Scottish Studies

This paper explores arts festivals in terms of their relationship to local economic development within the rural island region of Orkney in Scotland. Fourteen qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with arts festival organisers, tourism representatives and local volunteers during the summer festival season. The findings offer new insights into the factors affecting how arts festivals impact the local economy; the areas of the local economy that are affected by arts festivals; and the implications of funding from awarding bodies on the endogenous development of arts festivals. For instance, it is concluded that supporting the cultural values of locals is vital to the economic success of rural arts festivals through a strategic design in the combined integration of minimised paid staff and maximised volunteers. Furthermore, it is revealed how in certain cases the initial retention of funding may benefit start-up arts festivals in terms of strategic development of their...

Borsje, J., A. Dooley, S. Mac Mathuna and G. Toner (eds. with editorial assistance by N. McGuire, N. Mac Cathmhaoil and T. Oudesluijs). 2014. Celtic Cosmology: Perspectives from Ireland and Scotland (Papers in Medieval Studies 26), Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.

Eighteenth-century Britain saw the emergence of a new poetic genre, the “work” poem which took various forms of labor as its subject and was often written by laborers themselves. Several of these working class poets found their lives transformed due to the success of their verse (Stephen Duck most famously), but most faded into literary obscurity. However, a substantial body of “work” poems was produced by a diverse group of poets throughout the century, each manifesting divergent concerns and attitudes about the experience of work. This chapter assesses the formal connections uniting this poetic genre, particularly the frequent use of such literary devices as ironic distancing, litotes, and mock-georgic description. Instead of solely classifying “work” poems on the basis of their subject matter, this chapter demonstrates that such poetry (indeed the genre itself) lends itself to sophisticated literary techniques often associated with other poetic genres. In this fashion the full measure of eighteenth-century working class poetry can be evaluated more fairly, particularly by analyzing the formation of a new genre designed expressly by the poets themselves. The chapter ultimately seeks to demonstrate the connectedness, rather than the alienation, of working class poetry to the eighteenth-century British poetic tradition.

A look at the background of two pipers, one from each side of the battle which includes William Cumming who was the subject of the iconic full length portrait of the 'Piper to the Laird of Grant', usually taken to be a picture of a typical clan piper. pub. Piping Times Vol 68. No 2 (November 2015

Scottish nationalism is a powerful movement in contemporary politics, yet the goal of Scottish independence emerged surprisingly recently into public debate. The origins of Scottish nationalism lie not in the medieval battles for Scottish statehood, the Acts of Union, the Scottish Enlightenment, or any other traditional historical milestone. Instead, an influential separatist Scottish nationalism began to take shape only in the 1970s and achieved its present ideological maturity in the course of the 1980s and 1990s. The nationalism that emerged from this testing period of Scottish history was unusual in that it demanded independence not to defend a threatened ancestral culture but as the most effective way to promote the agenda of the left. This accessible and engaging account of the political thought of Scottish nationalism explores how the arguments for Scottish independence were crafted over some fifty years by intellectuals, politicians and activists, and why these ideas had such a seismic impact on Scottish and British politics in the 2014 independence referendum.

Words used to describe the Battle of Culloden have always been written with lurid viscerality, from contemporary reports of the dramatic carnage on the moor to scholarly assessments of its enduring effects, still felt both in Scotland and amongst the global community today. To many, it was a sacred last dance that played out over hallowed ground, featuring fateful manoeuvres and noble sacrifices that conjure poignant physical and emotional reactions for those who still flock to visit the field. Some consider Cùil Lodair to have been the death knell of the Highland clan system, and to others it forged the seal on the permanence of union. 275 years later, the myths associated with Culloden are nearly indistinguishable from what we consider to be the facts. Accordingly, myth-busting by both academic and popular historians has become a full-time occupation in the wake of the interest ignited by the Outlander books and television series. Scottish tourism has enjoyed a massive swell in its coffers thanks to this phenomenon alone; Culloden, in a way, has therefore once again put Scotland back on the map and at the forefront of broader collective thoughts about the nation’s future. The battlefield and visitor centre remains a site of pilgrimage for tourists, re-enactors, annual commemorators, and those members of the global diaspora who have ‘come home’. Pitched hostilities continue to be waged to either build upon or preserve the land that formed the context of the battle. Many know the story of the action and what took place in the years afterward, but why we do we still care about the Battle of Culloden nearly three centuries on? This short talk will offer some thoughts about our memory of historical Jacobitism and why this windswept moorland still means so much to so many today.

