‘The Rising Tide of Paganism’

Abstract

This study demonstrates that contemporary Scotland is not, in any sociological sense, a ‘sectarian’ society. But what of Scotland’s past — can it justifiably be described as ‘sectarian’? There has been a broad consensus that the period between the world wars represented the sharpest point of modern ‘sectarian’ conflict. The orthodoxy has been that economic slump conjoined with quarrels over education and heightened tension in Ireland destroyed the religious détente of c. 1878–1916. Such a view has come under revision but many studies still identify the inter-war period as a defining epoch in Catholic-Protestant relations. What this study will now show is that even during a period of intense dislocation, religious rivalries provided a very limited means by which to mobilise opinion and action in Scotland. In other words, inter-war Scotland was not a ‘sectarian’ society.