Conditioned - Part 1

When I was about ten the local Catholic priest started taking me to Celtic football games, and the occasional international featuring Scotland, at the national stadium, Hampden Park.

During Scotland games against England the fans would chant

"If you hate the fucking English, clap your hands."

All the Scottish fans sang it, and all clapped.

and

"We hate Jimmy Hill, he's a poof, he's a poof." (Jimmy Hill was one of the foremost football pundits at the tine, and English.)

At Celtic games the fans sang "Fuck the Queen and the UDA"

Later in my life one of my best friend's brother was a Rangers season ticket holder, but sometimes because of his work he would be away when a home match was on. He'd give his other ticket to my friend. One time my friend asked if I wanted to go, so we went together.

This was in the late 1980s or early 90s. I don't remember who Rangers were playing. What I do remember is at one point the fans started singing "Billy Boys" and I was in the middle of the stand, nominally a Catholic, amongst literally tens of thousands of mostly men but many women too, singing "We're up to our knees in Fenian blood, surrender or you'll die." The Fenians were a revolutionary Irish political group seeking to overthrow British rule in 19th century Ireland, and create an independent Irish republic. Though not only Catholics in Ireland supported independence at that time, the word Fenians came to be a near synonym for Catholics in everyday talk about Irish politics.

I remember saying to my friend, "I wonder what would happen to me if someone was to recognise me and shout 'He's a Catholic'." The likelihood is that probably nothing would have happened but the very fact that I felt the need to say anything about the possibility of danger to me says a lot about how I felt.

Everyone is conditioned. These just happen to be examples of some of my own conditioning in life, conditioned states of mind that I have had to spend decades trying to fully eradicate in my life.