Dunnottar Castle and church are set upon a rocky headland on the NE coast of Aberdeenshire, about 2 miles S of Stonehaven. It has been thought that the medieval castle has disappeared, while the surviving buildings are largely of the 14 th to 17 th C. However a close inspection of the ruins that cover an area of 3½ acres suggest reality could be very different.
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Active in both the women's suffrage movement and local politics, musician and Gaelic song-collector Marjory Kennedy-Fraser started promoting Scottish Independence, widely discussed at present but front-page news also a century ago, eventually becoming one of its figureheads.

Having begun collecting Hebridean songs in 1905, fired by an ambition both to preserve the musical riches of the Scottish Gaeldom – then considered backward and culturally barren – and to present the material to a wider audience, Kennedy-Fraser gradually evolved from focussing on musical matters to using the music as a means to place the Gaels on the political agenda. Introducing Gaelic songs to fashionable Edwardian audiences, although somewhat provocative, made her efforts socially acceptable and highly esteemed – and thus more usable for propaganda purposes.

Daughter of well-known Scottish tenor David Kennedy, Marjory grew up in Scotland and London when not travelling with her father; later studying music in Milan and Paris. The Kennedys were ardent Liberals and staunch supporters of Irish Home Rule, and she became interested in politics at an early age. A truly British cosmopolitan, she nevertheless always considered herself primarily a Scot.

Her father wished to bring the songs of Scotland to those in the diaspora and toured widely, thus reinforcing the Scots' separate cultural and national identity within the British Empire. Politically aware, the Kennedys appreciated the egalitarian society in Australia and New Zealand, strongly disapproved of the prevalent unequal social conditions in British India, and explicitly refrained from visiting the West Indies where the democracy 'non est'.

My paper will explore how Mrs Kennedy-Fraser used both Scots and Gaelic songs to reinforce a national identity, how she responded to jingoistic currents during the Great War, and how her œuvre began to sink into oblivion in the socially transformed Britain in the years leading up to World War II.

Brian Dempsey* continues the regular digest, last appearing 2019 SCOLAG 229
Including comment on ABC (AP) (Appellant) v. Principal Reporter and another (Respondents) (Scotland) Case ID: UKSC 2019/0063 on children's rights to sibling contact.

The inter-related natural and cultural heritage of Rosa spinosissima and Scots Roses.
Peter D. A. Boyd
Independent Researcher and Holder of UK National Collection of Scots Roses (Plant Heritage)

Probably, no other plant has such a little-known multiplicity of associations with human culture as Rosa spinosissima (Scots Rose, Burnet Rose, Dune Rose, Prickly Rose).
It has a natural distribution from north-west China to north-western Europe.
It is featured in British and European myths (e.g. the Towton or Battle Rose in Yorkshire, the Dunwich Rose, Ardennes folk-tales, Norwegian Trolls).
The species was included in 16th century herbals of northern Europe, used in traditional Chinese medicine and, recently, in the development of new drugs; also a food, flavouring for traditional European beverages (e.g. Klit-rose Schnapps) and a dye.
Sometimes, it was emblem of the House of York and the Jacobite cause and symbol of Scottish Nationalism.
The shrub has been grown in gardens since at least the 16th century and the first variant with a coloured flower was discovered in Scotland in the late 17th century – after which most cultivars of Rosa spinosissima became known as Scots or Scotch Roses.
A small number of ‘single’ cultivars were available by the late 18th century but the discovery and breeding of ‘double’ cultivars caused an explosion of interest in nurserymen and gardeners in the early 19th century. Over five hundred cultivars were available by 1840. They became popular in Nordic countries.
Emigration from Britain and Scandinavia in the 19th century and international nursery trade led to the dispersion of Scots Roses to North America, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere.
19th and early 20th century novels feature immigrants taking Scots Roses with them as iconic reminders of their old homes and they were often planted on ex-patriate graves.
Old cultivars and their progeny survive in old gardens and cemeteries in both hemispheres but they are a living heritage under threat.

