"Why do Protestants eat fish on a Friday? To stop the Catholics getting it."
Traditional. Told to the author by a Catholic.
'"Too divided to govern itself" is a test set only for petitioners, and pressed by a state with a religious test at its own apex.'
The receipts
The source list for this chapter, as the publisher maintains it. Archive links are given wherever a cited page could move or die.
- James MacMillan, "Scotland's Shame", lecture, Edinburgh International Festival, August 1999: "sleepwalking bigotry" and "visceral anti-Catholicism". CORRECTED 22 August 2026: these two phrases are NOT in the Catholic Herald retrospective previously cited here (a full-text read confirms neither appears). They are given as MacMillan's own words in John Haldane, "The Case of Scotland's Shame", Crisis Magazine, 1 January 2001, and the true primary is MacMillan's lecture text reprinted as the opening chapter of T. M. Devine (ed.), Scotland's Shame? Bigotry and Sectarianism in Modern Scotland (Mainstream, 2000), pp. 9-24. Confirm the exact wording against Devine (2000) on a library read before print (the same trip confirms the book's title and question mark). The Catholic Herald retrospective (thecatholicherald.com/article/my-scotlands-shame-speech-provoked-debate-but-what-changed, MacMillan's byline, 4 April 2019) remains the correct source for his "white heat of commitment has gone cold" judgement and his 57 per cent figure (both verified present in it). Exact calendar date within August 1999 not yet pinned (lead: BBC News, 9 August 1999; see Verification notes).
- T. M. Devine (ed.), Scotland's Shame? Bigotry and Sectarianism in Modern Scotland (Mainstream, Edinburgh, 2000): the first book-length response to the lecture; the question mark is on the cover.
- Steve Bruce, Tony Glendinning and Michael Rosie, Sectarianism in Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 2004): discrimination "all but disappeared", violence "grossly exaggerated", the perception gap a "social myth". Also used in Chapter 12 for mechanism.
- Peter Walls and Rory Williams, "Religious discrimination in Scotland: a rebuttal of Bruce et al.'s claim that sectarianism is a myth", Ethnic and Racial Studies 28:4 (2005), 759 to 767 (eprints.gla.ac.uk/2739/), answering Bruce, Glendinning, Rosie et al., "Religious discrimination in Scotland: Fact or myth?", Ethnic and Racial Studies 28:1 (2004).
- Religiously aggravated offending, charge series 2012-13 to 2017-18 (694, 593, 569, 592, 685, 629): Scottish Government, "Religiously aggravated offending in Scotland 2017-18: analysis of charges", 15 June 2018, compiled from COPFS charge data, Findings page (gov.scot/publications/religiously-aggravated-offending-scotland-2017-18/pages/4/, archived web.archive.org/web/20260822070555/); also the by-religion breakdown: Roman Catholicism the most-targeted religion in each of the six years (50 to 63 per cent of charges), Protestantism second in each (24 to 29 per cent). Cross-checked against the 2016-17 report's equivalent page (archived web.archive.org/web/20260822070706/).
- Religiously aggravated charges 2024-25: 505, "the lowest since 2004-05", a 5.1 per cent fall on 2023-24: COPFS, religiously aggravated charges report 2024-25, per Total charges only; COPFS stopped publishing a by-religion breakdown after 2017-18.
- Hate crimes by targeted religion, current figures: Scottish Government, "Hate crimes recorded by the police in Scotland, 2024-25", 17 February 2026, "Characteristics of hate crime" page (gov.scot/publications/hate-crimes-recorded-police-scotland-2024-25/pages/4/, archived web.archive.org/web/20260822070626/): for crimes with non-police victims, prejudice towards the Catholic community in 35 per cent of cases and the Protestant community in 18 per cent. Police Scotland recorded crimes under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021: a different body counting at a different stage from the COPFS charge series, and the prose says so.
- The July 2018 assault on a parish priest by "a follower of the city's main Orange parade": Scottish Government, "Review of the 2016 Independent Report on Marches, Parades and Static Demonstrations in Scotland", Section 2, "Relevant Developments 2016-2019" (gov.scot/publications/review-2016-independent-report-marches-parades-static-demonstrations-scotland/pages/5/, archived web.archive.org/web/20260822070646/).
