• Profile half-length photograph of a man facing to the left wearing a dark jacket and tie, holding a cigarette in his hand, with a white handkerchief in his jacket breast pocket. The man has a prominent straight nose, slicked back hair and his tie forms a slight arch from the knot. In the background, on the left side of the image, there is another half-length frontal portrait of a man. He has white hair, also wears a jacket and tie, is looking to the right, and is smiling.

George Mackay Brown and the Scottish Catholic Imagination

What do you imagine when you think about great Catholic art? Perhaps you call to mind the gilded pages of illuminated medieval manuscripts and the glories of Renaissance painting and sculpture. Maybe you recall more recent cinematic masterpieces, such as…

Scottish Migration Since 1600

Migration today is an increasingly contentious, even toxic, issue. It is being held responsible for Brexit, the coming to power of United States President Donald Trump and a rise in hate crimes. In such a climate we tend to forget…

Gaelic Satire and 18th Century Highland History

The benefit of studying Gaelic poetry in conjunction with conventional documentary sources to obtain a fuller understanding of the past is illustrated in Ellen L. Beard’s article in Northern Scotland, Volume 8.1. She presents newly-compiled information and perspectives on two…

Emigration from Aberdeenshire and Banffshire

By Marjory Harper In February 1983, just as I was finishing my PhD, I gave my first conference paper in the slightly intimidating surroundings of Marischal College at the University of Aberdeen. The event, organised jointly by two university departments…

View of Cathcart Castle tower after collapse, December 1979

1980-81 Excavations of Cathcart Castle, Glasgow

An extract from Open Access article, Cathcart Castle, Glasgow – Excavations 1980–81, by Brian Kerr et. al. Published in the Scottish Archaeological Journal, Volume 38 Issue supplement, Page 1-100, ISSN 1471-5767 Available Online Oct 2016 ‘The castle of Cathcart is…

Alfred North Whitehead and the Edinburgh Connection

By Leemon B. McHenry. 15 February is the birthday of British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, born in 1841 – he would have been 155 today. Whitehead delivered his masterpiece of metaphysics, Process and Reality, at the Gifford Lectures…

Highland sheep farming, 1850-1900

In this post, James Hunter reflects on an article he wrote for the very first volume of Northern Scotland published in 1972. You can read James’ article ‘Sheep and Deer: Highland sheep farming, 1850-1900‘ free online. This was my first…