A brief account of a translation experiment of the Scottish poet, historian, and fraud John Pinkerton presented in the context of the reception of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski and his poetry in 18th century Scotland.
The file is the original paper presented at the conference in 2012. It was later published as “Neo-Latin Poetry in 18th Century Scotland - John Pinkerton Translates Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski”, in: Korzeniowska, Aniela and Izabela Szymańska (eds.) Scotland in Europe / Europe in Scotland: Links – Dialogues - Analogies. Warszawa: Semper, 2013, pp. 143-153. and the book is available at:
http://semper.istore.pl/pl,product,20162236,scotland,in,europe,europe,in,scotland.html

This article examines the processes by which Robert Burns’s poetry was reprinted and pirated in the United States of America. Unbound by law to pay royalties or seek editorial permission, networks of nineteenth-century publishers were able to widely repackage and distribute the work of European writers for their own profit. Given the popularity of Burns's poetry and songs among emigrant Scots in America, it is unsurprising that his work was swiftly reprinted by close-knit networks of Scottish and Irish printers in New York and Philadelphia. In tracing some of these networks, this paper draws further attention to the thriving transatlantic reprint trade that existed during the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Chapter from "Understanding Scotland Musically" (2018, Ashgate, eds. Simon McKerrell & Gary West)
A significant force in UK world music for over fifteen years, Edinburgh's Salsa Celtica promotes a particularly resonant blend of Scottish cultural hybridity, richly danceable yet showcasing an extremely high level of musicianship. At the heart of the band's identity is a finely-honed marriage of traditional and newly-composed Scottish melodies set against Afro-Cuban rhythmic patterns; Spanish and Gaelic coros over piano, bass and banjo montunos. As Salsa Celtica's piano player for six years and jointly responsible for much of their third album, my chapter discusses the group from both a personal and an ethnomusicological perspective, exploring how different elements of the salsa/celtic balance work towards this contingent identity, and in what ways these play back against a wider conception of contemporary Scottish music. Characterised by a deft lightness-of-touch and a creative adaptability, the music of Salsa Celtica represents a growing dialogue between Scotland and other increasingly co-territorial musical worlds – a development which also takes in bands like India Alba, Lau and even Shoogelnifty. But more than this, Salsa Celtica is both product and expression of urban Scotland: the line-up speaks to a city's ethnic encounters and the music itself is a direct outcome of the particular self-conscious eclecticism which characterises the Edinburgh session scene. I therefore also investigate how this musically embodied multi-culturalism, notable for a lack of self-congratulatory polemic, functions on a political level – as a pragmatic, easy-going and ever more pertinent celebration of contemporary internationalism. Through a mixture of interviews and close analysis of the band's music and album covers, I aim to unpack the shifting ground that Salsa Celtica treads between and insider and outsider position in the world of Scottish music, a fluid musical discourse which offers continually varied spaces of negotiation for both musicians and audience.

Although Strathspey experienced many of the same trends-agricultural 'improvement', enclosure of commons, creation of deer forests, emigration-present elsewhere in Northern Scotland during the nineteenth century, the region was not a flashpoint for unrest. Careful management on behalf of the ruling family, the earls of Seafield, who were the hereditary chiefs of Grant, the local clan; a consistent policy preference to work with existing farming tenants, and a traditional paternalism, all contributed to social stability. The region was not exempt from protest against the impact of the considerable programme of 'improvement' pursued from 1853. There were accusations of 'depopulation' and 'clearance' in Strathspey, but the influence of those who benefitted from the changes, together with the intrinsic and pervasive authority of the Seafield estate, confined discontent to the constitutional channels opening up as the century progressed. Strong expressions of loyalty to the Seafield proprietors were also a feature of the times. Aspects of this narrative of mutual loyalty are examined, and then the spectrum of reaction to improvement and clearance, the growing lobby for land reform, and the experience of depopulation. Although the influence of the Strathspey factor, John Smith, was important in channelling public discourse, a dilution of estate authority as the century progressed is recognised. The article seeks to broaden perceptions of the history of the Highlands by considering a region of the Gaidhealtachd outwith the far North and the NorthWest .

