Last of the Westland Whigs

Gaelic in Galloway -Contraction

2012-01-26T04:57:00.000-08:00

Gaelic in Galloway: Part Two- Contraction. Draft 26 January 2012.

Abstract
The end of Gaelic in Galloway is as obscure as its beginnings. It is likely that the survival of Gaelic was intimately bound up with the survival of a distinct Galwegian identity. The persistence of this Galwegian identity was an enduring source of conflict with Scottish kings from David I to David II. Crucially, it led Galloway’s Gaelic kindreds to support the Balliols against the Bruces in their struggles for the Scottish crown which lasted from 1286 to 1356, when David II prevailed over Edward Balliol. To reduce the power of the Galwegian kindreds, there was a plantation of Scots speakers in Galloway and Scots became the language of administration and law. Consequentially, Gaelic began to lose its social status while Scots became the language of a literate elite. By the early sixteenth century, Gaelic was an endangered language which lacked the resilience to survive the impact of the Reformation. By 1638, when Galloway ssuppoerted the National Covenant, Gaelic had given way to Scots and Galwegian’s had embraced a Scottish identity.

Published in Edinburgh in 1582, George Buchanan’s Rerum Scoticarum Historia contains a brief description of Galloway, noting that ‘It still uses the native [Gaelic] language for the most part’ (‘Ea magna ex parte patrio sermone adhuc utitur’).# William Ferguson comments that this brief statement ‘is a valuable contribution to a standing historical puzzle- namely when did Gaelic cease to be spoken in Galloway?’ and, on the basis of Buchanan’s comment, suggests that Gaelic probably ceased to be spoken in Galloway in the early seventeenth century.# However, if Gaelic was the language of Galloway ‘for the most part‘ in 1582, the corollary is that Scots was the language ‘for the less part’. Yet, as the correspondence of Patrick Vaus of Barnbarroch (died 1597)#shows, Scots was the main language of Galloway by 1582. Furthermore, if Gaelic had survived into the early seventeenth century, the loss of the language would have been within living memory when Andrew Symson began compiling his Large Description of Galloway in 1684.
In 1684 Symson was the Episcopalian minister of Kirkinner parish in Wigtownshire. The stimulus for the Large Description of Galloway came from Sir Robert Sibbald, Scotland’s Geographer Royal. With an ambition similar to Sir John Sinclair’s eighteenth century Statistical Account of Scotland, in 1682 Sibbald published a series of questions which he hoped parish ministers across Scotland would reply to. Symson was one of the few who did so Sibbald’s project was never completed. Symson’s manuscript then lay forgotten in the Advocates Library in Edinburgh until it was discovered by Thomas Maitland who had it published in 1823. The Large Description is a very thorough document, including peculiarities of the Galloway dialect of Scots.

As to the seventh Querie, concerning peculiar customes, &c. I have already given an account of their husbandry, and occasionly also of some other things. I now think fit to ad these following particulars:—
Some of the countrey people, especialy those of the elder sort, do very often omit the letter h after t, as ting for thing; tree for three; tacht for thatch ; wit for with ; fait for faith ; mout for mouth. So also, quite contrary to some north countrey people, (who pronounce v for w, as voe for woe; volves for wolves,) they oftentimes pronounce w for v, as serwant for servant; wery for very ; and so they call the months of February, March, and April, the ware quarter, w for v, from ver. Hence their common proverb, speaking of the stormes in February, Winter never comes till ware comes ; and this is almost to the same purpose with the English saying, When the, days beginne to lengthen, the cold beginnes to strengthen.#

Symson also observed that the spelling and pronunciation of local surnames had diverged from their original ‘Irish’ (Gaelic) forms.

for surnames that, in Galloway, begin with or, or are commonly pronounced, Mal, or Makel, or Mackle, or Mickle (all which severall ways they are oftimes both written and pronounced,) should, as I am informed by an ingenuous man that exactly understands the Irish language, be written Mac-gill, as Mac-gill-mein, M’Gill-roy, M’Gill-raith, names frequent in Galloway, and commonly pronounced Malmein, Malroy, or Mickleroy, or Mickleraith, &c.#

If Gaelic had been the language of the most part of Galloway in 1582 but died out in the early seventeenth century, the extinction of Gaelic would have occurred within the lifetime of Alexander Stewart, who was the first earl of Galloway. Stewart was born circa 1580 and died in 1649. The earl’s grandson was also called Alexander Stewart and was the third earl of Galloway. At times during his ministry, the hostility of his Presbyterian parishioners forced Symson to take refuge with the third earl with whom Symson was on friendly terms.# If Gaelic had become extinct within the lifetime of his grandfather, the third earl would surely have informed Symson of such a significant event.
But if Gaelic had not survived long enough for Andrew Symson to note its recent passing, how and when did the end of Gaelic occur in Galloway? The ‘how’ part of this question is more easily answered than the ‘when’ part. The language which replaced Gaelic in Galloway was Scots. Given the widespread survival of Gaelic place names and surnames in Galloway, it is unlikely that there was a mass-movement of Scots speakers into Galloway. If there was no such mass-movement, then the language shift would have been a gradual process. The most likely scenario is one in which Scots first replaced Gaelic as the language of the upper strata of Galwegian society and then worked its way downwards until even the poorest cottars and crofters became Scots speakers. During this process there would have been a phase of bilingualism where Scots was used in some contexts and Gaelic in others. As the use of Scots came to predominate in the public sphere, the opportunities to use Gaelic would have been reduced to the domestic sphere before Gaelic finally fell out of use altogether.
Turning to the ’when’ part of the question, the most likely period for the shift from Gaelic to Scots as the language of the upper strata of Galwegian society is the later fourteenth century. In 1356 Edward Balliol gave up his claim to the Scottish Crown and in 1357 David II returned to Scotland from captivity in England. As well as bringing to an end the wars of Scottish independence, these events also concluded a civil war which had been fought between the Bruces and Balliols across south-west Scotland since 1286, when David’s grandfather and great-grandfather had raided Dumfries, Buittle, Kirkcudbright, Wigtown and (probably) Cruggleton castles. The periodic repetition of such raids and counter-raids over the next seventy years, especially where crops and livestock were destroyed, disrupted everyday life in Galloway. As the fortunes of the Bruces and Balliols ebbed and flowed, so did those of their supporters. In bewildering complexity, lands across Galloway were forfeited, granted, reforfeited and regranted, as Andrew McCulloch has meticulously documented.# However, until David II’s position was secure, the practical impact of these ‘parchment transactions’ on land ownership was limited.
The problem Galloway posed for David II was the persistence of regional loyalties. In 1333, Galloway’s Gaelic kindreds had supported Edward Balliol as their ‘special lord’ rather than as the new king of Scotland.# Thus a descendent of Fergus of Galloway, who had been a source of trouble for David I, became a source of trouble for David II 200 years later. David’s solution was to reduce the power of the Galwegian kindreds by breaking up their land holdings and by planting Scots speaking Bruce loyalists amongst them.# To reinforce this policy, Archibald Douglas was first granted control over the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright in 1369 and then allowed (by Robert II who succeeded David II in 1371) to buy the earldom of Wigtown from Thomas Fleming in 1372, thus establishing the Douglas lordship of Galloway.#
These moves by David II and Robert II were politically motivated, designed to subdue a rebellious province. The plantation of Scots speakers in Galloway was not intended make Scots the language of Galloway. However, although native families like the McDowalls, McCullochs and McLellans survived the plantation, their heads of kin became Scots speakers. So while the shift to Scots began during the Douglas lordship, amongst ordinary Galwegians Gaelic survived the end of Douglas power in 1455. The final phase of the language shift to Scots occurred over the next hundred years.
After the collapse of Douglas power, no one family ever possessed such extensive land holdings in Galloway again. Instead, through the process of feu-ferme# there was a gradual fragmentation of land ownership as tenants bought their farms, creating a pattern which survived into the eighteenth century. This pattern was one in which several hundred owner-occupiers (bonnet-lairds) farmed small estates typically consisting of fewer than ten individual farms. Some were farmed directly by the owner-occupier, some by tenants and others ‘in the half-manner’; that is jointly by farm owner and tenant. Within this system, as well as periodic changes of tenancy, individual farms were constantly being bought, sold and mortgaged (wadset). This in turn necessarily involved even the least of the bonnet-lairds in a legal system in which was conducted in Scots (rather than the previous Latin) by the fifteenth century. Indeed, as early as 1438, Scots was the ‘language of record’ of the baron court of Whithorn.

Al that this present letter heris or seis, wit ye us Thomas McIlhauchausy, prior of Quitheren, til haf giffen an inquwist on our baron court of Qwithern of the best and the worthiest thar beand , til Paton McMarty, of the Schapel of Sanct Molinor and the croft lian in our land of Culmalow, theqwilk inqwist sworn fand that the said Paton McMartyn was nerest ayr and lachfull to the said Schapell and croft wyth the pertinens and til haf gus in the comon of Culmalow til aegt som and a neit and hir folowaris and a sow and hir brud and a gus and hir brud. In witnes of the qwilk thing at the inqwest of diverse gentil and sundry otheris thar beand we haf set our sel at qwitthern the xi day of the moneth of Juni the year of our Lord mc ccccmo and acht and thirty yer, before thir witnes- Rolland Kenedy, Eben Galnusson and also Eben McGaryl and mony others.#

The phrase ‘Al that this present letter hearis or seis’ in the above is significant. While reading out the text would have made it comprehensible to illiterate Scots speakers, to any hearers who knew only Gaelic it would have remained incomprehensible until translated. However, since it was not until 1490 that a final break was made with the traditional laws of Galloway and Carrick,# the formal use of Gaelic in matters concerning land use may have persisted at least in some areas through most of the fifteenth century. Although it is possible that written Gaelic was used for legal documents in Galloway and Carrick, none have survived. It is more likely that the formal use of Gaelic was purely verbal, co-existing with the use of written Latin from the twelfth century onwards.
It is also likely that the framework of oral memory which preserved the traditional laws of Galloway and Carrick would have preserved historical and customary knowledge. So long as this body of knowledge was passed from generation to generation, continuity was maintained with the past. Even if there was a language shift to Scots at the upper levels of Galwegian society, continuity with the past could have been preserved through the ‘popular culture’ of the Gaelic speaking majority. However, unlike Latin, Scots did not remain the preserve of an elite. Instead it began to permeate the whole of Galwegian society. A critical factor in the extension of Scots may have been the introduction of written leases (tacks).While most of the population were still Gaelic speakers, tacks would necessarily have been verbal agreements made in Gaelic. But as Scots became the administrative and legal language used in Galloway, tacks written in Scots begin to be found. In the Wigtownshire Charters, there is an early example of one such tack.

1475, April 5 At Edinburgh. Tack (in the vernacular) for a period of 19 years from the date of redemption, by Ochre Makdowle of Logane to Thomas Makelle of Barskeauch, his heirs and assignees, of the 2 ½ merkland called Achagilzan within the lordship of Logane now wadset to the said Thomas by charter and sasine. Witnesses : Mr. Richard Learmonth, parson of ye Hauch, Schir Thomas Fermour vicar of Quhittyngean, Thomas Mondvale, Schir Henry Mondvale chaplain and Robert Marciale N.P. #

Another example of a fifteenth century tack ‘in vernacular’ is dated 9 January 1496/7. It is also for 19 years and concerns lands in the barony of Longcastle and includes the power to remove tenants and cottars.# While the tenants and cottars may still have been Gaelic speakers, this tack shows that decisions directly affecting them were being made in Scots. The next stage in the process would have been the use of Scots to issue instructions on the day to day management of work on the farms. If, as seems likely, the use of Scots by land owners and owner-occupier farmers led to an association between Scots and higher social status, this would have encouraged tenant farmers to adopt the language. This in turn would have familiarised the cottars with the use Scots on an everyday basis.
Once Scots/ Gaelic bilingualism began to spread through the cottar class, an essential feature for the survival of a language - a substantial reserve of monoglot speakers - would have been lost. The shift to bilingualism would have been most pronounced closest to the burghs of Whithorn, Wigtown, Kirkcudbright and (earlier) Dumfries. These areas also had better quality soils and were more suitable to arable farming which was more labour intensive than the pastoral farming of upland Galloway. In 1755, pre-Improvement Galloway had a population of 37 671 which was 3% of the Scottish total. Assuming a similar ratio for 1500, when the population of Scotland is estimated to have been 500 000, the population of Galloway would have been about 15 000. Assuming 2/3 of the population were concentrated in the lowland/ arable areas, then there were only 5000 people living in the more remote pastoral/ upland areas. It is in these upland areas along the border with Ayrshire that Gaelic is most likely to have survived. This assumptions fits with one of the few sources of contemporary evidence for the survival of Gaelic in south-west Scotland- The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy. From this exchange of barbed verse, it can be established that Gaelic was still spoken in Carrick circa 1500 by the poet Walter Kennedy.#
Yet although physically remote from the Scots speaking burghs, there were important connections between upland and lowland areas. While oats and bere (barley) were grown on upland farms, any shortages had to be made up from the surplus produced in the lowlands which was sold through markets as Symson noted.

