Rangers fans target Scots singer Iona Fyfe with abusive messages on Twitter

Award-winning folk singer Iona Fyfe was branded a ‘dirty whore’, a ‘vile scumbag’ and a ‘bint’, after she posted about Rangers fans at Glasgow Airport.

Fyfe was at the airport, waiting for a flight to the United States, when she tweeted about ‘unruly pished fans’, as Rangers supporters head off to Seville ahead of the Europa League final on Wednesday evening.

As well as being targeted with vile messages, one fan even pretended to be Rangers chairman Douglas Park, offering support before revealing it was a fake account and responding ‘we’ll send you a sombrero from Seville’.

The fake account then posted the private messages online for “people to laugh at”.

She has now called on the football club to take action over the social media abuse.

“For years and years, speaking Scots and singing in Scots has warranted loads of abuse from folk who usually have a Union Jack or Rangers logo,” she explained.

“I find Scotland has become so polarised that any sort of Scottish culture, whether that be singing, or poetry, or speaking Scots, folk are terrified by it.

“People don’t like the language. They are terrified of Gaelic and Scots speakers because it shows it is different from English. So, for as long as I’ve sung and promoted my work on social media, I’ve had this sort of harrasment and hate.

“However, yesterday was a different kettle of fish. I was at the airport and there was quite a lot of, what I’d say were, unruly Rangers fans who evidently had a drink in them quite early on in the morning.

“I was exhausted and travelling alone, and being met by loads of rowdy fans going to Seville wasn’t the pleasantest experienced I’d had in the morning. I created a tweet saying this and that incited thousands of mysoginistic, hateful, degrading, sexist, and at times racist comments.

“Just for the record, I’m not Catholic and I don’t support Celtic - I don’t know where they’re getting that from. Yesterday was nothing to do with the Scots language unfortunately, it was just inciteful hate.”

Ms Fyfe says she gets “loads of hate” as a woman standing up for what she believes in and voicing her views.

She said other Scots singers, writers poets - including Len Pennie and Alistair Heather - receive abuse for their use of the language as well.

“People don’t like folk who are speaking Scots,” she added. “I get called stupid all the time. I’ve got two degrees, I’m the first in my family to go to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, I did an FLCM at London College of Music, I’ve got eight letters after my name - I’m not uneducated, I’m quite up to speed on politics.

“After I appeared on BBC’s debate night last week, there was an onslaught of unionists calling me not very nice things on Twitter.

“This Rangers thing is quite horrible. People say my music is shite, even though they haven’t listened to my music, they just don’t like my politics.

“But for people to publicly call me a ‘dirty whore’ on the internet, that is exhausting.

“I’m able to brush a few things off. Like, someone with a Rangers logo tweeted at me, saying ‘as an MSP, Iona, you should be focusing on your constituency’ and I replied back, like, you know I’m not actually an MSP. I’m a Scottish folk singer, and, as a folk singer does, happens to be engaged politically. These people spout hate but don’t do the Googling.

“People call me irrelevant or a nobody, I don’t need that. My music gets played on the radio. It doesn’t matter if thousands of Rangers supporters hate me, it’s not going to change anything. It’s really horrible when people comment on my appearance. Someone called me a ‘fat slag’ - I’m a size 6-8. I’m not fat. These people are vile.

“I’m just a folk singer, who is politically engaged, trying to stand up for what I believe in - and I don’t believe in Sectarian or Orange marches, I don’t believe in having to be a lone traveller in an airport with tens and tens of rowdy Rangers supporters. I don’t want that, which is why I tweeted it.

“I don’t think what I tweeted warranted abuse.”

“When someone attacks my appearance, that’s not very nice. No woman wants to be called ‘horsey’ or ‘longface’ or ‘fat’.

“What’s really shocking is that among these Rangers fans yesterday, there was quite a lot of women piling on and making these comments. It’s sad and depressing that because I have different political beliefs, they will do this.

“I want to call out their behaviour for what it is, and it’s horrid.”