin Grotto.

On gently sloped ground below the parish church, a patchwork of lawns is populated with pedestalled saints. As you enter from the carpark, there is a shrine to the Virgin Mary on the left. To the right, a hand-built cave represents the stable of Bethlehem. There are chapels of stone and glass, monuments and memorials to peoples of all nations, and caves in which votary candles flicker in silent shadow.

The faux-marble statues on brick pedestals bring to mind the angel figurines that stood on my nana’s mantelpiece. For all its charms, something about the grotto’s suburban garden aesthetic makes it feel like a relic of a bygone generation.

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In the 1960s, my mother was one of countless pupils who kneeled and prayed during a century of school visits to Carfin. I was touched, then, to enter the bright and airy chapel and find children singing beautiful Kyrie and Alleluia settings, practising for Confirmation.

As I left the church, a woman mopping the floor, seeing me at a loose end, pointed down the lawn. “The glass chapel’s open just now with the blessed sacrament for exposition,” she directed, with the same everyday manner that my nana would tell me there was a roll and sausage in the kitchen.

Instead, I crossed the road and found myself at a church hall packed with yet more children, exhibiting displays about their charitable work. These were “Mini Vinnies”, members of the youth section of the Society of St Vincent de Paul (SSVP), a Roman Catholic laity organisation which promotes charity and justice.

Esme, a fifth-year student and president of one of the school groups from Airdrie, told me how each week they choose what to raise money for. Her teacher explained how the children support projects such as Let the Children Live, a charity of last resort for homeless children in Colombia.

CONVERSATION was soon hushed for a speech by the visiting VIP, SSVP’s global president Renato Lima de Oliveira. A life-long activist from Brazil, he was recently appointed by the Pope to a commission that promotes “Integral Human Development” – dealing with justice, peace, migration, refugees, and poverty.

“We are here in the world,” he told the children, “not just to study, to travel, but to transform this society, to create a better world – a world without refugees, without sickness”.

Afterwards, I asked him about the challenges the SSVP faces. There is, he said, a generational problem. In most of Africa and Latin America, there is no problem engaging young people in social activism, but in Scotland and across Europe, ageing populations posed significant challenges. But he thinks he has a formula that will appeal to the young in a post-Covid world – friendship, prayer, action. A culture of social commitment and giving, he said, must be grounded in friendship.

As the children were leaving the hall, I spoke to Rt Rev Joseph Toal, Bishop of Motherwell, who echoed the message. He said: “We are good at enjoying the spiritual life, and people gather in good numbers. But maybe we need more of the active life to encourage both the practice of faith and good living.”

Something happened in the 1970s, he said, when a kind of individualism worked against people being part of groups. “The present crisis is going to mean we must depend on each other.”

In 1856, 120 pupils attended the first Catholic school in the area. By the early 1860s, 1000 Catholics were enough to support a priest and fund the building of a church and school. Today’s 70 or so Catholic schools in the Diocese of Motherwell are another institutional legacy of Irish migration.

After the ceremony, I stood and watched the huddle of holy elders guide their Brazilian visitor around the Carfin sites. Meanwhile, the children sat in groups, well-behaved, unsure if this was a place for fun. As I wondered what was missing from this sacred, slightly sterile shrine, an aged man in a trilby passed me on the steps up to the church.

Looking around he said with a wink: “Well, this must be the Stairway Tae Heavin.” I remembered what Jim had told me about the work of the Comhaltas: “You can end up really good but however good you get, it isn’t to be taken too seriously.”

lFor more about Johnny Doc’s see comhaltas.ie/about.

lThe Dalzell Estate, the grounds of the grand Dalzell House, contains the 1000-year-old Covenanters’ Oak, as well as a Presbyterian graveyard, a century-old Japanese garden and a stone summer house.

lCarfin Grotto is Scotland’s National Shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes. It is open 365 days and welcomes more than 70,000 pilgrims each year. See carfingrotto.org