[Minnigaff village] hath a very considerable market every Saturday, frequented by the moormen of Carrick, Monnygaffe, and other moor places, who buy there great quantities of meal and malt, brought thither out of the parishes of Whitherne, Glaston, Sorbie, Mochrum, Kirkinner &c.#

We do not know when Minnigaff’s market was established, but the practical need for moormen to have access to the cereal surplus produced in lowland areas must have been long-standing. During the Douglas lordship of Galloway (and presumably before then as well), the internal management of the lordship would have been responsible for ensuring that the flow of sheep, cattle and horses from their upland farms was not restricted by the starvation of their tenants. But with the breakdown of this feudal system of regional management after 1455, a shift to an economy orientated around the several markets noted by Symson emerged as a replacement. This movement towards a market based economy would have facilitated the spread of Scots/Gaelic bilingualism even amongst the moormen.
This leads on to a final question - Is there a connection between the loss of Gaelic in Galloway and the Reformation? Researching the Galloway Levellers uprising of 1724#, I was struck by a puzzling discontinuity between Galloway’s physical history and its social history. While continuity with the medieval past marked the pre-Improvement landscape of early eighteenth century Galloway, at no point did the Levellers or their supporters invoke memories of this past in support of their actions. The historical horizon of the Levellers did not extend back beyond references to king James VII and II and a quotation from Sir Thomas More in support of their opposition to ‘depopulating enclosures’. This lack of local historical consciousness contrasts with responses to Clearance in the Highlands. For example, Duncan Ban Macintyre composed Oran nam Balgairean (The Song of the Foxes) circa 1790-1804, which was inspired by the Clearances and contains the lines

The customs that were followed
They have perished now in Gaeldom#

In the Highlands, unlike Galloway, the past was still accessible through the continuity provided by Gaelic. A ballad in support of the Galloway Levellers was composed, but it was in Scots and contained no equivalent to the sense of cultural loss expressed by Macintyre in Oran nam Balgairean. With the passing of Gaelic in Galloway several centuries of accumulated folklore, songs, customs and popular history were ‘lost in translation’ and failed to make the transition to the new Scots speaking Galloway.
Significantly, an event occurred in the middle of the sixteenth century which imbued Scots with a powerful resonance. This event was the Scottish Reformation which in Galloway and Carrick occurred when the survival of Gaelic was already in doubt. If local tradition is to be believed, Alexander Gordon of Airds in Kells parish began the Reformation in Galloway.

TILL 1543, the date of Lord Robert Maxwell’s Act, no one throughout the kingdom could read an English or Scottish version of the Scriptures without serious risk. Long before that year, however, the old wood of Airds, in Kirkcudbrightshire, was often rendered vocal by the Word of life, read, in the vulgar tongue, to a secret, sympathizing audience, by Alexander Gordon of Airds, a man of rare excellence, who may be fairly reckoned the pioneer of the Reformation in Galloway and Dumfriesshire. He was the third son of Sir Alexander Gordon of Auchenreach. Having gone across the Border on matters of business, he happened to fall in with some of Wickliffe’s followers; and, becoming attached to one of them, he engaged him to act as tutor in the family. Returning, thoroughly embued with Reformation principles, accompanied by a Wickliffite, and possessing a copy of Wickliffe’s Testament, he became forthwith a zealous missionary of Protestantism.#

Although there are elements of myth surrounding Alexander Gordon (circa 1480-1580), translations of the Bible into English similar to the one Gordon would have read from ‘survive in enormous numbers: some 200 complete copies and many more excerpts and fragments’.# It is therefore possible that with a few years of Walter Kennedy’s death (between 1508 and 1518), the survival of Gaelic even in the Galloway/ Carrick uplands was being challenged by a powerful new social movement- the Reformation.
While Gaelic did not survive the Reformation in Galloway, Roman Catholicism did. Several branches of the Maxwell family, including the Maxwells of Kirkconnel, Munches and Orchardton as well as the earls of Nithsdale, held fast to the old religion. In 1704 there were still 412 Roman Catholics in the eastern Stewartry and lower Nithsdale, the largest group outside the Highlands.# A chapel at Munches was maintained until it was transferred to Dalbeattie at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Given the hostility directed towards Roman Catholicism by both Presbyterians and Episcopalians, this survival for over 250 years was remarkable.
If the Gaelic of Galloway had been similarly supported by a powerful land owning family, could it likewise have survived into the nineteenth century, to be revived as Cornish and Manx have been? Probably not. The survival of Roman Catholicism depended on a network of support which extended beyond Dumfries and Galloway to France and Italy. No similar network of support existed for Gaelic and so it did not survive.
It is difficult to bring this study to a neat conclusion since both the beginnings and the end of Gaelic in Galloway remain elusive. The North Channel may well have provided an early bridge over which Irish Gaelic crossed over in to the Rhinns of Galloway. However it is unlikely that Gaelic had spread very far beyond the Rhinns until the tenth century and the arrival of Gaelic speakers with hybrid Viking/ Gaelic ancestry. The Gall-Ghàidheil, who gave their name to a ‘Galloway’ which embraced most of south-west Scotland, were only one group of these Gaelic speakers. Others arrived from Ireland and, possibly, from the north of England.
Then, during the 200 years which separate the rule of David I and David II the history of Gaelic Galloway became deeply entwined with Scottish history. The wars of Scottish independence were provoked by a dynastic struggle between the Bruce and Balliol families for the Scottish crown. Galloway’s Gaelic kindreds supported the Balliols and so lost power and status when the Bruces finally prevailed in 1356. Control of Galloway then passed to Scots speaking Bruce loyalists, the most significant being the Douglases.
By the time the Douglas lordship of Galloway ended in 1455, Scots had become the administrative and legal language of Galloway. As the status of Gaelic declined, the spread of Scots/ Gaelic bilingualism preceded a shift to Scots as the primary language of lesser land owners, then their tenants and finally the cottars until Gaelic survived only in the areas most remote from the burghs of Whithorn, Wigtown and Kirkcudbright. The final end for Gaelic was probably brought about by the Scottish Reformation and the powerful association of Scots and English with the language of the Bible.
As the events of the seventeenth century were to show, the Reformation penetrated deeply into Galloway, marking a profound break with the region’s religious and cultural past. In particular, the region’s willingness to embrace the millenarian belief that the Scots as a nation had made a special Covenant with God is significant. The thousands who signed the National Covenant of 1638 across Galloway were Scots speakers who identified themselves as members of this Scottish nation. The Galloway of their past had become a foreign country and the Gaelic of their ancestors had become a forgotten language.

Pre-improvement field system Darngarroch

2012-01-19T12:15:00.001-08:00

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Castle Douglas map

2012-01-17T07:29:00.000-08:00

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Beginnings of Scottish reformation

2012-01-14T11:02:00.000-08:00

Gordons of Airds and Earlstoun

2012-01-14T08:43:00.000-08:00

Kennedys of Knocknalling

2011-12-28T01:57:00.001-08:00

Film of Dumfries to Stranraer railway in 1965

2011-12-21T05:21:00.001-08:00

Wigtownshire Hearth Tax Lists 1695

2011-12-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note - have found a Glasgow University thesis from 2009 which is a study and listing of the 1695 Hearth tax records from Wigtownshire. It can be downloaded as a pdf from here.

All the names and places have been transcribed so there is a lot of detailed information. There is a bit of confusion over the 'kilns' which are recorded along with hearths. The author assumes these were lime kilns, but is more likely that they were grain drying kilns.

There is analysis (including percentage by parish) of the Gaelic surnames found and a discussion about significance in relation to decline of Gaelic in Galloway.

Unfortunately there is no mention of the 1684 Wigtownshire and Minnigaff 'census' - which has a more detailed record of the inhabitants and which could have been used as a comparison.

Stewartry of Kirkcudbright 1845

2011-12-12T11:15:00.001-08:00

Legal use of Scots in 1391

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Galloway Hydro Electric

2011-12-02T07:26:00.001-08:00

FLOOD SCENES AT VARIOUS POINTS OF GALLOWAY HYDRO ELECTRIC SCHEME

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Tom Devine lecture Lowland Clearnces

2011-11-29T00:41:00.001-08:00

On a visit to New Zealand professor Tom Devine gives a lecture on the Lowland Clearances. There is a mention of the Galloway Levellers about 35 minutes in.

Freight train leaving Crossmichael

2011-11-23T10:52:00.001-08:00

May 1965 -a freight train heading east towards Castle Douglas from Crossmichael on the Stranraer- Dumfries route- closed in June 1965.

Rig and Furrow near High Banks

2011-11-22T13:35:00.001-08:00

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Rig and Furrow below Bentudor

2011-11-22T12:56:00.000-08:00

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The photo above was taken in winter and shows the rig and furrow clearly. The photo below was taken in summer when the grass was longer and the rig and furrow is almost invisible.

Kennedy and McConnell mill 1820

2011-11-16T07:48:00.001-08:00

Solway Coast Charles Oppenheimer

2011-10-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

This looks like Kippford. The Solway Coast, another of Charles Oppenheimer's railway paintings.

Sweetheart Abbey

2011-10-25T13:06:00.001-07:00

Another of Norman Wilkinson's Galloway paintings for LMS

Fishing in New Galloway Norman Wilkinson

2011-10-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

Another of Norman Wilkinson's Galloway railway posters.

Galloway poster for London Midland and Scottish Railway

2011-10-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

Rather different from the Charles Oppenheimer BR painting, here is one for LMS by Norman Wilkinson.

The Galloway Dee Charles Oppenheimer

2011-10-25T12:23:00.001-07:00

Painting of the Galloway Dee by Charles Oppenheimer for British Railways.

Power of the Dee

2011-10-22T13:51:00.000-07:00

Galloway Dam, Nearing Completion by Charles Oppenheimer(1975-1961). Th dam is on the Galloway Hydro-electric scheme.

Galloway dam under construction

2011-10-22T13:49:00.000-07:00

Art in Concrete by Charles Oppenheimer (1875-1961). Tongland dam (near Kirkcudbright) under construction for the Galloway Hydro-electric scheme.

Concrete shock

2011-10-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

Harnessing the Power of the Dee - Charles Oppenheimer, 1933.

This is my letter in response to two letters in response to my original letter about wind-farms...

Dear Sir,
In reply to Delya Wilkinson and Alan Keith’s letters [20 October 2011], it seems there are two main objections to wind farms. One is essentially aesthetic and concerns the visual impact of wind farms. The other is economic and concerns the inefficiency of wind farms as generators of electricity.

Thinking about the aesthetic objection, I remember visiting the first ’Homecoming’ exhibition of paintings by the Kirkcudbright artists in 2000. Most of the paintings were of scenes which captured the tranquillity of the Galloway landscape. But one painting stopped me dead in my tracks. It was by Charles Oppenheimer and showed a brutal mass of stark white concrete, dominating and overpowering the rural landscape.

The painting was one of three (Art in Concrete, Harnessing the Dee and Galloway Dam, Nearing Completion) by Oppenheimer which document in graphic detail the ‘industrial devastation of the landscape’(to use Alan Keith‘s phrase) caused by the construction of dams for the Galloway Hydro-Electric scheme in the 1930s. But outside of an art exhibition, is anyone still shocked by these brutal concrete structures? Of course not. The dams and turbine halls have become unremarkable features of the landscape. Likewise, once the fear of the new gives way to familiarity, wind-turbines will lose their power to trouble and disturb.

Turning to the economic argument against wind-power, the Cruachan Power Station mentioned favourably by Delya Wilkinson is part of a pumped storage hydro-electric system. The same principle could be used here. When the wind blows, electricity generated by wind power could be used to pump water into the higher dams on the Galloway hydro-electric system, storing it for later use. By combining wind and water power, the overall efficiency of the generating system would be improved.

Realistically, since converting the existing hydro-electric scheme to a pumped storage system will require significant investment, it will need a strong local campaign to make the case for such an innovative proposal. However, while finding ways to improve the efficiency of wind-power may answer the economic critics, it will not satisfy those critics who oppose wind-power on aesthetic grounds. The problem here is how best to manage the visual impact of wind farms.

In 1999, widespread concerns over the expansion of forestry in Galloway led to a series of detailed public consultations. Those attending were given maps and asked to indicate where and where not to plant more trees. These maps were then used to create Dumfries and Galloway’s Indicative Forestry Strategy. A similar process of public consultation could be used to manage the location and hence visual impact of wind farms.

Alistair Livingston

Robert Johnston of Kelton 1696

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History and Hegel

2011-10-18T05:20:00.001-07:00

Galloway and Carrick re-united after 826 years

2011-10-13T00:27:00.000-07:00

In 1186, after the death of Gill-Brigte, son of Fergus, of Galloway; Roland aka Lachlan, son of Uhtred, son of Fergus seized control of Galloway. This was disputed by Donnchadh, son of Gille Brigte so Carrick, which had been part of Galloway, was separated and Donnchadh was made earl of Carrick.

Carrick remained detached from Galloway and became part of Ayrshire. Until now. The Scottish Boundary Commission have today proposed the political re-union of Carrick with Galloway to create a new Westminster Parliament Constituency to be called Galloway and Carrick.

So after more than 800 years, Galloway will become a (political) nation once again...

Wind farms and the Galloway Levellers

2011-10-06T03:35:00.000-07:00

Letter published in Galloway news 6 October 2011.

Between 1973 and 1976 I used to take the ‘backroad’ bus from Castle Douglas to Kirkcudbright Academy via Gelston. It was a fascinating journey through an ever changing countryside thick with history. The road itself was built around 1800, replacing a tangle of medieval tracks which meandered from farm to farm. The old tracks would have been familiar to John Martin.

Born a cottar’s son in 1710, in May 1724, John Martin joined the Galloway Levellers. He lived at Lochdougan and walked to Bombie Hill to level a dyke. He was caught and fined for possessing a flintlock gun. John Martin died in 1801. In his long life, John witnessed the transformation of the landscape by the enclosures he fought against. Yet as his gravestone shows, John adapted to the new technology of the mechanical age by becoming a clock maker in Kirkcudbright.

Back then though, I was more interested in the future than the past. I had just discovered something called ‘radical technology’ which imagined an eco-friendly future powered by solar panels, windmills and methane digesters. This vision of the future was a response to recent events, when a sudden rise in oil-prices and a miners’ strike led to power cuts and a three-day week in the winter of 1973/4. To save energy, window displays in shops were switched off at night. I remember how dark and gloomy that made King Street in Castle Douglas.

