The Church of Scotland once lobbied the prime minister claiming it was impossible for Irish people to assimilate and calling for them to be “repatriated”, it has emerged.
Newly released documents reveal that a delegation of Kirk representatives demanded that Ramsay MacDonald curb immigration from Ireland and curtail the right to vote for those who were allowed to arrive.
The Kirk suggested that Irish Catholic newcomers were an “undesirable” drain on society, fuelling unemployment, fecklessness and criminality.
The church has long since repudiated the racist and sectarian attitudes it adopted and espoused in the early 20th century. However, the correspondence, which has been released by the National Archives, highlights just how deeply they were once entrenched.
They show that fear over the effects of Irish
