Little Tipperary The Irish in Lochee
Irish migration to Scotland is a major theme for anyone studying history in the Victorian era, but the role that the Irish influx played in society in the north east is less documented than it is on the west coast. The Lochee area of Dundee, in particular, has felt, and still feels into the new millennium, the effects of a large migration from across the Irish Sea.
Irish workers, lured by the prospect of employment in the city’s jute mills, of which Cox’s in Lochee was the largest, started to arrive in Dundee around 1825 and kept arriving at such a rate that, within 30 years, the population of Irish-born Dundonians had grown to 14,000. The Irish that settled in Dundee, and Lochee in particular, did so because of their prior knowledge of the textiles and jute industries; therefore, they came mainly from the Irish counties where linen and yarn were produced, such as Donegal, Londonderry, Monaghan, Sligo and Tyrone.
Lochee, blighted by poverty and poor quality housing, was the first port of call for many of the migrants, who settled there for economic reasons and to be close to their workplace – before long it was handed the local moniker “Little Tipperaray”.
An important social legacy of the Dundee Irish is local junior football club, Lochee Harp, who were formed in 1904, much in the same way as Glasgow Celtic, by local priests and church members to alleviate the boredom of the workers and provide some recreation. Lochee Harp were not the only football club in Dundee to be founded by the Irish migrants, with SPL side Dundee United only founded in 1923 after playing under the name Dundee Hibernians from 1909 and wearing the traditional Irish green strip. The Lochee area was also steeped in Irish politics, with James Connolly, founder of the Irish Socialist Republican Party, said to have resided in the area for a time in 1898, becoming involved in the local political scene.
Dundee’s Irish population differed from the west coast and Clydeside Irish in one important aspect, in that, despite being steeped in Irish politics and history, there was little in the way of sectarianism, and, in fact, according to TM Devine, the city was “usually quiet” on that front. One reason for this may have been that there were far fewer immigrants from Ulster settling in Dundee than arrived in Glasgow, therefore reducing the potential for sectarian rivalry. Another reason for Dundee’s lack of sectarianism in comparison to other cities that had high levels of Irish immigration is given by Janice Murray in her book The Miles to Dundee, who argues that the high proportion of single women that came to work – some 71% of Dundee’s Irish-born workforce were female – greatly reduced the opportunities for religious tension.
To this day the Lochee area of Dundee is still regarded as a largely Catholic area with its roots steeped in Irish tradition. The proportion of Irish-born people residing in the area has obviously fallen as the descendents of the immigrants have married into the Scots population, but the people of Lochee are still fiercely proud of their Irish heritage.