The energy crisis passed and my copy of the Radical Technology Handbook has been gathering dust since 1976, the pages yellow with age. Then last week a glossy flyer for the Barcloy Hill Wind Farm dropped through my letter box., so I dug it out again. The proposed wind farm is just off the Gelston to Kirkcudbright road.

As the history of John Martin shows, the new wind farm will be part of a countryside in which change has been contested in the past. Yet, as his history also shows, such changes create new opportunities and new possibilities. The Galloway Levellers fiercely resisted the enclosure of the countryside, but within John Martin’s lifetime the new dykes and hedges had become an essential part of the ‘improved’ farm landscape.

In time the wind farms being built now will become as much a part of our countryside as the enclosed fields which were so strongly opposed in 1724. Likewise their economic and environmental benefits will gradually become more apparent. So that in the future, it will be as difficult to imagine a countryside without them as it is to imagine the countryside as it was 300 years ago.

Alistair Livingston

Life and Society in Dumfries and Galloway

2011-10-02T14:29:00.000-07:00

LIFE AND SOCIETY IN DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY: A REGIONAL STUDY

European Ethnological Research Centre, School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh

A major new project to study the changing everyday life of the people of Dumfries and Galloway, over the centuries. This ambitious study, believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, will result in publications in a variety of formats. It seeks to bring together research carried out by D&G inhabitants, academics and others sharing interests in such topics as the family, identity, occupations, farming, land management, fishing and maritime culture, industry, population movement, communications, local administration, sports, customs, place-names, religion, emigration and immigration, language, literature, folklore, art, music and song, and intellectual life.
In short, whatever affected the lives of the folk as described, wherever possible, in their own voice.

The project will be launched at two venues:

The Buccleuch Centre, LangholmSaturday 15 October 2.00pm – 4.00pm

and

The Catstrand, New Galloway Saturday 22 October 2.00pm – 4.00pm

Caledonian Railway engine

2011-10-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

earth water art

2011-09-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

Head of Orchardton Bay from Google Earth- salt marsh.

A very useful book on origins of industrial revolution.

2011-09-10T15:03:00.001-07:00

Castle Douglas Goods Yard

2011-07-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

Gaelic learners day and talk

2011-07-15T04:32:00.000-07:00

From Gaelic Castle Douglas

Scottish Gaelic Adult Learners Day. Michael Ansell will be giving a talk on Gaelic in Galloway at Castle Douglas Town Hall on Saturday 3 September 2011. The talk will be followed by taster sessions for adult Gaelic learners. The cost for the day 9.30 am to 4.30 pm will be £10.

For more details contact Anndra Wilson via adult.learning@dumgal.gov.uk

The Gaelic clans of Galloway

2011-06-29T04:16:00.000-07:00

Just uploaded ongoing research to Academia - on the Gaelic clans of Galloway.

Dumfries Campus Finance questions John Swinney

2011-06-17T03:34:00.000-07:00

Crichton Campus (Jobs and Economic Benefits) 16 June 2011

Joan McAlpine (South Scotland) (SNP):

6. To ask the Scottish Government how many jobs have been created in Dumfries and Galloway and what other economic benefits have arisen as a result of the University of Glasgow’s Crichton campus since 2007. (S4O-00037)

The Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth (John Swinney): The only available study that addresses Ms McAlpine’s question is a local government-funded study that found that the impact of the universities brought in £10 million per year and supported more than 450 jobs across Dumfries and Galloway. There are obviously additional benefits brought by other campus partners, such as Dumfries and Galloway College and the Crichton Carbon Centre. To realise those benefits, we are currently providing £1.5 million to ensure a vibrant and sustainable long-term future for the campus.

Joan McAlpine: Does the cabinet secretary agree that the threat to the liberal arts subjects at the Crichton is of great concern, given the economic contribution of the campus to the area—which he has described—and given the importance of the creative industries in particular to the economy of Dumfries and Galloway?

John Swinney: The university is currently consulting on the future of the liberal arts. I understand that the court of the University of Glasgow will meet on 22 June to consider proposals. At this stage, no final decisions have been made.

I made it clear in my earlier answer that the work of the Crichton campus has been enormously significant in encouraging economic regeneration in the south-west of Scotland. It provides a broadly based educational opportunity for a range of citizens in the area. To ensure that that can continue, broad propositions must be made to those people on how they can pursue their academic interests.

I am sure that the University of Glasgow will be aware of Joan McAlpine’s strong views on this issue. I am sure that it would be willing to engage with the member.

The Presiding Officer (Tricia Marwick): I will take a supplementary question from Mr Fergusson, if he keeps it brief.

Alex Fergusson (Galloway and West Dumfries) (Con): Of course I will, Presiding Officer. I would not dream of doing anything else, as you well know.

I hesitate to correct the cabinet secretary, but the consultation has been completed. Next Wednesday, I understand that the court of the University of Glasgow will take a decision on whether to close down the Liberal Democrats—[Laughter.]

That was a Freudian slip and wishful thinking, Presiding Officer.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that the decision to phase out the liberal arts degree courses, if taken, can only have an adverse effect on the local economy, given the recent growth in arts-related economic activity in the region? Will he urge the court to postpone the decision until a proper, genuine and open consultation has taken place? To date, that has not happened.

John Swinney: I am tempted to say to Mr Fergusson that he was right the first time, but I do not want to offend my Liberal Democrat friends.

As I said to Joan McAlpine, the University of Glasgow is consulting on this issue. It meets on 22 June to consider its position; it has not yet taken any final decisions.

The importance of the Crichton campus cannot be overstated. In the south-west of Scotland, it offers opportunities for economic benefit and educational attainment. There is proven evidence that accessibility to institutions such as the Crichton campus can change people’s decisions on whether they should study locally or should travel elsewhere. I hope that the university will listen carefully to the representations that have been made. As I have said, it will be important to have a broad educational proposition available at the Crichton campus.

Glasgow University Dumfries Scottish Parliament Debate 16 June 2011

2011-06-17T01:25:00.000-07:00

Scottish Parliament Education Debate 16 June 2011

Time: 10.07 to 10. 13
Aileen McLeod (South Scotland) (SNP): I welcome the opportunity to participate in this morning’s debate. The future of our higher education institutions is of considerable importance to my constituents throughout the south of Scotland. One of our flagship higher education institutions in the south-west is the Crichton campus in Dumfries. I wish to use the debate as an opportunity to highlight the very special significance of the Crichton campus for the future prosperity of the entire region.

In 2007, the newly elected SNP Government fulfilled its pledge to save the Crichton by providing additional funding. Since then, and with the support of the SNP Government, the Crichton has evolved as a dynamic and innovative model of academic collaboration, which has been to the benefit of its students and the economy of the south-west of Scotland as a whole. I congratulate everyone involved in making the Crichton campus a success. The further development of the Crichton campus should be a priority not only for the academic partners involved but for all those who, like me, want the wider regional economy of the south-west to grow and prosper.

It is incontrovertibly the case, I believe, that the presence of higher education and university facilities such as the Crichton can and does play a decisive role in raising the rate of economic growth and improving economic opportunities across an entire region. As the principal higher education cluster in the south of Scotland, the Crichton campus is a crucial resource for equipping the young people of the area with the skills that they need to find employment. The overall regional contribution that is made by the Crichton campus extends well beyond its immediate role as an educator. Equally significant is the contribution that it makes across the south as an emerging centre of excellence for research and innovation activities. It is widely recognised that virtually all successful regional economies have at their centre a cluster of knowledge-intensive activities based around and driven by successful higher educational institutions.

I want the Crichton campus to continue to develop as the regional knowledge-intensive cluster in the south of Scotland, and to act as a magnet attracting more inward investment to the region. The Crichton academic partnership is well placed to realise that potential, given the right vision and commitment.

The landscape of research funding for our universities is changing. There is a growing awareness that basic research needs to be augmented by actions that improve the dissemination of research results across industry and encourage firms, particularly small to medium-sized enterprises, to innovate in new technologies—and to enhance their competitiveness by so doing.

Nowhere is that trend more apparent than in the EU research funding that is targeted at the university sector. I fully expect the next EU research framework programme, FP8, to assign substantial funding to actions that target later stages in the innovation chain than the fundamental science-based research for which many of our older universities have global reputations. It is in that broad area of research and innovation activity that the Crichton has considerable potential to contribute to the local and regional economies of the south of Scotland.

I congratulate the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning on the considerable work that he has done to ensure that Scotland’s interests in the development of the EU eighth framework programme are being fully represented to the European Commission very early in the Brussels policy process.

I encourage all the partners at the Crichton campus, along with the local authorities, Scottish Enterprise, the Federation of Small Businesses and the wider SME population, to develop a range of activities focused on the dissemination of research and innovation in partnership with local firms, and not only in the subject areas that are already represented on the campus; they should also develop new subject specialisms and new partnerships, which will be of benefit to the entire economy of the south of Scotland. I will be only too pleased to support those partners in that endeavour, and I urge them to consider EU research and development programmes as a possible source of funding.

The University of Glasgow is currently reviewing the continued provision of the liberal arts degree in particular, and the related provision of liberal arts courses in general, at the Crichton campus. Axing the successful liberal arts degree programme could significantly reduce the educational choices that are available to students wishing to attend the Crichton at a time when demand is rising. It could also remove one of the few degree programmes in Scotland that is truly interdisciplinary in approach and content and which, as a result, provides students with a range of transferable skills that they can take to the labour market.

I have already written to the cabinet secretary setting out the concerns of my constituents, and I copied the letter to Professor Muscatelli. I hope that the university court will take those concerns on board when it meets on 22 June.

Michael Russell: I can give some reassurance to the member. I spoke to Professor Muscatelli only yesterday about the issue. Professor Muscatelli has indicated that there will continue to be access to liberal arts provision at the Crichton, although in a different way; he is very much focused on ensuring that that provision continues, and that the Crichton grows and flourishes in the way that the member indicates.

Aileen McLeod: I thank the cabinet secretary for his assurances—the Crichton should provide for liberal arts courses, particularly at postgraduate research level.

Universities are central to national and local economic development. The Crichton is central to boosting the growth, improving the employment opportunities, and increasing the resilience of the economy of the south-west of Scotland. Since 2007, the SNP Government has demonstrated its support for the Crichton.

I have a positive vision for the Crichton and I pledge my support to the staff, students and each of the institutions that are represented on the campus as they develop their strategies and seek out new sources of funding that will assist them in developing the research and innovation programmes that will contribute to the growth of the campus itself and contribute considerably to the wider economy of the south of Scotland.

Time : 10.25 -10.31
Alex Fergusson (Galloway and West Dumfries) (Con): I am delighted to take part in today’s debate because there is no doubt in my mind that this policy area is the most important of all the policy areas that Parliament has been discussing since the election. Without an education system that is properly suited to the needs of our people and our country, other policies areas are, frankly, of little consequence. Education is the foundation stone of our society, and we Scots are justifiably proud of our tradition in that area.

However, it is also an area that faces many great and important challenges, particularly in today’s difficult times, as many speakers this morning have noted. I want to focus on one particular challenge, in which I have a considerable constituency interest as the member for Galloway and West Dumfries: the proposal by the University of Glasgow—which seems to be getting a bit of a rough time this morning—to terminate the teaching of liberal arts courses at the Crichton campus in Dumfries, whose potential was ably highlighted by Aileen McLeod earlier. I agreed with every word of her excellent speech.

The proposal to terminate liberal arts courses will be considered by the court of the university next Wednesday, and there is every indication that it will be accepted. If it is, that will be a decision that the university will come to regret, because it is widely accepted that liberal arts provide the central ethos of that unique university campus. I suspect that Professor Muscatelli’s remarks to the minister reflect the fact that Glasgow university maintains that the ethos of liberal arts will remain, through the interdisciplinary nature of other courses. However, I cannot help but agree with the staff and students when they point out that the physical absence of liberal arts students will, in itself, hugely affect the atmosphere and ethos of the campus.

The staff’s hastily constructed—I will deal with the reason for that haste shortly—response to the consultation says that, no matter what courses remain, the effect of removing the liberal arts students will be that

“the student experience will likely be very different and quite probably diminished.”

When that point was raised at a consultation meeting, the chair of the panel acknowledged that that was a risk that would have to be taken. That is quite an admission, because it suggests that the risk of the Crichton campus losing its distinctive liberal arts ethos is somehow worth taking, even though many who are far better qualified than I am fear that losing that distinctiveness could cost the campus its future.

An e-mail from Professor Muscatelli, sent on 8 June, states:

“the consultation is about how we ensure that our academic offerings in Dumfries meet the needs of the local community.”

That suggests that the liberal arts courses are perceived as not meeting those needs. However, as one who has, like the cabinet secretary, applauded the growth and success of initiatives such as the spring fling—the Dumfries and Galloway arts festival—over the past decade, I could not disagree more strongly. Indeed, I contend that those courses play to the strengths of Dumfries and Galloway in terms of what the area has to offer today. I believe that it would be dreadfully short-sighted to phase those courses out.

Michael Russell: I agree with a great deal of the member’s speech, but I want to make two quick points. First, he and I have worked hard to support the Crichton campus. I did so in a previous incarnation in this Parliament and I continue to be committed to the campus and believe that the liberal arts element is important to it. Secondly, I am not an emissary for the principal of the University of Glasgow, but I believe his assurance that liberal arts courses will continue to be offered, and that there is no threat to the university’s presence. Those are important reassurances.

Alex Fergusson: I share the cabinet secretary’s delight in those reassurances, but I am still concerned about the moves that might be made with regard to liberal arts courses.

The cabinet secretary might recall that in 2007 the Crichton Development Company commissioned a report from Cogent Strategies International in response to the University of Glasgow’s plan to withdraw undergraduate courses from the campus. That report stated:

“By far the greatest economic impact of the Crichton campus will be achieved”

by increasing

“the number of young people recruited to courses and graduating, which entails broadening, deepening and lengthening the educational offering.”

