A Glasgow Album: July 2011

Welcome to my wee photoblog on Glasgow, where we feature the joys and unjoys of walking and cycling through a fascinating, beautiful and often badly run city. For the blog's origin see the 'Introduction' post -

http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/2010/02/introduction.html

An alphabetical list of all posts so far can be found at the end of this post.

Today is Saturday 2 July, and we are heading to GoMA (Glasgow Museum of Modern Art) to take a book back to the library and also take in the Orange Order's wreath-laying ceremony at George Square.

George St and other streets around George Square cordoned off

Looking down Queen St


For George Square itself see http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/2010/03/george-square.html and http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/2010/10/townhead-to-duke-st-to-george-square.html


Orange Walkers like to have saltires and Lion Rampant flags as well as Union Jacks - they wave all three robustly at Celtic supporters who of course don't wave Union Jacks and only rarely wave Scottish flags. Glasgow is a city of tribes and flags


The Black Skull Corps of Fife and Drums. For the history of the Corps see http://www.blackskull.co.uk

I wonder what the tourists make of all this. The Orangemen are of course facing not just the Cenotaph - where they will shortly lay a wreath - but the City Chambers. After Rangers matches you will sometimes see stickers about saying 'This is Our City' - see the first pic here in an underground carriage -

http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/2011/01/govan-underground-to-ibrox-underground.html

but the City Council has long been dominated by Labour who are (in Glasgow) no great friends to the Orange Order, many of whom see the council as run by Catholics - Catholics of Irish descent. There is no one from the council present to honour the ceremony that is about to take place. Glasgow Council is not known for its expertise in facing up to difficult situations. A march in support of asylum seekers went past here on 13 March last year after the suicide of a Russian family - see
http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/2010/03/red-road-flats-part-3.html

and not one person from the council was there to greet us. Not one. This was the time of the Purcell affair when the most powerful politician in Glasgow was revealed to be buying his cocaine in a pub on the Glasgow boundary called, appropriately enough, the Boundary bar - for which see

http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/2010/11/welcome-to-glasgow-2-yoker-rd.html

Last year the Council placed restrictions on future marches through Glasgow. For the Orange Order's reaction to the restrictions see
http://www.orangeorderscotland.com/news.html
In the run up to the Scottish parliament election in May this year, the Orange Order urged its west of Scotland members and supporters to vote for the Scottish National Party as part of their fightback against Labour. See

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/snp-gets-orange-support-in-protest-at-labour-1.1102884

At previous elections, the Order had asked its supporters to vote Labour, that party being the least worst option to keep the nationalists out. In the west of Scotand at least, that temporary alliance is dead - the game's a bogey, as we say.
Colourful and emotional as all this is, we are a long way from the world of Visit Scotland and the world of Glasgow's official slogan: Glasgow - Scotland with Style. There is plenty of style on show in the Square, but the council's Armani men can't market it - or bury it. For more on the Order see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Orange_Lodge_of_Scotland

A bugler plays the Last Post

Lots of cops round about (lots of overtime) - they keep as low a profile as possible

Over 200,000 Glaswegians served - of all religions and none


The ceremony is moving and dignifed. At such moments the Orangemen evoke Betjeman's 'Old men who never cheated, never doubted'


We remember we have a book to take back - Tom Leonard's fine anthology Radical Renfrew - so we wander down to the GoMA library. Ingram Street opposite library dead quiet also.


The Duke of Wellington. For more on GoMA see http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/2010/04/goma.html

Heading back to the Square

More bands heading down North Frederick St to the Square. Glasgow has a solid Hanovcrian past, as the street names testify, Not sure which of the Hanoverian Freds - there were many:
Here lies poor Fred who was alive and is dead,
Had it been his father I had much rather,
Had it been his sister nobody would have missed her,
Had it been his brother, still better than another,
Had it been the whole generation, so much better for the nation,
But since it is Fred who was alive and is dead,
There is no more to be said.

Our youngest goes to the Gaelic school, which recently put on a show about the history of Gaelic in Scotland. At one point we time-travelled to 1745 and the Battle of Culloden - which was a bit unfortunate as the battle actually took place in 1746. In the real world, in December 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie arrived in Glasgow on his retreat from England, having passed through the strong presbyterian Lowlands exacting tribute from those who hated the Jacobite cause the most.

, . .an earlier attempt by Charlie to exact tribute from the city had been stalled by the city's rulers - they told him they feared the Glasgow Protestant mob more than they feared his army. . .

. . .the 17th century had seen many hard battles in Scotland, especially between Irish troops and Covenanting forces. Montrose's Irish troops has sacked Aberdeen in a storm of murder and rape. Atrocity followed atrocity - the Irish prisoners at Philliphaugh were butchered and their women and children murdered. Glasgow escaped Aberdeen's fate by a whisker, but the Glaswegians of the Scottish Enlightenment remembered the tales of those times: the 'Killing Times' and the Protestant Cause. This time around Glasgow again escaped being sacked - Charlie held a sort of ball, got himself a mistress from a Jacobite family,
and fled north with his loot, the city hissing its hate after him. The Orangemen have long memories

Marching out of the Square to lead the walk to Glasgow Green

Looking down a packed George Street - the High St in the distance

Time to head home I reckon

Later in the day we go to the Lidl in Maryhill Rd (they sell organic bananas £1 a bag). There are always parked dogs outsdie this Lidl. See http://parkeddogs.blogspot.com

Coming out we meet this friendly wee dog. . .

. . .who hears a band in the street. . .

It's a section of the Orange Walk returning home form Glasgow Green

These end-of-day segments are traditionally the ones that see most trouble but all is quiet - apart from the bands of course. . .

. . .the flutes and drums - especially the huge lambeg drum - of the Orangemen do laments very well, but as war music they cannot be bettered. Many of these musicians are highly talented - the flautist James Galway learned to play in bands such as this