- Scottish Government, "An Examination of the Evidence on Sectarianism in Scotland" (2013) and 2015 Update (gov.scot/publications/examination-evidence-sectarianism-scotland/): the attitude figures (88 per cent, 19 per cent, 69 per cent); the inter-Christian marriage evidence (45 per cent / 43 per cent partnering among Catholic women in the 2001 census; 1 to 2 per cent unhappy at intermarriage); sectarian-motivated crime at around one per cent of recorded crime.
- National Records of Scotland censuses: Church of Scotland identification 42 per cent (2001) to 32 per cent (2011); Roman Catholic circa 16 per cent (2001, 2011) and 13.3 per cent (2022, 723,322 people). The 2022 figures already sourced and archived for Chapter 12.
- Emile Simpson, "The Moral Tragedy of Scottish Independence", Foreign Policy, 16 September 2014 (foreignpolicy.com/2014/09/16/the-moral-tragedy-of-scottish-independence/), quoted verbatim and CONFIRMED against the primary (Wayback snapshot 9 December 2014). "cultural sectarianism" is Simpson's own phrase; he does not put it in quotation marks in the primary text.
- Gordon Brown, remarks ahead of the These Islands conference, Newcastle, 21 February 2020, on a YouGov poll of 2,500 Scots commissioned by Our Scottish Future; quoted verbatim, matching wording across the Scotsman, Sunday Post, the New European, PressReader reproductions and gordonandsarahbrown.com.
- Brian Wilson, remarks at a Scottish Labour conference fringe event, Perth, late February 2017, reported in the Herald, 21 March 2017 (heraldscotland.com, since redirected to glasgowtimes.co.uk), quoted verbatim; secondary pickup in the New Statesman (Julia Rampen), 11 April 2017. Wilson is identified in the prose as a former Labour MP only; his directorship of Celtic Football Club, though public fact, is deliberately not stated there, because tagging a speaker's club before his quote invites the reader to read his argument off his football allegiance, which is the inference the chapter exists to ban.
- Tom Gallagher, quoted in "Scotland's sectarian shame", The World (PRI/PRX), 30 July 2016 (theworld.org/stories/2016/07/30/scotland-s-sectarian-shame), both sentences quoted verbatim and together. Divided Scotland: Ethnic Friction and Christian Crisis (Argyll Publishing, 2013) cited by title only; no text from the book is quoted.
- The "too small, too poor, too divided" formula and the roughly sixty-five states that left British rule with none applying to return: this book's own established record, per admin/objectives-and-architecture.md and Chapter 8.
- Belgium (Flemish/Walloon division, long government-formation gaps, EU and NATO seats): stated at general-knowledge level as a structural comparator; no independence-precedent claim is made on it.
- Act of Settlement 1701 (communion requirement and Catholic bar) and Succession to the Crown Act 2013 (marriage bar lifted, sovereign's bar retained): Act of Settlement 1701 (12 & 13 Will. 3 c. 2), legislation.gov.uk/aep/Will3/12-13/2; Succession to the Crown Act 2013, s.2 (marriage bar lifted; the communion requirement untouched), legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/20; previously relied on by cross-reference, re-pointed 9 October 2026 (final cards C23) only.
- The homegrown finding, the Kirk's 1923 report and 2002 regret, and the Orange Order's 1798 arrival: established and sourced in Chapter 12; relied on here by cross-reference only.
- Full research dossiers and (both compiled 22 August 2026), building on; primary reads in (22 August 2026). From (13 September 2026), new to this chapter:
- Lord Ashcroft, "Scottish Referendum Poll", full data tables, CATI and online fieldwork 18 to 19 September 2014, published 19 September 2014 (lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Scotland-Post-Referendum-poll-Full-tables-1409191.pdf), Table 22, printed page 45, base 2,047, Vote crossbreak Yes 929 and No 1,118. Absolutes read off the table: Christian Protestant 234 Yes of 788; Christian Catholic 151 Yes of 265; Christian other 48 of 125; no religion 386 of 693. Row percentages are arithmetic on those absolutes (57.0, 29.7, 38.4, 55.7), confirmed against Clive D. Field, "Scottish Independence and Other News", British Religion in Numbers, 21 September 2014 (brin.ac.uk/scottish-independence-and-other-news/), whose sentence that none of the campaign polls "appear to have asked about the faith of respondents" is the basis for the prose's "none of the campaign polls appears to have asked about religion". Columns sum to the published totals in both directions; re-checked in session 13 September 2026.