I contend that, without the liberal arts courses, the educational offering will be the polar opposite of broader, deeper and longer and has every chance of being narrower, shallower and shorter. That can have only a hugely negative impact on a region that already has the highest outmigration of 16 to 20-year-olds on mainland Scotland.

I do not believe that it is the role of Government to dictate what universities offer. However, I believe that Government has a role to play in ensuring that decisions of such severity and impact are arrived at only following lengthy and meaningful consultation. There is, however, every indication that this particular consultation was anything but lengthy and meaningful and that it has, in fact, allowed too little time for considered reflection. Staff received the report on 4 May, giving them only 14 days to prepare and submit a considered response to a proposal that cast doubt on some of their futures.

Further, the university has made great play of the fact that MSPs and MPs were invited to take part in the consultation. I am sorry, but I did not notice my invitation. That is, perhaps, excusable given that—as I discovered just yesterday—my invitation was issued on the first Wednesday of the short campaign for last month’s elections when, I believe, I was not even recognised as being an MSP. That cannot be right, and I do not believe that the university thinks that it is right. There are myriad reasons for calling into question the consultation process but—sadly for me, but perhaps fortunately for other members—time does not allow me to list them all. However, one thing seems to be certain: this was a consultation that definitely had a predetermined outcome. I believe that that casts doubt on the university’s long-term commitment, but I accept the cabinet secretary’s words in that regard.

I hope that the Government can reassure me that representations have been made, and I urge the cabinet secretary to suggest as strongly as possible that the decision be postponed by the university court until a genuinely full and open consultation has been held.

Deeply flawed consultation

2011-06-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

Letter to Herald 14 June 2011

Dear Sir,
What impact would the loss of Liberal Arts courses at Glasgow University’s Dumfries campus have on the ‘national and regional community’? The university’s Consultation Panel considered this question earlier this year and concluded that the impact on the regional community would be minimal. Presumably the Panel concluded there would be no impact on the national community, since this part of the question was left unanswered.

In reaching this conclusion, the Panel must have overlooked a 2007 study on the regional and national importance of the Dumfries campus titled ‘Crichton’s Role - Boosting capacity, community and economic activity in south west Scotland’. The key finding of this detailed and comprehensive study was that:

‘By far the greatest economic impact of the Crichton campus will be achieved through the universities’ effect on the size and age structure of the regional population – by persuading younger people to stay in or to move to Dumfries and Galloway. To achieve this [the university] must continue to increase the number of young people recruited to courses and graduating, which entails broadening, deepening and lengthening the educational offering.’

This finding was based on analysis of the region’s demographic ‘Age Bomb’. As I explained in the Herald at the time (1 November 2007), ‘each year Dumfries and Galloway loses hundreds of young people beginning their working lives and gains hundreds of older people ending their working lives. The problem is that as the working-age population declines, so the ability to keep the regional economy going also declines. This is the Age Bomb that must be defused if the £700m gap between wealth created and wealth consumed in Dumfries and Galloway is to decrease in size.’

Without its popular Liberal Arts courses, student numbers at Glasgow University’s Dumfries campus will decline. As a consequence, as the 2007 study explains in minute detail, there will be fewer well educated young people staying in (or attracted to) the region. This will have a cumulative impact on the demographic structure of Dumfries and Galloway and will, since the regional economy is already less than self-sufficient, increasingly require the ’national community’ to subsidise the region through explicit methods (like government deficits and grants) or implicit ones (like pension transfers).

It is possible that, had the Glasgow University’s Consultation Panel considered the 2007 Dumfries campus study, they would have been able to refute its findings. But they did not, and so will present a deeply flawed report to the University Court on 22 June.

Dumfries College of the Humanities

2011-06-11T01:48:00.000-07:00

Humanities Dumfries Courier 2007

2011-06-11T00:59:00.000-07:00

Dumfries humanities campaign in D G Standard

2011-06-09T04:24:00.000-07:00

Students seek councillor help for course campaign
Jun 8 2011 by Craig Robertson, Dumfries Standard Wednesday

COUNCILLORS are being urged to step into the row surrounding the scrapping of a university course.
Student campaigners have written to every elected member in the region seeking help in their fight to save the liberal arts course at Glasgow University’s Dumfries campus.
The university’s ruling committee will be advised to scrap the course when they meet on June 22, due to its small uptake. Proposals are in place to replace it with courses in primary education and the environment.

These are seen as more practical than the liberal arts course, which teaches philosophy, literature, history and humanities.

But a student campaign believes it would be a “short sighted” decision.
In a letter to councillors, many of whom backed a Standard-led campaign to save the Dumfries campus when it almost closed in 2007, the student action group state: “While we welcome the setting up of new courses such as the MA in primary education and the MA in environmental stewardship, and understand that teaching cannot stand still, it is difficult to understand how the growth of courses will be successful if the liberal arts MA, which incorporates humanities – courses that have been central to Glasgow University since its foundation in 1451 – and which is certainly essential to the success of the Crichton, is to be reduced to playing a minor role.
“The entire basis of the proposal is also flawed, since it has been stated by management that it is based on the failure of the Liberal Arts to recruit sufficient numbers of students, when actually this course is recruiting very good numbers of students.

“The university has confirmed in writing that this move is not based on financial projections, only on apparently low numbers of first choice applicants, which does not fit with the new strategy of the university.

“However, all but one of the other courses at Dumfries currently have to accept applicants whose first choice was not Dumfries, and the liberal arts course just happens to be the most successful at recruiting through clearing.

“To expect a rural campus to attract the same level of applicants as a large city-based one seems to be massively short-sighted, and to withdraw any course which falls under this category without allowing time to implement promotional strategies which could ease this situation is to doom the campus to failure.”

Current students would be allowed to finish should the cut go ahead.

D and G Standard Dumfries College of the Humanities.

2011-06-07T07:55:00.003-07:00

Dear Sir,
Richard Dawkins and a group of leading academics created a storm of controversy this week. They plan is to set up a New College of the Humanities in London. Professor AC Grayling, the philosopher who will be the college's first Master, has secured millions of pounds of funding from investors to set up the institution. He said: "Our priorities at the college will be excellent teaching quality, excellent ratios of teachers to students, and a strongly supportive and responsive learning environment. Our students will be challenged to develop as skilled, informed and reflective thinkers, and will receive an education to match that aspiration."

What has created the controversy is that students will be charged £18 000 per year to attend the new college. This has led to accusations of ’elitism’.

In contrast to the extensive media coverage given to the New College of the Humanities, the threatened closure of our ‘college of the humanities’ has created scarcely a ripple of national concern. Since it was established in 1999, Glasgow University’s Dumfries campus has specialised in the humanities -the Liberal Arts of philosophy, history and literature. Myself and hundreds of other students have benefited from a higher education no less stimulating and challenging that that described by Professor Grayling.

Responding to the controversy generated by the New College of the Humanities, the Scottish Government have said that access to education should be based on “the ability to learn rather than the ability to pay”. If so, then rather than allow its loss, the Scottish Government, Dumfries and Galloway Council and other stakeholders should insist that Glasgow University develop and expand their Dumfries campus as an affordable and accessible alternative to London’s New College of the Humanities.

Alistair Livingston

New Humanties College for Dumfries?

2011-06-07T00:07:00.000-07:00

Letter to Scotsman.

Dear Sir,
I read the report (Scotsman, 6 July) on the New College of the Humanities planned for London with a rather jaundiced eye. Scotland has had a ‘College of the Humanities’ since 1999, when Glasgow University’s Dumfries campus was opened. With its emphasis on the Liberal Arts, students at the Dumfries campus have, in Professor Grayling‘s words, been “challenged to develop as skilled, in formed and reflective thinkers” and have received an education to match those aspirations.

In January 2007, the Dumfries campus was threatened with closure. Thanks to a strong community campaign and additional funding provided by the new SNP government, the threat was lifted in August 2007. This year the threat has returned. It seems likely that on 22 June the Court of Glasgow University will decide to end Liberal Arts courses (Philosophy, History and Literature) in Dumfries.

Responding to the challenge posed by the £18 000 a year New College of the Humanities, the Scottish Government state that access to education should be based on “the ability to learn rather than the ability to pay”. If so, then rather than permit the closure of the
“ college of the humanities“ in Dumfries, the Scottish Government should insist on its development and expansion as an accessible alternative.

Alistair Livingston

Letter to Herald

Dear Sir,
I have just been looking through the Herald archives from 2007 for reports on the struggle to save Glasgow University’s Dumfries campus. As a (post-graduate) participant, I vividly recall how initial despair in January was transformed into celebration in August when the threat of closure was lifted. But, as I noted in a letter published 22 August 2007, ‘the fight goes on’. My concern was that although the new SNP government had found £1.5 million to lift the immediate threat of closure, in the longer term the threat would remain.

Four years on, the threat has returned. On 22 June, the Court of Glasgow University seem likely to nod through the closure of Philosophy, History and Literature (Liberal Arts) courses at Dumfries. They will be replaced by courses on Environmental Studies. Yet, since it was established in 1999, the main focus of Glasgow University’s Dumfries campus has been on the Liberal Arts. To shift the focus away from the Liberal Arts is likely to reduce student numbers, making the Dumfries campus unsustainable.

Surveying his ‘modern age’ from Craigenputtock farm in Dumfriesshire in 1829, Thomas Carlyle described it as the Mechanical Age, the age of steam power and the industrial revolution. Our age is the Information Age, an age in which we are deluged with ‘information’, as instantly available in the most remote rural location as in the heart of the largest city. In this age of information, the ability to critically assess and analyse the value of information sources and transform them into useful knowledge is an absolutely vital and practical skill

Liberal Arts students gain access to the power of such critical knowledge through being
“ challenged to develop as skilled, informed and reflective thinkers”. Or so Professor AC Grayling claims. Unlike Glasgow University, a group of eminent academics including Professor Grayling (Herald, 6 June) are convinced of the importance of the Liberal Arts and plan to establish a New College of the Humanities in London. However, it is unlikely that many students from Dumfries and Galloway will be able to afford the £18 000 fees the New College of the Humanities will charge.

Alistair Livingston

Glasgow University threat to Humanities in Dumfries

2011-06-01T05:04:00.000-07:00

BBC Dumfries/ South Scotland also have a report.

1 June 2011 Last updated at 10:05
Dumfries University of Glasgow degree battle stepped up
Members of a student action group are stepping up their campaign to save the Liberal Arts degree at the University of Glasgow Crichton Campus in Dumfries.
The humanities course could be axed later this month in favour of environmental management studies.
Student representatives claimed the loss of the Liberal Arts degree would be a blow to Dumfries and Galloway.
However, the university said it was "carefully matching courses to local needs and national trends".
The move to cut the Liberal Arts degree is part of wider cost-reduction plans.
A final decision will be made by the university's court later this month.
Katy Ewing, a mature student on the Dumfries campus, said the course had been a vital educational lifeline for her.
"For me personally, I have a family, I am a mature student - I could not have gone away and studied at degree level anyway," she said.
"This was an amazing opportunity for me to study.
"It has changed my life, it has been really important to me personally."
She said one of the best parts of the degree was its flexibility.
"The humanities subjects are so core and the Liberal Arts degree is so transferable it's not like doing a vocational degree where you are locked into your path," she said.
"You are very employable after doing this degree."
Students have voiced concerns that lecturers could be lost and that people would have to leave the region if they wanted to pursue studies in the discipline.
More than 600 people have already signed a petition by the action group to save the Liberal Arts degree course.
A decision on its fate will be made at a meeting in three weeks' time.
A spokesperson for the University of Glasgow said: "Following an exhaustive and extensive consultation with all stakeholders, the university court will consider the recommendations in the report of the Liberal Arts consultation panel at its meeting on 22 June.
"The proposed changes at Dumfries Campus are in response to changing patterns of recruitment and the importance of carefully matching courses to local needs and national trends."

Liberal Arts letter to D and G Standard

2011-05-30T03:06:00.001-07:00

Dear Sir,
in 2009 I became a Master of Philosophy after studying at Glasgow University’s Crichton Campus. I was only able to complete my studies after a powerful campaign, supported by the Standard, persuaded Glasgow University to stay in Dumfries. Thanks to the success of the campaign, my daughter and son were able to become Liberal Arts students at the campus in 2009. Now (Standard 27 May) the spectre of closure has returned.

In 2007, when the first threat of closure was made, I looked into the background arguments for closure. These boiled down to the belief that the economy of Dumfries and Galloway was not ‘developed’ enough to absorb the output of graduates from the Glasgow University campus. This same argument, now focused on the Liberal Arts (history, philosophy and literature), is still in play.

Yet through the Liberal Arts, students learn the key sills of critical thought and analysis. These skills are as vital in Dumfries and Galloway as they are anywhere else. Surveying his ‘modern age’ from Craigenputtock farm in Nithsdale in 1829, Thomas Carlyle described it as the Mechanical Age, the age of steam power and the industrial revolution. Our age is the Information Age, an age in which we are deluged with ‘information’, as instantly available in the most remote rural location as in the heart of the largest city.

In this age of information, the ability to critically assess and analyse the value of information sources and transform them into useful knowledge is an absolutely vital and practical skill. The economy of Dumfries and Galloway may be ‘underdeveloped’, so that Liberal Arts graduates will find jobs in family businesses or through self- employment, but it is precisely in such small scale enterprises, which are the bedrock of the regional economy, that such skills are the most essential.

The Liberal Arts are an essential resource for the future of our region, a resource we cannot afford to lose.

Alistair Livingston

Liberal Arts under threat at Dumfries.