REVISED AUGUST 2024. Gunns are the original, non-related inhabitants of northern mainland Scotland. They have no Orkney islands origin. Gunns are not a traditional Clan as they had no founding father and nor did they have historic Chiefs. The first Gunn known was Coroner Gunn who died around 1450. His eldest son started the MacHamish Gunns of Killernan line - the modern Clan Gunn Chief line  if you insist - which still exists today and whose line is explored in this book. This text is a simplified version of my 'The Gunns: History, Myths and Genealogy.'

Eric Bogle has written many iconic songs which deal with the futility and waste of war. Two of these in particular, And the band played Waltzing Matilda  and No Man’s Land (a.k.a The Green Fields of France), have been recorded numerous times in a dozen or more languages indicating the universality and power of their simple message. Bogle’s other compositions about the First World War give a voice to the voiceless, prominence to the forgotten, and personality to the anonymous as they interrogate the human experience, celebrate its spirit and empathise with its suffering.
This book examines Eric Bogle’s songs about the Great War within the geographies and socio-cultural contexts in which they were written and consumed. From Anzac Day in Australia and Turkey to the ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, and from small Aboriginal communities in the Coorong to the influence of Prime Ministers and rock stars on a world stage, we are urged to contemplate the nature and importance of popular culture in shaping contemporary notions of history and national identity. It is entirely appropriate that we do so through the words of an artist who Melody Maker described as ‘the most important songwriter of our time’

This paper has its origins a lecture given at the invitation of The Royal Town Planning Institute in Scotland at the Royal Society of Edinburgh in May 2009. It reflects the thinking that finds fuller expression in my book Patrick Geddes’s Intellectual Origins (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). Geddes was one of the key thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His integrated ecological and cultural vision had international impact. Yet despite the fact that his Outlook Tower and Ramsay Garden are prominent and intriguing features of the Edinburgh skyline, the distinctively Scottish intellectual context of his thinking has not been understood. In this paper, which I have taken the opportunity of revise, I place Geddes with respect to his own intellectual background, a background which had interdisciplinarity at its heart. I explore the relevance of that generalist view for his achievements local, national and international. An interview about the book can be found here: https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/04/02/interview-with-murdo-macdonald-author-of-patrick-geddess-intellectual-origins/. Full contents list can be found here: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-patrick-geddes-s-intellectual-origins.html

To a greater or lesser extent, the practices of rewriting and restaging a preexisting artefact imply some sort of movement, or – more technically – relocation. Remaining rooted in eleventh-century Scotland, David Greig's Dunsinane (2010) – commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and first performed at the Hampstead Theatre, London – cannot be defined as a transposition diégétique or transdiégétisation (its Shakespearean source is not dislocated from its original spatio-temporal frame). However, this thought-provoking sequel to Macbeth (1606), whose title explicitly evokes the Bard's tragedy and the location of its final action, enters what Mary Louise Pratt would define as a 'contact zone'. In this light, Dunsinane becomes a site for intercultural clashes between Scottishness and Englishness, while simultaneously pointing at contemporary conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Divided into four parts corresponding to the four seasons, Greig's piece is set in the aftermath of Shakespeare's play and opens with the English forces camouflaging themselves before attacking Macbeth's castle. Focusing on the figure of the English general Siward and his young soldiers invading a hostile land, the play imagines what happens after the tyrant's deposition and Malcolm's installation. Exploring the complex idea of place/space in this re-visionary appropriation of Macbeth, this article aims to show how a permeable, multifaceted, and protean country (un)written sous rature such as Scotland becomes a liminal and 'liquid' contact zone which is not only a battlefield for armies but also for cultures and ideas.

