Siol nan Gaidheal
Siol nan Gaidheal is a minor Scottish ultranationalist and ethnic nationalist group which describes itself as a "cultural and fraternal organisation".
The first incarnation of the group was founded by Tom Moore in 1978, though it became defunct twice and was re-established by Jackie Stokes in 1987 and again in 1997.
Though the group publicly disavows politics, SnG has been variously described by commentators as anywhere from "traditionalist" to "crypto-fascist" or "proto-fascist". Members of the group have been banned from membership of the mainstream nationalist Scottish National Party since 1982.
Name
The name, properly spelled Sìol nan Gàidheal, is Scottish Gaelic for 'Seed of the Gaels'. The term sìol has numerous meanings, most commonly translated as "breed, brood, lineage, progeny, seed".History
First incarnation (19781985)
The first incarnation of Siol nan Gaidheal was founded in 1978 by Tom Moore, a Scot who spent his childhood in the United States. It grew in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 devolution referendum, despite being shunned by the mainstream nationalist Scottish National Party, whose ruling executive attempted to ban SnG from the party as early as 1980. In September 1980, the SNP launched an inquiry into the group, with Colin Bell as vice-chairman. SnG was fully proscribed after the SNP's 1982 conference. The 1320 Club, which was banned by the SNP in 1968, merged into SnG in the same year.The early Siol nan Gaidheal was described by the historian Peter Lynch as "a collection of radical militants who favoured direct action tactics and tended to make vague threats of violence". Throughout the 1980s, Siol nan Gaidheal published a magazine called Firinn Albannach, which has been described as having a rhetoric which was "anti-communist, neo-fascist and sometimes violent in tone". Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's personal security was stepped up in Scotland after members of SnG tried to accost her outside the Conservative Party conference in Perth in 1982.
Some members of SnG formed an unofficial paramilitary wing called Arm nan Gaidheal, which was responsible for a number of petrol bomb attacks against Labour and Conservative party offices in Glasgow and Dundee in 1982. Eight of the organisation's members were arrested following an arson attack on the home of the chief executive of Glasgow chamber of commerce in 1983. Against the background of internal division and arrests of members, the first incarnation of Siol nan Gaidheal eventually folded in 1985.
Second incarnation (198790s)
Siol nan Gaidheal was re-established in 1987 by Jackie Stokes, a member of the Scottish Republican Socialist Party. This second incarnation of the group explicitly rejected violence. By 1988, it claimed a membership of 300. Its activities included, in 1989, erecting a cairn in memory of Willie McRaewho was sympathetic to SnG, and possibly at one point a memberalong with Michael Strathern. By the early 1990s, however, Stokes had suffered a heart attack and then kidney problems, which effectively killed the organisation.Third incarnation (1997present)
Jackie Stokes eventually re-established Siol nan Gaidheal for a second time in 1997, this time concentrating mainly on its website and online discussion forum. Chapters were set up in the United States and in Canada as a focus for the Scottish diaspora in North America. Stokes died on 24 July 2001, leading to a downturn in the group's activity. In May 2006, SnG held its first Ard Fhèis in 14 years in Dalwhinnie.Siol nan Gaidheal actively campaigned for Scottish independence during the 2014 independence referendum, though the mainstream Yes Scotland campaign distanced itself from SnG. The group made headlines in the run-up to the referendum for heckling Labour MP Jim Murphy on his visits to Dundee and Montrose.
Siol nan Gaidheal has marched at pro-independence demonstrations organised by All Under One Banner. In 2018, the online magazine Bella Caledonia criticised AUOB for platforming what it described as a "fascist", ethnonationalist group. AUOB replied that while Siol nan Gaidheal's banner was not welcome, it was unable to physically ban the organisation from its marches. Political campaigner Math Campbell, who founded the pro-independence group English Scots for Yes, said that Siol nan Gaidheal's presence left him and others feeling unwelcome: "They claim they have moved on from those days, when Siol Nan Gaidheal members later went on to be involved in the Scottish National Liberation Army, setting fire to houses and intimidating New Scots. We'd like to believe that claim, but the Siol Nan Gaidheal official website, right now, still contains articles saying things like 'every English incomer is suspect, the good with the bad', and talking of Scottishness being linked to ancestry and birthplace, the so-called 'blood and soil' position adopted by fascist groups worldwide." In a Facebook post, Siol nan Gaidheal responded by saying that its website is "somewhat unrepresentative of the current Siol nan Gaidheal".
On 11 January 2020, an AUOB pro-independence demonstration in Glasgow marched behind a banner badged with the Siol nan Gaidheal symbol. In 2022, SNP MSP Evelyn Tweed apologised after being photographed holding an Siol nan Gaidheal banner at an AUOB march commemorating the Battle of Bannockburn.
Aim and ideology
Siol nan Gaidheal is an ethnic nationalist organisation that believes that politics must reflect "the ethnic nature of our people", and that "no foreign ideology, in this as in any dynamic area of our culture, may be purposefully accommodated into the fabric of our national life". Siol nan Gaidheal opposes "globalism" and multiculturalism, and has called for Scottish politicians who oppose independence to face "appropriate and ultimate attention in some future Scottish government" for "crimes of treason against our Nation, Culture and People".Siol nan Gaidheal describes English residents in Scotland as "white settlers", and says of them; "every English incomer at present is suspect, the good along with the bad". Siol nan Gaidheal has been branded as "proto fascists" by former SNP leader Gordon Wilson.