2011-05-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

University course faces the axe

May 27 2011 by Craig Robertson, Dumfries Standard Friday
STUDENT protests are being planned to try and prevent a university course being axed in Dumfries.
Glasgow University said yesterday that a decision will be made on the future of the Liberal Arts course at their Crichton campus on June 22.
That’s when their ruling court body will meet to discuss a consultation report on the course which is a mixture of literacy, history and philosophy. It’s understood the recommendation will be to scrap the course.
Students believe a valuable asset is being removed.
And some even fear for the longer term future of the Dumfries campus, which was saved from closure four years ago after a Standard-backed campaign.
Ruari McNeill, a graduate of the course and someone who was a key part of the campaign to save the campus in 2007, said: “The loss of the lib arts course will greatly reduce the service provided to the south west of Scotland and will force young people to go to universities outside the region.
“It will also weaken the whole purpose of having the University of Glasgow at the Crichton and could in the long run lead to the withdrawal of the university.”
He added: “Four years ago when it was agreed that Glasgow would maintain and grow the campus at the Crichton there was no question of the core courses of liberal arts being under threat.
“I would argue that the University of Glasgow are going back on the understanding that was reached four years ago.”
Mr McNeill said moves were being made to get politicians on board with the campaign to stop the course being cut.
A spokesman for Glasgow University said: “Following exhaustive and extensive consultations with all stakeholders, the University Court will consider the recommendations in the report of the consultation panel at its meeting on June 22.”
If the course is cut, those who are currently studying on it would be allowed to finish but it would be closed to new entrants.

Gaelic in Galloway - short history

2011-05-19T04:15:00.001-07:00

Gaelic in Galloway

Threave castle - built to control Galloway's Gaelic clans.

At the end of the eighteenth century there were 297 823 Gaelic speakers in Scotland. By the beginning of the twenty first century there were only 58 552. Concern over the decline of Gaelic persuaded the Scottish Parliament to pass the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act in 2005 and to establish Bord na Gaidhlig in 2006. Bord na Gaidhlig’s priority is to increase the number of Gaelic speakers across Scotland, not just in the language’s traditional heartlands in the Highlands and Islands. As part of this nation-wide remit, in November 2010 Bord na Gaidhlig contributed funding of £45 000 to Dumfries and Galloway’s Community Learning and Development Service to support adult Gaelic learning in the region. Anndra Wilson was subsequently appointed as Gaelic Development Worker for Dumfries and Galloway.

For anyone with an interest in the history of and culture of Dumfries and Galloway, this is fascinating development. At the beginning of the twelfth century, Gaelic was spoken across almost the whole of Scotland. However, during the reign of King David I (1124-1153), the shift from Gaelic to Scots as the main language of Scotland began. While his predecessors had been based in Alba -Scotland north of the Forth-Clyde boundary- David’s power-base was in south-east Scotland. South-east Scotland had been part of the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria and the Old English speech of this region evolved into the language we now call Scots. As David and his successors expanded this ‘new’ kingdom of the Scots north and west, so the gradual decline of Gaelic began.

By the end of the fourteenth century most of the population of southern Scotland were speaking Scots, with Gaelic surviving only in Galloway, south Ayrshire and Nithsdale. In these areas, Gaelic was to persist for another 200 years. This survival of Gaelic is reflected in the thousands of Gaelic place names still found in the south-west.

Why did Gaelic survive in south-west Scotland ? The answer lies in the region’s distinctive history. When King David I granted Annandale to Robert de Brus in 1124, large parts of south-west Scotland had yet to become part of David’s kingdom. Nithsdale, Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, Wigtownshire and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright lay within a vaguely defined region called Galloway. This region took its name from the Gall-Ghàidheil, the ‘foreign Gaels’. The Gall-Ghàidheil spoke Gaelic, but their culture had been strongly influenced by the Vikings or the ‘Gall’ as the Irish called them. In 1124, what is now called Galloway was only a small part of this larger Galloway and was ruled as an independent kingdom by Fergus ‘of Galloway‘. By 1160, Fergus’ rule was over and his kingdom, along with the rest of Galloway had been absorbed into the kingdom of Scotland- at least in theory. In practice, the situation was more complex.

Although the king of Scots was their feudal superior, Fergus’ descendants continued to rule Galloway as if it was an independent kingdom. Even after they settled ‘Norman’ (mainly Cumbrian) knights in Galloway, the real power of Galloway’s lords flowed from the loyalty of the region’s Gaelic kindreds or clans. The last lord of Galloway to rely on this support was Edward Balliol. Edward’s father was King John Balliol whose grandfather was Alan of Galloway (died 1234), the great-grandson of Fergus of Galloway. Between 1332 and 1356, Edward Balliol claimed the Scottish throne, but for most of his reign Balliol had to depend on Edward III of England for support. Balliol could rely on Scottish support in Galloway, but such support drew on the traditional loyalty of Galloway’s Gaelic clans to Balliol as their ‘special lord’ rather his claim to be king of Scots.

In 1356, Edward Balliol had lost even this support and his last toe-holds on Scottish soil - Buittle Castle and Hestan Island- and had to renounce his claim to the Scottish throne. This still left English troops in control of many castles across the south of Scotland. King David II gave Archibald the Grim the task of recovering these castles. Archibald was the illegitimate son of James Douglas, Robert Bruce’s most loyal supporter. In 1369, David II granted Archibald control of the lands ‘between the Nith and Cree’ to which Archibald soon added Wigtownshire, making him Lord of Galloway.

To control Galloway, Archibald had Threave Castle built and it was from Threave that the Douglas Lordship of Galloway was administered for the next eighty years. For nearly 500 years, Gaelic had been the dominant language in Galloway but now the region was ruled by Scots speakers and the social status of Gaelic began to decline. After the fall of the Douglases in 1455, King James II took direct control of Galloway, denying any chance of a Gaelic revival.

From the poetry of Walter Kennedy who lived in south Ayrshire, we know that Gaelic was still spoken in the Carrick district at the beginning of the sixteenth century. On the other hand, entries in the Wigtown Burgh Court Book shows that Scots was already established in the Machars by 1512. This suggests that Scots became the language of the more populous and prosperous lowland parishes of Galloway while Gaelic survived in the more isolated and less populous upland parishes, gradually fading away during the sixteenth century. The final disappearance of Gaelic in Galloway is likely to have been hastened by the Scottish Reformation. The Reformation became deeply rooted in Galloway and was propagated by Scots speaking ministers preaching from English translations of the Bible. By the seventeenth century, when the Covenanters and Conventiclers found refuge in the upland parishes, Scots was the language they spoke and English the language of their defiant declarations. If Gaelic had survived in Galloway, then Andrew Sympson would have recorded this fact in his Large Description of Galloway which he composed in 1682. Sympson notes distinctive features of the local Scots dialect, but makes no mention of the survival or even recent disappearance of Gaelic.

And yet, despite the disappearance of the language, Galloway remains a region named, created and shaped by Gaelic speakers. It was the Gall-Ghàidheil who gave the region its name and it was the Gaelic speaking people of Galloway who provided Fergus and his descendants down to Edward Balliol with their military power. Without their continued loyalty, only historians would recognise ‘Galloway’ as the name of a region.

Tracing the history of Gaelic Galloway is difficult due to the lack of written sources. There are a very few charters from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but these were written for Anglo-Norman land owners. Occasionally these charters reveal the existence of the Gaelic community, but only as witnesses, not as land-owners. The land-holdings of Galloway’s Gaelic ’aristocracy’ were derived from pre-feudal traditional rights and networks of kinship rather than feudal charters. By the time more detailed records of land ownership begin in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Gaelic was extinct. Only in a few places is it possible to reconstruct the likely pattern of Gaelic land ownership. One example comes from the north of Kirkcowan parish.

In 1684, a list of all the inhabitants of Kirkcowan over the age of 12 was drawn up by the parish minister. In the Barony of Sleudinle, which contains the Gaelic place name element sliabh, 54 people were listed living in 14 farms - Barnbrake, Craigary, Alderikallbarichan, Highdirry, Laighdirry, Craigmuddy, Killyallirk, Dirvannany, Munondowy, Dirvaghly, Dirmark, Alderickinair, Netheralderick and Inshanks. Although garbled by later Scots speakers, these are farms which were given their names by Gaelic speakers. The occupants of the farms would still have been Gaelic speakers in 1455 when, as the £10 land of Slewyndonal, the barony was amongst the lordship of Galloway lands forfeited to the Scottish Crown. In 1457 the lands were being used as pasture for King James II’s horses. Around 1590, several of the farms in the barony were surveyed by Timothy Pont and are shown on Joan Blaeu’s map of Galloway published as part of his Atlas of Scotland in 1654. The map can be viewed on the National Library of Scotland’s website.

Similar groupings of farms with Gaelic names, recorded in 1455 amongst the Douglas lands and which survived as small estates into the eighteenth century; can be found in Penninghame, Minnigaff, Kells and Buittle parishes. It is possible that these farms were grouped into small estates by the Douglases, but it is more likely that they simply took over the existing pattern of land-holdings. In 1324, King Robert I granted James Douglas most of the farms in Buittle parish apart from the lands of Patrick McGilbothyn. From analysis of James Douglas’ charter, Patrick McGilbothyn’s lands were located around Orchardton in Buittle. In 1456, King James II granted the £6 land of Arsbutil to John Cairns who had assisted James during the siege of Threave Castle in the summer of 1455. It was Cairns who built the distinctive round tower house at Orchardton and in later records the lands of Orchardton are identified as those formerly called Arsbutil.

What these examples suggest is that through its embodiment in patterns of land ownership, Galloway’s Gaelic culture continued to influence the region’s distinctive history even after Gaelic ceased to be spoken. By the sixteenth century there were hundreds of owner-occupiers of small estates in Galloway. These ’bonnet-lairds’ were supporters of the Scottish Reformation and their descendants were supporters of the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. In 1641, the Stewartry War-Committee of the Covenant, made up of bonnet-lairds, assisted at the siege of Threave Castle which was held for Charles I. After the castle fell to the Army of the Covenant, William McLellan took stonework from Threave to build his tower house at Barscobe in Balmaclellan. In 1666, William’s son Robert was a leader of the armed uprising against Charles II which began at Dalry and ended in defeat at Rullion Green near Edinburgh. The McLellans were one of Galloway’s medieval Gaelic clans.

The last echo of Galloway’s Gaelic dualchas (heritage) was the uprising of the Galloway Levellers in 1724. This uprising was in response to the clearance of people from the land to make way for cattle farms and involved the demolition of the dry-stane dykes built to hold the cattle. Since the Levellers had armed themselves, troops were brought in to restore order. The Levellers uprising ended at Duchrae in Balmaghie parish in October 1724, when 200 were captured by the troops. Despite this defeat, the Levellers’ actions halted the process of clearance in Galloway. But then, towards the end of the eighteenth century, the physical heritage of Galloway’s Gaelic past was finally swept away. Merchants and traders, who had made their fortunes through trade with India and the Americas, created new estates and began to improve them. Inspired by the Scottish Enlightenment, the result was the neatly ordered landscape of enclosed fields, farms, planned villages and towns that has persisted to the present.

When these later layers are stripped away, an older landscape is revealed in the Gaelic names of places and of farms. This is the landscape of the kingdom and lordship of Galloway. History has preserved the names and the deeds of the rulers of Galloway in charters and annals, but the Gaelic people they ruled left no written records of their lives. Yet, although silent within history, their voices can still be heard everyday in the Gaelic names they gave to the places they lived in and knew. As more people begin to learn Gaelic in Dumfries and Galloway, their knowledge of the language will add a depth of understanding to perceptions of the region’s natural and cultural heritage. At the same time, as the struggle between the Bruces and Balliols shows, Galloway’s Gaelic heritage has also played a significant part in the shaping of Scotland as a nation.

Norman mottes and Gaelic Farms in Stewartry

2011-04-15T08:51:00.000-07:00

Brooke’s Anglian settlements, Tabraham’s Norman mottes and Gaelic farm names.
Numbering of mottes as given by Tabraham. Gaelic farm names from Herbert Maxwell The Place Names of Galloway.

Anwoth.
Mottes + nearest Gaelic farms.
1. Boreland of Anwoth NX 584 550
- Jennoch (Gennoch) NX 578 560 1 km, Drummuckloch NX 570 545 1.5 km, Lagganmullan NX 565 554 2 km, Killiegowan NX 585 570 2 km.[+ Ardwall if Gaelic]
2. Kirkclaugh NX 534 521
- Low Auchenlarie NX 536 524 300 m, High Auchenlarie NX 536 533 1 km, Laggan NX 546 531 1.5 km., Bardriston NX 530 528 700 m.
3. Pulcree NX 593 583 . Probably later medieval, not Norman. Pulcree part of Douglas lordship of Galloway 1455.
- Pulcree NX 588 581 500m, Killern NX 582 583 1.5 km.

Balmaghie- no Norman mottes or recorded Anglo-Norman landholdings.

Borgue (includes Kirkandrews and Senwick)
7. Boreland of Borgue NX 646 517.
- Glentruil NX 647 512 500 m, Auchenhay NX 636 516 1 km.
8. Roberton NX 603 485
-Barlocco NX 783 472 1.5 km.
9.Barmagachan NX 613 394
- Barmagachan farm adjacent, Kildarroch NX 611 504 (in ruins, 1850) 1 km.

Buittle.
10 Buittle castle NX 819 616
-Auchengate NX 819 621 500m, Craignair NX 818 609 500 m.

Colvend and Southwick
11. Southwick NX 936 570
- Kells (?) NX 941 572 500 m.
12. Boreland of Colvend NX 869 541
- Glenstoking NX 863 527 500 m, Barcloy NX 856 531 1 km.
Note: parish has highest number, six, of Auchen- farms in the Stewartry. Auchenhay, Auchenhill, Auchenjury, Auchenlosh, Auchensheen and Auchenskeoch.

Girthon
16. Cally NX 606 556
- Drumwall NX 615 559 1 km. ? Maxwell gives as druim ghall.

