The changing face of Glasgow.

Glasgow has been an immigrant city , probably since the beginning of the 10th century. Tens of thousands of Gaelic speaking highlanders moved down into the city at the time of the highland clearences, partly due to being driven off the land and partly in order to take advantage of the opportunities crreated by the expansion of shipbuilding, coal and steel production in Glasgow and the central belt of Scotland. In Glasgow, they iintermingled with tens of thousands of Irish from the north and west of Ireland driven by the effects of the famine and again, by the opportunities cresated by industrialisation. Later in the centuary, Protestant Ulstermen came over to become the skilled backbone ofshipyards like John Brow'ns and Jews from Lithuania settled in the Gorbals and the south side of the city. Also, Italians settled widely in the west of scotland vecoming small shopkeepers, some of whose descendendents have found fame as actors and musicians such as Tom Conti, Daniella Nardini, Sharleen Spitari and Paulo Nutini. More Lithuamians came at the time of the first world war and since then Glasgow has seen the \arrival of a large Pakistani community, Chilieans at the time of the Pinochet dictatorship, Kurds, Iraqi's and most rtecently, Congolese and other african refugees.

All this goes to show how one dimensional much of the english view of modern Scotland tends to be.