Metropolitan Anxieties: On the Meaning of the Irish Catholic Adventure in Scotland

In a lecture entitled Scotlands shame, delivered at the Edinburgh Festival in August 1999, Scotlands leading musical composer James MacMillan sought to expose the continuing pervasiveness of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sectarianism and bigotry in contemporary Scotland. A decade of heated public debate has followed. The purpose of this book is to harness the complex and rich theory of colonialism which French philosopher, political activist and novelist Jean-Paul Sartre developed and struggled over, to venture a qualified and partial interpretation of the Irish Catholic experience of Scotland.