- Michael Rosie, "Tall Tales: Religion and Scottish Independence", What Scotland Thinks (ScotCen Social Research), 15 August 2013 (whatscotlandthinks.org/2013/08/tall-tales-religion-and-scottish-independence/), quoted verbatim: the 1999 figures (34 per cent of Catholics, 21 per cent of Church of Scotland identifiers, 31 per cent of no religion backing independence), the 2012 figures (30, 17 and 26), the controlled finding ("when we take age and gender into account the apparent religious gap in attitudes towards independence disappears"), and the age mechanism ("while 40% of those aged over 65 say they are Church of Scotland, only 10% of those in their 30s, and just 5% of those aged 18-29 do so"). No base sizes are published in the post. Journal version: Michael Rosie, "Tall Tales: Understanding Religion and Scottish Independence", Scottish Affairs 23:3 (August 2014), pp. 332 to 341, DOI 10.3366/scot.2014.0032, closed access, unread.
- The absence of a published Scottish Social Attitudes crossbreak of constitutional preference by religion with base sizes: tested against What Scotland Thinks (the constitutional-preference question page and the SSA reading list) and the gov.scot SSA series, none found; dossier section 2a. The prose states it as "nobody can find it", not as a certainty.
- Theos, "Religion Counts: National identity and Scottish Independence", 26 June 2024, Paul Bickley and George Lapshynov (theosthinktank.co.uk/), British Election Study waves 23 and 25; methodological note quoted in the dossier ("standardised predictions estimated from a series of regressions using age, gender, education, religious affiliation, and church attendance as independent variables"); the finding quoted verbatim in the prose.
- Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, "Our Mission", orangeorderscotland.com/grand-orange-lodge-of-scotland, fetched 13 September 2026 and confirmed on the live site in session the same day, quoted verbatim.
- BBC News, "Orange warning over Union danger", 24 March 2007 (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/6490917.stm; Wayback 20241207080828): Ian Wilson, Grand Master, quoted verbatim; the march of more than 12,000 and the 3 May 2007 Holyrood election date from the same report.
- British Together, the Lodge's own campaign site (britishtogether.co.uk, dead; Wayback 20130516031417 and 20140628214658, text identical across captures): Henry Dunbar, Grand Master, quoted verbatim.
- Electoral Commission, Scottish Independence Referendum: Report on the referendum held on 18 September 2014, December 2014, Appendix 2, "List of registered campaigners", the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland in the column campaigning for a No vote; Foreword: 42 campaigners registered, 21 for each outcome. Re-read from the primary PDF in session 13 September 2026.
- Electoral Commission, Scottish Independence Referendum: Report on the regulation of campaigners, June 2015, ELC/2015/02, Appendix 1, "Spending reported by registered campaigners", printed page 48: Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, No, £47,072; Appendix 2, donations reported, in which the Lodge does not appear. The table is a rasterised image; read by rendering the page, in session 13 September 2026. The inference that the money was the Lodge's own follows from the reporting rules stated in the same report and is stated in the prose as what the record shows.
- Shân Ross, "Orange Order rally over 'evil' threat to Union", The Scotsman, 14 September 2014 (Wayback 20251228031210): the march of 13 September 2014 (more than 15,000 people, 110 bands, the route, the lectern wording), Henry Dunbar's platform words, the grand chaplain Henry Williamson's prayer, and the Better Together spokesman's sentence, all quoted verbatim. Dunbar's sentence carries an en dash in the primary; the prose quotes it as two verbatim fragments to keep the dash out of the book.
- Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, "General Election", a message from the Grand Master, Jim McHarg, 11 December 2019 (orangeorderscotland.com/2019/12/11/general-election/; Wayback 20200502172732), quoted verbatim.
- Keir Starmer, JP Mackintosh Memorial Lecture, 21 December 2020, and Douglas Alexander, Commons statement, 10 June 2026, both quoted verbatim: as sourced in Chapter 14.
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