Kells- no Norman mottes or recorded Anglo-Norman landholdings.

Kelton (includes Gelston and Kirkcormack)
18. Ingleston NX 774 579
- Airieland NX 757 572 1.5 km, Craigley NX 762 581 (formerly part of Ingleston lands) Glenyerrock NX 798 567 2 km.
19. Kirkcormack NX 716 574
- Barfraggan NX 733 564 2 km.
20. Netherthird NX 710 554 (possibly later medieval)
- Knockskelly Hill NX 721 542 1.5 km. (place name only).

Kirkbean- no Norman mottes.
- Airdie NX 966 587 recorded as Ardarie in charter circa 1200.
http://www.poms.ac.uk/db/record/source/2651/#

Kirkcudbright (includes Dunrod and Galtway)
21. Bombie Castle NX 715 505 [ring-fort]
- Balgreddan NX 726 517 1.5 km.
22. Castle Fergus NX 698 507
-Canee NX 687 500 1.5 km, Auchenflower NX 688 490 2km.
22. Culdoach NX 706 537
- Knockskelly Hill NX 721 542 1.5 km (place name only).

Parton
26. Kirkland of Parton NX 696 697
- Carnearie NX 702 697 500 m, Tintum NX 698 704 500m.
27. Boreland of Parton NX 693 709
- Fominoch (Foremannoch) NX 694 712 500 m, Craigmore NX 696 719 1 km.

Rerrick
28. Kirkcarswell NX 754 487
-Balmangan NX 760 483 700 m, Achnabony NX 744 488 1 km.

Twynholm (includes Kirkchrist)
29. Twynholm NX 663 542
- Baerlochan NX669 547 500 m, Barluka NX 654 543 1km, Barwhinnock NX 656 549 1 km.
30. Trostrie NX 657 574
- Culcraigie NX658 580 800 m.

Urr
31. Mote of Urr NX 815 647
- Balgreddan NX 80 65 500m - in Buittle, not recorded after 1820.
32. Little Richorn NX 839 596
- Aucheninnes NX 845 609 2 km.
33. Green Island, Milton Loch NX 838 716
-Auchengibbert NX 831 715 500m.

Gaelic farm names in Galloway

2011-04-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

This is a list by parish of farms with Gaelic names in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. I complied the list to help resolve some confusion which follows from Daphne Brooke's theory that there were Northumbrian 'shires' in Galloway. [Proceedings Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Vol. 121, 1991]. When Brooke's list of Anglian settlements is compared with Christopher Tabraham's list of Norman mottes and Anglo-Norman settlements in the Stewartry [in Studies in Scottish Antiquity ed. D. Breeze, 1984] there is an overlap, suggesting some of Brooke's Old English place names could be Middle English/ Older Scots.

Brooke's shires covered most of the lowlands of the central Stewartry - a very large block of territory. In contrast, Tabraham's Norman settlements are smaller and more scattered. In theory then, the areas inbetween the Norman settlements would have been occupied by Gaelic speakers. To illustrate this I produced map (see below) showing the nearest farms with Gaelic names to Tabraham's mottes.

This shows part of the pattern, but I then wondered about the rest of the farms with Gaelic names and how they were distributed. Hence the following list of 650 + such farms. The next stage will be to think through any implications. Part of Brooke's theory was that the blocks of Northumbrian territory survived to become the building blocks of the kingdom/lordship of Galloway established by Fergus circa 1120 and that some of these blocks of territory survived through the Douglas lordship (1369-1455). To check this will need another table and map showing the distribution of Douglas lands.

What is missing, but would be difficult/ impossible to establish, are the landholdings of the main Gaelic kindreds/ clans. How was Gaelic Galloway organised, what was its structure? How did the pattern of Gaelic land holding change and evolve - and did it leave an imprint on the patterns of land ownership which can be traced from the fifteenth century onwards? The seventeenth century pattern which emerges from Peter McKerlie's Lands and their Owners in Galloway is one of hundreds of small estates possessed by owner/occupier bonnet lairds - but this pattern seems to have emerged through the break-up of larger estates owned by a few key families - Maxwells, Gordons and McClellan's in the Stewartry, McDowells and McCullochs in the Shire. Understanding the patterns of landownership help to make sense of the religious and political conflicts of the seventeenth century and the Galloway Levellers uprising in the eighteenth.

Here is the list...

Gaelic farms by parish in Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.[3 April 2011 version]
Based on Ordnance Survey circa 1850 and Herbert Maxwell The Place Names of Galloway (1930).

1.Anwoth (19)
Ardwall High, Low and House
Arkland
Auchenlarie High, Mid, Low
Bardriston
Cardoness + Castle
Cuil Hill
Drummuckloch
Garvellan (KSCD)
Jenoch Gennoch
Killern + mill
Killiegowan
Kings Laggan
Laggan
Lagganmullan
Lakens
Lauchentyre
Ornockenoch
Pulcree
Rusco, Castle, Mains, Upper

2. Balmaclellan (38)
Armanillie
Auchenvey
Auchreoch
Balmaclellan
Barewing
Barlay
Barmark
Barmurrie
Barnhillies
Barnshalloch
Barnwalls
Barscobe
Bartaggart
Benneeve
Caldow
Cassenvey
Craigengower
Craigmuie
Crerroch
Crogo
Cubbox
Corriedoo
Dalwhat
Drummanister
Drumwhirn
Gallrinnies
Garcrogo
Ironcraigie
Ironlosh
Ironmacannie + mill
Killochy
Knocklae
Knocklearn
Laggan
Monybuie
Ringbain
Troquhain
Tydeaverrys (?)

3. Balmaghie (29)
Airie + Upper
Bargatton
Barnboard
Bellymack
Crae + Upper Crae
Craig
Craigenellie
Creochs
Cullenoch
Darngarroch
Derrygown
Dornell
Drumbreck
Drumglass
Drumlane
Duchrae
Dunnance (Dinnance)
Finniness
Genoch
Glenlochar
Glentoo
Lochenbreck
Pulnachie (Edgarton Cothouse)
Slogarie
Stroan
Tormollane
Ulloch
Urioch
Tormollane

4. Borgue (22)
Auchenhay
Balmangan
Barbey
Barharrow
Barlocco
Barmagachan + motte
Barngaber [KSCD]
Borness (? Scandinavian)
Carrick
Clauchendolly
Craighar
Culraven (?)
Drummore
Falbogue
Glentruil
Kildarroch
Knockbrex
Knock-kennock
Knockmuck
Knockmullock
Lochroy
Margrie

5. Buittle (22)
Auchengate
Balgredan (pre-1820)
Barchain
Barlochan + mill
Breoch
Castlegower
Clone
Corra
Craigherron
Craignair
Craigterra (Craig Turra)
Cuil
Cullinaw
Doach
Gaigrie
Knox (Meikle, Little)
Logan (East, West)
Marnoch
Munches (?)
Palnackie
Torglass
Toull

6. Carsphairn (33)
Bardennoch
Barlae
Benloch
Bow
Braidenoch
Carminnow (Carminnows)
Carnavel
Carsphairn
Castlemaddy, Holm of, Northside of, Sheil of
Clennoch
Craigengillan
Craiglingal
Craigwhar
Cullendoch
Dalquairn Holm of, Nether
Dalshangan
Daltallochan, Holm of
Drumjohn
Drumness
Dundeugh
Garryhorn
Knochingorroch
Knockgray
Lagwine
Lamford
Lamloch
Marbrack
Marscalloch
Polmaddy
Polmeadow
Polquhanity
Portmark (?)
Strahannah

7. Crossmichael (27)
Airds Upper, Nether
Auchendolly
Balgerran
Blairinnie
Cairnleys
Craigenally
Culgruff
Culraven
Drumskelly
Ernambrie
Ernanity
Erncrogo
Ernfillan
Ernminzie
Fuffock (?)
Glengappock
Glenroan
Kilnotrie
Knockallan
Knockfisher
Largnean
Loch Dow
Loch Smaddy
Lochroan
Mollance
Ringanwhey
Trowdale (?)

8. Colvend and Southwick (32)
Auchenhay
Auchenhill
Auchenjury
Auchenlosh
Auchensheen
Auchenskeoch
Barcloy
Barlay
Barnhourie
Barscraigh
Barwhirn
Beinloch
Colvend
Craigbrex
Craigengower
Cuil (Hill, Burn)
Drumcow
Drumstinchall
Drumwhinny
Dummuck
Garryhorn
Glenluffan
Glensone
Glenstocking
Ironhash
Ironshinnie (Ernsheenie)
Knockhooly
Laggan
Marbroy
Portowarren
Powbrade
Tannock
Tarlillyan (?)

9. Dalry (35)
Altry
Ardoch
Arndarroch
Auchenshinnoch
Auchrae
Barlae
Benbrack
Bogue
Carroch
Carseglass
Corlae
Cornharrow
Craigencorr
Craiglour
Culmark (?)
Duchrae
Garryaird
Glenhoul
Glenshimmeroch
Grennan
Kilnair
Knockman
Knocksting
Lochinvar
Lochrinnie
Lorg
Marskaig
Margree
Polcheskie
Polskeoch
Stroan
Stroanfreggan
Stroanpatrick
Torlane
Trostan

10. Girthon (27)
Airds
Auchencloy
Barlay (mill)
Barneywater
Barwhill
Carrick
Castramont
Clachan
Clene
Cruffock (?)
Cullendoch
Culreoch
Creoch
Dalmalin
Disdow
Drumcleuch
Drumruck
Drumshangan
Drumwall
Enrick (?)
Glengainoch (Glengeane or Glengunnioch KSCD ?)
Knockbrack
Knockewen
Lagg
Largoes (?)
Laughenghie
Orchar

11. Kells (43)
Achie
Airds
Airie
Allwhillam
Altibeastie
Ballingear
Barchock
Barcloy
Barskeoch
Bennan
Carsfad
Cavan
Clachrum
Clenrie
Clone
Caig Gilbert
Craig Michael
Craigenbay
Darshalloch
Drumbuie
Drumgowan
Dunveoch
Fintloch
Gairloch
Garrainie
Garrary
Garroch
Glenlee
Kenmure
Knocknairling
Knocknalling
Knocksheen
Laggan
Largerie
Largmore
Largvey
Lochspraig
Polmaddy
Ringour
Stranfasket
Strangassel
Tannoch
Trochie

12. Kelton (10)
Airyland
Auchlane
Barfraggan (KSCD)
Buchan
Craigley
Dildawn
Garie (? Place name only)
Glenyerrock
Lochdougan
Slagnaw

13. Kirkbean (5)
Airdrie
Caens
Kincarrock (Kimkerrick)
Tallowquhairn
Torrorie

14. Kirkcudbright (12)
Auchenflower
Balgreddan
Balig
Balmae
Cannee
Carse
Culdoach
Drummore
Dunrod
Lochfergus
Mulloch
Torrs

15. Kirgunzeon (17)
Arnmannoch
Barcrosh
Bargrug
Blairshinnoch
Corra
Corwar (?)
Culdrain
Culkiest
Drumcoltran
Drumfern
Drumwhinney
Falgunzeon
Glaisters
Kenmuir
Killymingan
Killywhan
Tarkirra (?)

16. Kirkmabreck (25)
Balhasie
Ballochanamour
Balmacrail
Breoch (Broach)
Cambret
Carsewalloch
Carsluith
Cassencarrie
Clainge
Clannery
Claughreid
Craig
Craignine
Cuil
Culcronchie
Dergall (? Bridge only)
Falbae
Garrocher
Glenquicken(?)
Knockeans
Larg
Muirfad
:Palnure
Pulwhat
Stroans

17. Kirkpatrick Durham (26)
Areeming
Auchenhay
Barbain
Bardarroch
Barmoffity
Barncalzie
Brockloch
Chipperkyle
Croys
Culfad
Culshan
Darngarroch
Drumhumphrey (?)
Garmartin
Glaisters
Tarbreoch
Kilquanhity
Kirklebride
Knarie
Knockwalloch
Lochenkit
Lochpatrick
Margley
Minnydow
Muil
Slongagber

18. Kirkpatrick Irongray (17)
Barbuie
Barnshalloch
Barnsoul
Beoch
Carsewell
Cornlee
Crochmore
Drumcylor
Irongray
Killylour
Knockshinnoch
Lag
Larbrek
Marglolly
Margreig
Shalloch
Skeoch

19. Lochrutton (10)
Arnmannoch
Auchenfranco
Barfil
Barnbauchle
Barr
Barquhar
Bogrie
Carswada
Drum
Drummore

19. Minnigaff (83)
Arroch
Auchenleck
Auchlannochy (?)
Barclye
Balraggan(?)
Balunton (?)
Bardarroch
Bargaly
Bargrennan
Barncaughla
Bogue
Borgan
Borgan Ferrach
Brockloch
Buchan
Cairnderry
Caldons
Calgow
Camer (?)
Cordorcan
Carse Duncan
Carseminnoch
Carsnaw
Challoch
Clauchrie
Corrafeckloch
Cornaroch
Craigdews
Craigencaillie
Craigenkeelie
Craigens
Craignine
Culsharg
Cumlodden
Dallash
Dalnaw
Dalshangan
Daltamie
Dalvaird
Dargall
Drannandow
Dranniemanner
Drigmorn
Drumjohn
Drumlawantie
Ferrachbrae
Gannoch
Garlick (?)
Garlies
Glencaird
Glengarren
Glengruboch
Glenhoise
Glenshalloch
Graddoch
Kenmure
Kireroch
Kirkennan
Kirroughtree
Kirriecastle
Kirriedarroch
Kirriemore
Kirriereoch
Knockbracks
Knockbrax
Lagbaes
Lamachan
Larg
Lochspraig
Machermore
Minniwick
Minnigaff
Palgowan
Palnure
Poultrybuie
Powtan
Pulgap
Stranord
Strathmaddie
Stroan
Stronbae
Suie
Talnotry
Tonderghie