The European age of empires launched a process of capitalist globalisation that continues to the present day. It is also inextricably linked with the spread of revolutionary discourses (in terms of race, nation or social class): the quest for emancipation, political independence, and economic equality. Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham (1852–1936), in both his life and his oeuvre, most effectively represents the complex interaction between imperial and revolutionary discourses in this dramatic period. Throughout his life he was an outspoken critic of injustice and inequality, and his appreciation of the demands and customs of diverse territories and contrasting cultures were hallmarks of his life, his political ideas, and his writing. These essays explore the expression of these ideas in the works of Cunninghame Graham and of other Scottish writers of the period.

This article focuses on the characters’ response to otherness in Janice Galloway’s Foreign Parts (1994). The concept of otherness is approached here in terms of Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist existentialist criticism. Galloway’s novel follows two friends on holiday in France, where they are readily labelled as “English, female, tourist.” The story is seen from the point of view of the perceptive Cassie, who realizes the limitations imposed on her by her nationality, gender, and economic status. Cassie observes the otherness of her surroundings and seeks to connect with and relate to the other. She hopes for the other party to similarly seek understanding, such as by grasping the difference between being English and being Scottish, the latter of which happens to be Cassie’s case. On their return journey, Cassie is struck with the epiphanic realization of the impossibility to familiarize otherness and resolves instead to strengthen her bonds with sameness.

Historically, “the Mediatorial Kingship of Jesus Christ over the Nations” has been a distinctive of the Covenanter church, in Scotland, England, Ireland, Canada, the United States of America, Australia, Japan, and now in China. The author of this paper presently serves on a study committee of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America investigating the application of Christ’s mediatorial reign over church and state. Where did this theological concept come from? Does it flow from the days of the Covenanted Reformation of the Church of Scotland (an institution that the RPCNA declares direct descendancy)?

This paper will look at one particularly significant theologian and minister of the Covenanted Reformation, George Gillespie. Many have cited his works as a means to argue against the Reformed Presbyterian Church’s claim that Christ has a mediatorial rule over both church and state. It is argued that since Gillespie, and other Scottish ministers of his day, explicitly denied the mediatorial kingship of Jesus over the state, then the Covenanter doctrine is a development that post-dates the Westminster Assembly.

While it is true that Gillespie and others made a distinction between Christ’s essential and divine authority over the magistrate, state, and nation, he also taught that the supreme magistrate has a duty to God, as the custos utriusque tabulae, to uphold both tables of God’s law, which includes the magistrate’s duties to the church.

This paper will have four parts: [1] what do all Reformed and Presbyterian churches agree on regarding Christ’s Kingship; [2] the nature of Gillespie’s distinction between essential kingship and mediatorial kingship; [3] the teaching of Gillespie regarding the civil magistrates’ religious duties for the promotion and well-being of the Church of Jesus Christ; and [4] a critique of Gillespie’s understanding of the Kingship of Christ.

Considering the role of four national organisations, Museums Galleries Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland, Creative Scotland and TRACS (Traditional Arts & Culture Scotland) in developing Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding and Collecting in Scotland.

Resistance to an intelligent interpretation of Ptolemy's geography of Scotland has created a milieu in which an approach to the prehistory/development of Pictland is impossible. With this problem addressed, sense can be made of evidence on the ground; the dynamics of political power and the results of unrecorded wars which led to the boundaries the confederated Pictish kingdom can be seen-not perfectly, but with a different order of magnitude of resolution. The hypothesis offered here builds upon and provides a possible context for data recently released about the archaeological explorations at Tap O' Noth. This version 2 corrects misallocations in the table for map 1

