Yesterday was the birthday of a great Gael. One of the greatest in fact. Poet, story teller and Gaelic cultural warrior Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorely MacLean) was born on Raasay on October 26th in 1911. Somhairle died in 1996. Had the Gaelic people, culture and kingdom not been overtaken and marginalized (i.e. stolen) by Anglo aggression, ethnic cleansing and forced […]
If one looks at Scotland from a certain perspective, it is completely possible to identify two distinct worlds co-existing under one Alban sky. A close reading of north Britain human history reveals about 1,300 post-Roman years of a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, dynamic melting pot of Gaelic, Pict, Norse, Briton and finally Anglo Saxons and Normans. Rich, […]
I wrote a Not Your Father’s Gaelic blog post a few weeks ago wherein I expressed how nice it would be to have neighbors who are aware of and interested in their Scottish Gaelic heritage. Perhaps even neighbors with whom I could joke around in Gaelic! As it is, even my own (Italian American) mother’s eyes […]
Just off Edinburgh’s bustling Princes Street sits a grand old building that houses hundreds of years worth of Scotland’s records. HM New Register House is well known as home to the General Register Office for Scotland but also houses the Court of Lord Lyon – Scotland’s centuries-old heraldic authority that can be traced back to […]
What is the SSPCK? Well, it is not the Society in Scotland for the Protection of Christian Kangaroos although much damage and loss might have been avoided if protecting kangaroos had been the organization’s mission. Instead, the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SSPCK) has followed in the first footsteps of British […]
In a recent Not Your Father’s Gaelic blog post I began to explore the topic of Gaelic influence on today’s Scottish clan and family system. The point being that despite giving lip service to the Gaelic roots of this most active and influential of Scottish heritage communities, we really understand very little about how and […]
One of the many Scottish heritage subjects that could benefit from additional knowledge is the role of Gaelic culture and civilization in the remarkable development of what we lovingly call the Scottish clan system. Go ahead. Google it. It is a simple question but you will not be finding a simple answer. At least not […]
Francis Alexander Mackinnon, born April 9, 1848, was the 35th chieftain of the Mackinnon Clan and a Test cricketer for England. Arunabha Sengupta remembers the life and career of the man who was the second batsman to be dismissed during Test cricket’s first hat-trick. This article was originally written for The Cricket Country, and has […]
This weekend I visited my friends in the countryside, as I had heard there was going to be snow. Being from a semi-tropical climate, snow is still quite a big deal for me, so I jumped at the chance of getting even a tiny bit of white gold. We set out for a walk on […]
If you picture troops involved in a 14th Century clan battle, fairies are the last thing you would expect to find among the ranks. However according to legend, a fairy is said to have appeared at the Battle of Traigh Ghruinneart, fought between Clan MacDonald and Clan MacLean in 1598. Although it wasn’t the kind […]
