Scottish History Research Articles

John McGrath’s Socialist Theatre: An Analysis of the Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil

This study examines John McGrath as a pioneering figure in British socialist theatre, renowned for using drama to critique social and political issues. McGrath sought to provoke thought and action against inequalities by addressing the struggles of marginalized populations. This paper focuses on his seminal work, The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil (1973), which is pivotal in socially committed theatre. The play vividly portrays Scottish history, intertwining historical narrative with political analysis to explore economic and social inequalities. It highlights McGrath’s influence on contemporary theatre through his innovative approach and socialist stance. The paper delves into the thematic concerns and narrative structure of the play, emphasizing its impact on discussions of class, power, and identity, and its enduring relevance in modern theatre.

The Secularists’ Burns and the Anti-Calvinist Interpretation of Scottish History

The Secularists’ Burns and the Anti-Calvinist Interpretation of Scottish History

Robert Burns’s Friend Robert Cleghorn in his Cultural Context

Folklore, Ethnology, Antiquarianism, Robert Burns, Scottish literature, Scottish poetry, Scottish song, Scottish music, Robert Cleghorn, Cultural History, Scottish history, Caledonian Mercury, Kingsknow, Redford, Saughton, George Thomson, Ann Hunter, Vocal music.

Re-viewing failure

William McGonagall, Dundee, Macbeth, Theatre Royal, Folklore, Ethnology, Drama, Scottish poetry, Scottish literature, Performance, William Shakespeare, Scottish History, Regional studies, Local studies, Celebrity

Contributor's Biographies

Ethnology, Folklore, Scottish culture, Scottish history, Scotland, Narratology, Material Culture, Archaeology, Fieldwork, Diaspora, local studies, regional studies

The European Ethnological Centre

Ethnology, Folklore, Scottish culture, Scottish history, material culture, fieldwork, local studies, regional studies, Dumfries and Galloway, Archives

A Hebridean Plough-type

Material culture, Ethnology, Folklore, Scottish History, Rural Life, Regional Studies, Local Studies, Hebrides, National Museums Scotland, Museums, Museology, European ethnology, plough, ploughing, South Uist, North Uist, Benbecula, West Kilbride, Clearances, Highland Clearances

Stills, Shielings and Retting Ponds

Folklore, Ethnology, Scottish History, Rural life, Regional Studies, Local Studies, Archaeology, Material Culture, Scottish Borders, Cultural History, Fieldwork, Excavation, Stills, Illicit Stills, Distilling, Shielings, Retting ponds, Farming History

Romancing Stirling

Folklore, Ethnology, Scottish History, Romanticism, Walter Scott, Stirling, Stirlingshire, River Forth, Archaeology, Scottish literature, Tourism, History of Tourism, Maps, Cartography, Roy, Ford of Frew, Antiquarianism, Military Survey, Local Studies, Regional Studies

Albion as a role model

Folklore, Ethnology, Folk Religion, Scottish history, Ferenc Baranth, Albion, Scottish music, Scottish song, Calvinism, Church of Scotland, Hungary, Anglo-Saxon, Germany, Edinburgh, education, Protestantism, humour, Dean Ramsay

“Wha would ha’e thoucht it, Stockings would ha’e boucht it?”

Scottish history, Folklore, Ethnology, Horology, Women’s History, Stockings, Popular Culture, Scottish poetry, Material Culture, Archaeology, Bannockburn, Longcase clocks, Material Culture, Narratology, Local studies, St Ninian’s, Time

Street Names of Inverness

Onomastic evidence offers a unique opportunity for us to understand and reflect upon what we find important enough to notice and lend a name to. This paper studies the street nomenclature of Inverness, a city of key importance throughout Scottish history, to explore what can be inferred about its political, religious and historical past from its street naming patterns and priorities. At its core, this paper surveys the diachronic development of Inverness by looking at maps and town plans from different time periods and qualitatively analyzing the ways in which they represent the fundamental ethos of the city.

