Yesterday, I wrote all about how Scottish soccer fans seem to be depleting Boston’s beer supply as they’ve swarmed the city to support their nation during the World Cup. Today, via the BBC, I bring you yet another inventive way Scots are bringing a little dose of chaos to Boston: traffic cones. Specifically, traffic cones were placed over the faces of many of the city’s public statues honoring historical figures who helped shape Boston’s story.
It’s probably a strange sight for Bostonians to suddenly see bright orange traffic cones covering the heads of monuments to such towering figures of Bostonian lore as former mayor Kevin White and basketball legend Bill Russell. Should they be offended? Should they rise up and kick the Scots out, as the English have tried to do for centuries?
No. They mean no harm. It’s a tradition with roots in Glasgow, where the statue of the Duke of Wellington outside the city’s Gallery of Modern Art has worn a traffic cone on its head since the 1980s.
No one’s sure exactly when it happened, but at some point in the 1980s, some no doubt very drunk resident of Glasgow picked up a large traffic cone and set it on top of the Duke of Wellington’s head.
It’s more or less been there ever since, occasionally replaced with a culturally or politically relevant cone or hat, such as a soccer-ball-shaped hat when Glasgow hosted the 2002 UEFA Champions League Final. In 2024, in support of the Scottish independence referendum, someone replaced the cone with one that had the word “yes” scrawled on it.
Despite the occasional change in style, putting a funny thing on the statue of the Duke of Wellington has been a constant in Glasgow for 40-ish years.
The cone-topped Duke has become so ingrained in Glasgow life that it appears on souvenirs and in tourism campaigns. While the sourcing isn’t great, it allegedly was a source of inspiration for Banksy, the famed street artist.
Phil Boston with a bunch of Scottish football supporters, and it was only a matter of time before one of them stumbled upon a traffic cone and used it to make Boston feel a little bit more like home.
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