21. New Abbey (16)
Annatland
Ardwall
Auchengray
Barbeth
Barlay
Carse
Carsegowan
Craigmorin
Cullendeugh
Drum
Drungans
Garloff
Glenharvie
Glensone (?)
Kinharvie
Shabellie
Tannoch

21. Parton (23)
Ardmannoch
Arvie
Auchenvey
Barwhillanty
Clamdish
Caneerie
Craichie
Craigmore
Culdoach
Drumkeel
Drumrash
Dullarg
Ervie
Falbae
Fominoch
Glenlaggan
Glenlair
Largvey
Lavich
Marnhoul
Mochrum
Tintum
Torrs

23. Rerrick (28)
Airds
Airyhill
Auchencairn
Auchenfad
Auchengool
Auchenleck
Achnabony
Balcary
Balig
Balmangan
Barcheskie
Barcloy
Barfraggan
Barlocco
Bengairn
Castlecreavie
Castledaffin (?)
Clamdally
Craig
Craigmullen
Craigraploch
Culnaughtrie
Daltamie (?)
Dungans
Dundrennan
Mullock
Rascarrel
Torr

24. Terregles (4)
Clunie
Collochan
Lincluden
Terregles

25. Tongland (11)
Argrennan
Balannan
Barcaple
Barcrosh
Barnolas
Beoch
Crumquhil
Culquha
Glentarff
Lairdmannoch
Mollance

26. Troqueer (13)
Airds
Auchenfad
Cargen
Carruchan
Dalskairth
Drummillan
Drumsleet
Drungans
Garroch
Lochaber
Terraughtie
Tregallon
Troqueer

27. Twynholm (10)
Auchengashell
Barlochan
Barluka
Barwhinnock
Carse
Culcraigie
Glengap
Largs
Torglass
Trostrie

28. Urr (14)
Auchinnes
Auchenreoch
Barbey
Barfil
Craigley
Craigmath
Crochmore
Culloch
Culmain
Dailly
Dalbeattie
Galla
Garmartin
Larglanglee
Torrkatrine (?)

Normans or Northumbrians?

2011-03-27T17:01:00.001-07:00

Normans or Northumbrians?

It seems simple enough. I found that a place called Irisbutil was not Burned island on Loch Ken but Orchardton in Buittle. So I did some checking and found that a set of 25 place names used to show Anglian / Northumbrian settlements in Galloway (the Stewartry) overlapped with a list of Norman mottes and/ or lands held by Anglo- Normans from Cumbria between 1150 and 1300.

The sources for the Anglian place names are documents, mostly to do with gifts to the Church. The documents were written for the Anglo- Normans. Did the Anglo-Normans take over land first settled by Northumbrians? Perhaps. Alternatively the place names may not be the Old English of the Northumbrians, but the Middle English (aka Older Scots) of the Cumbrian Anglo- Normans.

If so, then instead of the place name evidence pointing to eighth/ ninth widespread settlement in the Stewartry by Northumbrians, it reflects the twelfth/ thirteenth century settlement of Cumbrian Anglo-Normans. The evidence for the later settlements is firm - the mottes and the charter evidence. The evidence for the earlier settlements is not so strong.

So far so good. But then I wanted to know what the Cumbrian Anglo-Normans were doing in the Stewartry. Were they there as colonisers? Were they their to add their military strength to the lords of Galloway’s armies? Or was there another reason?

Since most of the mottes they built do not have baileys (larger, surrounding enclosures where a knight’s troops lived) they were not for colonising. The lords of Galloway’s main military strength was their ability to call up large numbers (1000 +) of foot soldiers or man galleys so the military angle doesn’t seem critical - so, I speculated, perhaps the aim was to introduce new agricultural techniques. That is, oxen drawn wooden ploughs with iron tips.

Problem is trying to find supporting evidence for this theory. Which is what I am now working on. Also trying to work out relationship between the lands of the Anglo-Normans and the lands of the Gaelic clans - which is tricky since no written records of such land holdings, so having to look at where there are Gaelic farm names near the mottes…

So still a work in progress.

Burned Island again

2011-03-17T14:18:00.001-07:00

Map of medieval south west Scotland

2011-03-12T03:23:00.000-08:00

Hegel and James Steuart.

2011-02-26T12:43:00.001-08:00

Scottish literacy 1600- 1800

2011-02-26T00:18:00.001-08:00

Distribution mottes Galloway

2011-02-25T12:50:00.001-08:00

The Expansion and Contraction of Gaelic in Galloway

2011-02-24T05:42:00.000-08:00

Here are 8400 words on the Expansion and Contraction of Gaelic in Galloway.

This is a first draft for publication in the 2011 Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society.

Dumfries Campus of Glasgow University under threat- again.

2011-02-15T11:26:00.001-08:00

From STV today 15 February 2011.

Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard has put his name to an open letter along with more than 150 academics against cuts to courses at Glasgow University.

Baroness Onora O'Neill, former president of the British Academy, and author Professor Marina Warner have also signed the letter which was sent to Education Secretary Michael Russell on Tuesday.

Earlier this month details emerged of a cost-cutting proposal to scrap some courses and merge others to help save Glasgow University £20m. History, archaeology and classics could be merged and anthropology with social work courses also axed.

The proposals, by the university's senior management group, will be put forward at a meeting of the institution's court group on Wednesday but no decision would be made until a further meeting scheduled for later this year.

The letter states: "Universities are independent institutions, but they are publicly-funded and are a vital part of the economic, cultural and social fabric of this country. The future of university funding in Scotland is unclear.

"Pending decisions on future funding mechanisms and levels, which will be taken following the Scottish elections in May, every effort must be made to avoid damaging and irreversible cuts to subject areas.

"The management of any one institution must not be allowed to pre-empt political decisions and unilaterally decide the shape of future educational provision in key disciplines in Scotland's largest city."

The letter also said teaching and research in modern languages and cultures had "suffered severe attrition" in Scotland in recent years.

It continued: "We call on you as the minister responsible for higher education to do everything in your power to influence the management of the University of Glasgow and to ensure that the university continues to fulfil its historic role as an outward-looking institution rooted in the community that it serves rather than working primarily to maximise income in the international marketplace."

The university is also seeking a review of its Centre for Drugs Misuse Research and considering cutting back evening and weekend classes, which cater for up to 5000 adults a year. The university's Dumfries campus could also be affected with the cut of courses in the liberal arts in favour of an expansion in environmental management.

The proposals would make combined savings of around £3m as part of a wider strategy to find £20m in savings by 2012-13. A consultation on proposals to save money will get under way after tomorrow's meeting of the university court if they are approved.

Aerial photo of English rig and furrow

2011-02-12T12:36:00.000-08:00

Survival of rig and furrow.

2011-02-12T12:31:00.001-08:00

This is a rather neat map/ photo cross-reference.

Problems dating rig and furrow

2011-02-12T12:17:00.000-08:00

The problem with dating rig and furrow is that what survives dates from the last time the rigs were formed - the last time they were ploughed/ dug.

Galloway Douglas Regality

2011-02-05T13:44:00.001-08:00

Edward Balliol support limited to Galloway

2011-02-05T11:37:00.001-08:00

Edward Balliol, Edward 111 lands

2011-02-05T10:53:00.001-08:00

Edward Balliol -special lord of Galloway

2011-02-05T10:49:00.001-08:00

Greenlaw, Crossmichael parish, river Dee

2011-01-29T11:08:00.000-08:00

These photos were taken on a walk out to the river Dee via Greenlaw near Castle Douglas.

John Martin's grave

2011-01-29T11:00:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos of John Martin's Grave. Martin(1710- 1801)was a Galloway Leveller in 1724 before becoming a clock and watchmaker in Kirkcudbright. There are also some work-in-progress shots of new bird-hides on Threave Estate.

Neilson's Monument -Hot Blast

2011-01-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

Here are a collection of photos taken near Rhonehouse (near Castle Douglas) of the James Beaumont Neilson Monument - called Hot Blast. Also included the 'Levellers' stone (but which isn't - wrong date) at Furbar.

Some photos of Carrick

2011-01-29T09:30:00.000-08:00

Carrick shore 2008

Now in academia.

2011-01-04T07:51:00.001-08:00

http://independent.academia.edu/AlistairLivingston

Evoking Maxwell's demon.

2010-12-08T06:39:00.000-08:00

Here are 10 000 words on 'Evoking Maxwell's demon'

Settle and Carlisle Line November 2010

2010-11-28T01:50:00.000-08:00

1324 charter of Buittle

2010-10-31T12:43:00.000-07:00

24 February 1324
Charter by King Robert the Bruce to James, Lord of Douglas, knight, for his homage and service, of the whole land of Botle [Buittle] in Galloway, namely, the whole parish of Botile, except Corbettoun [Corbieton] and Patrick MacGibbothyn's lands [or Gilbothyn - lands unidentified, possibly Irisbutil ] namely, from the place where the water of Vr [Urr] falls into the sea, and along the old Vr until it again runs into the water of Vr, and along the water of Vr to the marches of the land of Crossmychelle and of Corbettoun, and thence by the old marches to a certain land which is called Knokynbotile, and so from Knokyubotile by the old marches to the land of Torrys [Torrs farm] and thence by the old marches to the lands of Brethtathe [Breoch] and so to the marches of the lands of Torrys and Brethtathe as far as the marches of Keltoun, and as the marches of Keltoun and Brethtauth coincide, to a certain stream which runs from the mill of Keuilstoun [Gelston], and so by a certain stream that runs between the lands of Brethtauth and Keuilstoun, and from that stream as it runs until it comes to a certain land called Rinteishey [?]

The ‘certain stream’ which runs between the lands of Breoch and Gelston would be the Doach Burn which then become the Potterland Lane formerly Orchard Lane (watercourse) and which enters the sea at Orchardton Bay.

Buittle -botel - Middle English?

2010-10-24T12:02:00.002-07:00

From Middle English Dictionary: B.5 By Sherman M. Kuhn, Hans Kurath

Buittle -botel - Middle English?

2010-10-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

From Middle English Dictionary: B.5 By Sherman M. Kuhn, Hans Kurath

Galloway Levellers dissertation

2010-10-14T11:17:00.001-07:00

Here is my 50 000 word dissertation on the Galloway Levellers.
To read click on right hand icon in top row -will open in new window.

Glenkenns canal 1802

2010-10-04T11:05:00.001-07:00

Buittle study

2010-10-04T09:10:00.001-07:00

The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy

2010-10-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting exchange of verse, which gives evidence that Gaelic was spoken in Carrick (Ayrshire) around 1500.

Peter Ewart Biographical Notice

2010-09-30T02:40:00.001-07:00

Crown Lands in Galloway 1456 -1469

2010-09-29T05:33:00.000-07:00

To read more easily, click on right hand icon in tool bar which will open text in Google docs.

Parish formation in Galloway

2010-09-28T09:59:00.001-07:00

Galloway farm names background 1

2010-09-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

Threave and Kelton Mains -at the crossroads of history

2010-09-14T13:35:00.001-07:00

Mons Meg, Torrs Pony Cap and Joseph Train

2010-09-14T13:29:00.003-07:00

Airigh farms Stewartry of Kirkcudbright

2010-09-14T13:23:00.001-07:00

To read more easily, click on right hand icon on top tool bar to open in a new window.

Mons Meg, Torrs Pony Cap and Joseph Train

2010-09-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

Mons Meg, Threave Castle, the Torrs Pony Cap and Joseph Train.

Mons Meg
An enduring piece of Galloway folklore associates the cannon Mons Meg (on display at Edinburgh Castle) with the siege of Threave Castle in 1455. However, Mons Meg was built at Mons in Flanders and gifted to King James II in 1457 so has no direct connection with the Threave siege of 1455.

At least one large cannon was used at Threave, but it came from Linlithgow as this entry from the Exchequer Rolls (Volume VI, page 200) for 1456 shows

pro diversis expensis factis per fratrem Andream Lisouris, carpentarium, et Johanuem Were, burgensem de Linlitliqw, circa cariagium magni bombardi versus obsidionem castri de Treve.

If, as folklore asserts, Mons Meg (or a similar cannon) had been constructed by a local blacksmith in 1455, payment for his services would have been recorded in the very detailed Exchequer Rolls. The Exchequer Rolls certainly give details of similar payments, including some which appear to have been bribes paid to the defenders of the castle and which led to its surrender to the king.

The oldest version of the story found so far is in Andrew Symson's Large Description of Galloway. This was composed in 1684 by Symson ( then Episcopalian minister of Kirkinner parish in Wigtownshire) for Sir Robert Sibbald, after Sibbald was appointed Geographer Royal by Charles II in 1682. As the title implies, the Large Description of Galloway is a detailed, parish by parish account of Galloway. In his account of the parish of Balmaghie, Symson noted that

The common report also goes in that countrey, that, in this isle of the Threave, the great iron-gun, in the Castle of Edinburgh, called commonly Mount-Megg, was wrought and made; but I am not bound to beleeve it upon their bare report.

This may not have been a very ancient piece of foklore when Symson was writing. In Edinburgh, on 14 October 1681, Mons Meg was fired to celebrate the birthday of James, Duke of York (the future James VII and II) and the barrel burst. Since Galloway at that time was in more or less open rebellion against James and his brother, news of this symbolic event would have been well received. Although the first siege of Threave Castle would have been a very distant memory, if recalled at all, the siege of 1640 would still have been in living memory and remembered as a victory for the Covenanters over Charles I.