William Hepburn. The Household and Court of James IV of Scotland, 1488–1513 Scottish Historical Review Monograph Second Series. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2023. Pp. 192. $75.00 (cloth).

William Hepburn. The Household and Court of James IV of Scotland, 1488–1513 Scottish Historical Review Monograph Second Series. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2023. Pp. 192. $75.00 (cloth).

Recovering Scottish History: John Hill Burton and Scottish National Identity in the Nineteenth Century, by Craig Beveridge

<i>Recovering Scottish History: John Hill Burton and Scottish National Identity in the Nineteenth Century</i>, by Craig Beveridge

Scottish History in the Eyes of Sixteenth-Century France

Scotland's mythical and medieval history has long been acknowledged as of critical importance in its sixteenth-century present. This article tracks these discourses across the channel, showing for the first time the limited circulation of Scottish histories in France and the dominance of English versions of the past in French texts, ranging from short, printed books to royal presentation manuscripts. This Anglocentric view not only helps to explain the discordant French views of the Scots (as loyal yet uncivil, and above all warlike) but also contributes to the ongoing reassessment that the auld alliance was not permanently binding but, rather, intermittently activated when political or economic interests required.

The Frank Watson Book Prize in Scottish History

The Frank Watson Book Prize in Scottish History

Public Memory, Affect, and the Battle of Culloden: The Creation of Shared Emotional Memory through Two Exhibits at the Culloden Visitor Centre

This essay applies Wood’s process model of emotional memory synchronization to better understand how public memory of the Battle of Culloden, an integral event in Scottish history, is created through two exhibits at the Culloden Visitor Centre. These exhibits create a shared experience by engaging audiences through immersive exhibits that utilize sensory elements. This use of immersive, sensory-laden, and emotion-provoking exhibits may be useful in the creation of public memory of historical events that did not happen within living memory.

Chris R. Langley, Catherine E. McMillan, and Russell Newton, eds. The Clergy in Early Modern Scotland. St Andrews Studies in Scottish History. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2021. Pp. 271. $99.00 (cloth).

Chris R. Langley, Catherine E. McMillan, and Russell Newton, eds. The Clergy in Early Modern Scotland. St Andrews Studies in Scottish History. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2021. Pp. 271. $99.00 (cloth).

"Śniło mu się, że nie spał”: Ontologiczna niestabilność w powieści Jamesa Robertsona "The Fanatic"

Set in the seventeenth and late twentieth centuries, James Robertson’s first novel The Fanatic (2000) is not only a powerful exploration of Scottish history and the interrelationships between past and present, but also an example of historical metafiction, concerned with the nature of historical and fictional reconstructions. As this article argues, the world model created in The Fanatic is characterized by inherent epistemological and ontological instability, visible at all levels of the text’s construction. The two plot lines, the seventeenth century past and the twentieth century present, initially set apart, increasingly blur and permeate each other until finally it is impossible to tell what is past and what is present, what is “real” and what re-constructed or imagined. The ontological status of the narrated events is equally unstable, as they often turn out to be false memories, hallucinations or delusions of the characters, while the fictionality of the characters is foregrounded by means of intertextual allusions. Finally, the status and reliability of the seemingly objective, heterodiegetic narrator becomes increasingly questionable as the story unfolds. Far from despairing of the possibility of offering a reliable historical reconstruction; however, the novel celebrates the very instability, which allows for constant imaginative reinterpretation and renewal of the past in the present, and of reality in fiction.

Authorship in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland from the First World War to Volume 150: a Perspective on Scottish History and Archaeology

The evolution of the pattern of authorship of articles in Proc Soc Antiq Scot between volumes 51 and 150 is examined. Various trends are charted across a series of approximately decadal time-segments, including increasing professionalization, the proportional rise of female authorship through time, variations in the geographical distribution of authors in and beyond Scotland, innovations in the scope of reporting and discourse, the balance between archaeological and other contributions, and the changing nature of archaeological employment and practice.