Объектом данного исследования является готицизм – исторический миф, согласно которому народы стран севера Европы являются потомками готов. Он появился в XV веке в странах Скандинавии, был заимствован двумя столетиями позже англичанами, а от них в XVIII веке шотландцами. В качестве предмета изучения была выбрана концепция готицизма в Шотландии, в рамках которой предками шотландцев признавались пикты – народ, об этногенезе которого до сих пор ведутся споры. Им было приписано германское происхождение, а через них – и всей шотландской нации. Целью данной статьи было расширить трактовку концепции готицизма в отечественной науке, которая в основном работала с материалом Германии и Скандинавии, а также со знаменитой норманнской теорией. В настоящей работе было прослежено развитие концепции готицизма в Шотландии. В силу специфики данного исследования была использована методология историцизма, что в данном случае означало познание роли и места этой теории в её историческом контексте. Тем не менее, также было выявлено значение шотландского готицизма для современной науки – в качестве идеи о германском происхождении пиктов. В рамках данной работы было установлено, что концепция готицизма продемонстрировала последствия разделения страны на лоулендеров и горцев-гэлов, когда представители шотландских интеллектуальных кругов, дабы избежать ассоциации с ирландцами и «дикими кельтами» (образ которых пользовался большим успехом у англичан), создают себе новую идентичность, заимствуя у тех же англичан концепцию готицизма. В статье также обосновывается вывод, что готицизм как вариант национального мифа Шотландии существовал на протяжении целого столетия, а на смену ему пришла концепция тевтонизма, в рамках которой и стала рассматриваться гипотеза о германском происхождении шотландцев.

Political Representation: Communities, Ideas and Institutions in Europe
(c. 1200 - c. 1690), a scholarly collection on representation in medieval
and early modern Europe, opens up the field of institutional and
parliamentary history to new paradigms of representation across a wide
geography and chronology – as testified by the volume’s studies on
assemblies ranging from Burgundy and Brabant to Ireland and Italy.
The focus is on three areas: institutional developments of
representative institutions in Western Europe; the composition of these
institutions concerning interest groups and individual participants; and
the ideological environment of representatives in time and space. By
analysing the balance between bottom-up and top-down approaches to
the functioning of institutions of representation; by studying the actors
behind the representative institutions linking prosopographical
research with changes in political dialogue; and by exploring the
ideological world of representation, this volume makes a key
contribution to the historiography of pre-modern government and
political culture.

The Angels' Share is a comedy-drama film directed by Ken Loach, starring Paul Brannigan, John Henshaw, William Ruane, Gary Maitland, Jasmin Riggins, and Siobhan Reilly. It tells the story of a young Glaswegian father who narrowly avoids a prison sentence.

This paper investigates connections between Celticity, Scottish nationalism and international (post)colonial discourse by highlighting the function of Celticity as an archetypal construct in European colonial discourses, and through case studies of postcolonial strategies in Neil M. Gunn’s novel Butcher’s Broom and the trilingual poetic oeuvre of William Neill. It also hopes to stimulate discussion regarding the neglect of Gaelic issues in Scottish postcolonial discourses, the problematic relationship between Scottish Studies and international postcolonial scholarship, as well as potential benefits of greater interdisciplinary cooperation.

Graeme Macrae Burnet's second novel His Bloody Project (2015) relates the peculiar case of Roderick Macrae, a seventeen-year-old murderer of three, from a remote crofting community in the northwest of Scotland. The tale of those gruesome killings committed in the summer of 1869 is told through a series of supposedly found documents. The fact that Roderick Macrae is guilty of this heinous crime is never really called into question. Rather, the case and the narratives revolve around the difficulty of ascertaining whether the accused can be deemed sane enough to be held responsible for his actions. While placing His Bloody Project in its expressly Scottish literary context, this essay will explore the role of the various forms of unreliable narration at play in this non-linear epistolary metafiction, and will address issues of authorship and authenticity, dialectical reader manipulation, moral responsibility and legal insanity, justified immorality and unjustified confession.

This article analyses phonetic variation among young people who have learned a minority language in immersion schooling as part of revitalisation measures. Such speakers are increasingly referred to as ‘new speakers’ in an expanding body of literature. The variable phonetic features analysed are vowels, laterals, and intonation in the speech of new Gaelic speakers from Glasgow and the Isle of Lewis. Results support previous work suggesting that new speakers will sound different from ‘traditional speakers’. These results are discussed in terms of language contact, modes of acquisition in re- vitalisation situations, and the differing perceptions and ideologies surrounding how new speakers use Gaelic. The data also necessitate an examination of some of the assumptions in sociolinguistic models of change and their applicability to contexts of rapid social evolution.