Indeed, the version of the story which claim that Mons Meg was built by a blacksmith called 'McKim' at the Buchan smithy in Carlingwark (present day Castle Douglas) can be connected to the siege of 1640. The War Committee of the Covenanters in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright included Thomas Hutton of Arkland as representative of Kelton parish. Hutton's son in law was Adam McMin who was a blacksmith at the Buchancroft of Carlingwark and Hutton's grandson was a smith there in the 1680s. At least eight other members of the McMin family were blacksmiths in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright the between 1660 and 1700. In 1724, a blacksmith called Francis McMin was a Galloway Leveller and used his hammer to kill some Irish cattle at Dundrennan Abbey.

However the most likely source for the folktale is Joseph Train (1792-1852). Train was an excise officer in Galloway for many years, but was also a keen antiquarian who corresponded with Sir Walter Scott. As well as providing Scott with material for his novels, Train also passed on various 'interesting relics' to Scott. One of these was the Torrs Pony Cap. In an appendix to William Nicholson's History of Galloway [Vol. II page 71], Train described how the mask was found and then passed on to Scott at Abbotsford. It was Train who had the two drinking horns attached to the mask.

About the year 1820, a Mummer's head mask was found in a morass in the farm of Torrs, in the parish of Kelton. This ancient disguisement is made of fine copper : it is constructed so as to cover the face of the wearer, having two long horns turning backwards like those of a goat...It may consequently be inferred that this mask once belonged to a Mummer of the neighbouring Castle of Threave...After placing it on a pedestal with an inscription in brass showing where it was found, I forwarded it to Abbotsford where it has since been a conspicuous object in the museum.

Pony Cap with horns attached
In 1822, Sir Walter Scott hosted a visit to Scotland by George IV. During the visit, Scott suggested to the king that Mons Meg should be returned to Scotland from the Tower of London where it had been since 1754. Mons Meg was eventually returned to Edinburgh Castle in 1829. Aware of Scott's interest in Mons Meg, Train researched the history of the gun. Train was familiar with Symson's Large Description of Galloway which was first published in 1823. Train seems to have taken Symson's mention of Mons Meg as starting point for his history of Mons Meg which then he passed on to Scott – omitting Symson's sceptical comment.

However, as with the Torrs Pony Cap, in the process of discovering the history of Mons Meg, Train managed to improve upon Symson's original cautious note. The result was an enduring romantic fiction. John Patterson's Memoir of Joseph Train [1854, p.140] gives Train's version of Mons Meg's creation.

This very singular piece of ordnance is said to have been made of 25 bars of iron, bound together with an equal number of hoops, to represent the exact number of persons who contributed to defray the expense of making the piece. As a recompense for the present of this extraordinary engine of war, and for the loyalty of the M'Lellans, who assisted him in subduing the haughty Douglases, James II., before leaving Galloway, erected the town of Kirkcudbright into a royal burgh, and granted to Brawny Kim, the smith, the lands of Mollance, in the neighbourhood of Threave Castle. It is still the custom in Galloway to call people by the name of the lands they possess. Hence the smith was called Mollance. But his wife's name being Meg, and she being possessed of a stentorian voice, the cannon, in honour of her, received the name of Mollance Meg. Nor is it singular that in the course of time the name should be corrupted into the present. There is no smithy now at the ' Three Thorns of Carlinwark,' where Brawny Kim and his seven sons had their forge, and where Mollance Meg was constructed, yet when the road to Portpatrick, which passes through that locality, was being made, the workmen cut through a deep bed of cinders and ashes, which was proof enough of there having a forge existed in that place.

In Train's defence, the Old Statistical Account for Kelton parish, written by the parish minister in 1791/2 mentions that

there is also a tradition, that the cannon, with which James IV battered the castle at Thrieve, was made (that is the staves were put together and hooped,) at the Buchan's Croft on the west side of [Carlingwark] Loch. One of the balls, weighing 48 pounds, picked out of the wall at Thrieve, is now at Greenlaw.

It should be noted that this account does not mention Mons Meg by name. Greenlaw is Greenlaw House which belonged to Sir Alexander Gordon (1747-1830) Gordon owned part of what is now Threave estate, through which he had a canal built in 1765. When the New Statistical Account for Kelton parish was written in 1845, Train's version was used with the additional information that Sir Alexander Gordon had been given a large gold ring inscribed 'Margaret de Douglas' which had been found in the castle and was 'supposed to have been on the Fair Maid of Galloway's hand when it was blown away [by one of Mons Meg's cannon balls] at the siege.' [As a school boy visiting Threave castle in the 1960s, the story had grown to include additional details. The ring, I was told, had been found on the Fair Maid's skeletal hand which was still clutching the unbroken wine glass from which she had been drinking when the cannon ball struck...fortunately for her, the 'Fair Maid' was not present at Threave during the siege and lived until 1473.]

As well as acquiring an air of authenticity through inclusion in the New Statistical Account and MacKenzie's History of Galloway, the popular propagation of Joseph Train's version of Mons Meg's origins was encouraged by a 'Melo Drama' based on Train's work which was performed in Castle Douglas in 1837. This was written by William Train, who may have been Joseph's brother. [History of Galloway 1841 Vol. 1 Appendix M, page 38]. How often the play was subsequently performed is unknown, but the dramatisation of local 'history'; e.g.John Nicholson's contemporary (1838) dramatisation of the Galloway Levellers' story, is likely to have shaped and reinforced existing folklore associated with Threave Castle.

John Nicholson (1778-1866) was a contemporary of Joseph Train. Nicholson was a Kirkcudbright based printer and publisher and it was Nicholson who commissioned William MacKenzie to write his History of Galloway, a project which Train was closely involved with. Train himself had proposed writing a history of Galloway in 1818, but Train's own literary ambition 'was superseded by a desire to serve the great novelist ' - Sir Walter Scott.

Since this discussion of Joseph Train's role in the creation of an enduring historical myth was prompted by a guided tour of the archaeology of the National Trust for Scotland's Threave Estate (which includes Threave Castle), a connection to the Hornel Library in the Trust's Broughton House in Kirkcudbright can be made. As Julia Muir Watt points out in the introduction to Dumfries and Galloway a Literary Guide [Dumfries and Galloway Council, 2000] 'the value of this archive [the Hornel Library] to the cultural history and life of this are cannot be overstated'. As well as correspondence between Joseph Train and Sir Walter Scott, the archive also contains invaluable and unpublished material on the Galloway Levellers gathered by John Nicholson for his play about the Levellers.

For all that Train managed to confuse both archaeologists, with his romantic reconstruction of the Torrs Pony Cap; and historians, with his tales of Mons Meg, as Julia Muir Watt points out 'Train's contributions to Scott's pool of information on Galloway, which held special appeal for the Romantic imagination for its remote and undeveloped character, were momentous...' Train and Galloway provided material for many of Scott's novels – Guy Mannering, Old Mortality, Redgauntlet, Heart of Midlothian, The Bride of Lammermuir and The Antiquarian. Although Scott, as the inventor of the 'historic novel', is most frequently associated with the romanticisation of Highland Scotland, through Joseph Train, it is more often Galloway and Dumfriesshire than the Highlands which provided Scott with the history he then romanced.

Scott was a 'conservative and unionist' Scottish nationalist. With Waverley and Redgauntlet and with his orchestration of George IV's visit to Scotland in 1822, he helped to make the history of Jacobite and Highland Scotland a safe and loyal part of British history. To do so required the down playing of other aspects of Scottish history, that of the Covenanters (in Old Mortality ) for example. This also meant that Scott made very selective use of the Galloway material provided by Joseph Train. Scott never used the Galloway Levellers or Mons Meg stories passed to him on by Train. As a result of this filtering process, and despite the later work of S.R. Crockett, at a critical point in the early nineteenth century, the history of Galloway as discovered in folklore and romanticised by Joseph Train, William Mackenzie, James Denniston and John Nicholson did not cross over (as Highland history did) into the mainstream of popular Scottish history.

Instead, their work help create Galloway as ' A Land Apart'; as the subtitle of Andrew McCulloch's history of Galloway proclaimed in 2000. Yet Galloway's history, as Richard Oram pointed out in the Introduction to The Lordship of Galloway (also published in 2000) effectively ended in 1455 when 'In a single act of royal policy, a political unit that had dominated the region for over 300 years was committed to oblivion.' Thus, when Thomas Maitland (later Lord Dundrennan) discovered the manuscript of Andrew Symson's Large Description of Galloway in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh and had it published in 1823, he helped set in motion the invention of a Galloway painted

in the vibrant but bloody colours of a glorious Gall-Ghaidel heritage, of a mingling of painted Picts and horn-helmeted Viking warriors, and of a magnificent era of power, wealth and independence from the Scots that was ended only through royal deceit and the overwhelming might of Scottish armies. This picture, created over the last 150 years by antiquarian commentators and powerfully reinforced by popular and populist writers, is an attractive but gross distortion of historical reality. Much of the tradition is spurious, or builds from elaborate hypotheses with little or no basis in fact. Beneath the fiction, however, runs an undercurrent of reality; behind the fables lie even more colourful facts. [Oram, 2000, p.264]

The challenge then, if the archaeology and history of Threave Estate are to be investigated, is how to disentangle fact from fiction, historical reality from myth. Since this process must include Threave Castle, which is the focus of so many legends, this may prove a difficult task. However, as illustrated above, with careful investigation and interrogation of local sources, it is possible to distinguish at least part of the undercurrent of reality to which Oram refers.

Alistair Livingston 8 September 2010

Archaeology Walk at Threave 10 September

2010-09-05T10:10:00.003-07:00

From Archaeology walk threave Sept 10

Archaeology talk on Meikle Wood Hill

2010-09-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

Hegel and the logic of self-consciousness

2010-08-21T01:06:00.000-07:00

This has just arrived, so will be doing a bit of reading for the next few days.

LRC Lydney 1978

2010-08-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

Threave castle and Red Kite trail

2010-08-04T04:32:00.000-07:00

Walked out to Threave from Castle Douglas this morning. I hoped to get some photos of the ospreys which have nested near the castle (for second year)but didn't see them. I did see this new information board and other signs of improvements around the estate.
The rest of the photos can be seen here

Geology of UK

2010-07-19T03:03:00.000-07:00

History as geology.

I don't often buy the Times, but today I did. It had a front page story on how Exxon have (despite their claims to the contrary) been funding climate change denialists, giving them £1 million last year. Such funding has helped cast doubt on the science of global warming/ climate change. This in turn has made it more difficult to create the political climate necessary if the economic changes required to limit the damage are to be put in place.

Although it is our economic dependency on oil that is the present problem, it was the rapid expansion of the use of coal in the late eighteenth century which first increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere. It was therefore the industrial revolution which began the destabilisation of the earth's climate. If nothing is done, the destabilisation of the earth's climate will set in motion a series of social, economic and political changes which will halt and then reverse the process of industrialisation. Humanity will be thrown back to subsistence level survival. Even this level of survival will be difficult if the stable climate of the Holocene era (the geological era since the last Ice Age ended 12 000 years ago) is lost. It has been the stability of the Holocene climate which allowed settled cultures and civilisations based on agriculture to emerge. This process began with the Natufian culture which emerged at the eastern end of the Mediterranean about 14 000 years ago. It took another 7000 years before the first historic civilisation ( meaning had a written language and was city based) emerged at Uruk in Iraq.

In contrast to these thousands of years of human history/prehistory, it is only 300 years or so since the first practical fossil fuel powered steam engine (used as a pump) was developed by Thomas Savery in 1698. It took another 100 years for coal powered steam engines to become thermally and mechanically efficient enough to create an industrial revolution. This breakthrough occurred in Manchester in the 1790s when James Watt's improved (more thermally efficient) steam engine was geared up to power cotton spinning machinery. This advance was facilitated by an existing by a network of canals which conveyed coal to Manchester and linked Manchester with the port of Liverpool through which raw cotton was imported and processed cotton exported. If the local geology had been different – if there had been no local sources of coal or if ridges of rock had obstructed navigation along rivers and the construction of canals – these developments would have been checked. Building a railway between Manchester and Liverpool would also have been more difficult – and without access to coal, the development of Manchester which provided the economic justification for the railway would have been absent.

But would the industrial revolution have happened anyway? Would it just have occurred elsewhere?Possibly. On the other hand from my researches into the history of south west Scotland, I know that the development of Liverpool and Manchester was facilitated by a group of young men men who moved to the two cities from south west Scotland. Thanks to its geology, south west Scotland had a much smaller population than north west England and also lacked reserves of coal. Although attempts to industrialise (including the building of water powered cotton mills) south west Scotland were made, the attempts failed. The region remained (as it still is) an agricultural region.

To move from the local to the global, at the same time that the industrial revolution was taking off in Manchester, there was a revolution in France. Quite which of these two revolutions – the industrial and the French- had the greater impact is hard to judge. But if global warming becomes the defining problem of the twenty first century, then it is the industrial revolution which becomes the most significant. If so, then the lives of hitherto obscure individuals like John Kennedy from farm in the Glenkens of south west Scotland become more significant. Kennedy founded a cotton spinning firm which became the largest in Manchester by a combination of mechanical improvements and business skills. Kennedy also played a key role in the Liverpool and Manchester railway project. By his actions, and those of his contemporaries, John Kennedy helped set in motion global climate change.

Peter Ewart Measuring Moving Force

2010-07-06T15:35:00.000-07:00

Peter Ewart is one of the 'Galloway lads' who helped the Industrial Revolution take -off. As an apprentice he worked with John Rennie senior on the Albion flour mill in London in 1785. He then worked for Boulton and Wattin north west England and wrote this influential paper for the Manchester Lierary and Philosophical Society n 1808.

John Kennedy On the export of machinery 1824

2010-07-04T12:57:00.001-07:00

John Kennedy on the Cotton Trade

2010-07-04T12:51:00.001-07:00

John kennedy on thePoor Laws

2010-07-04T12:48:00.001-07:00

Loch Urr June 2010

2010-06-24T02:47:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken 23 June 2010 on the Moniave to Corsock road near Loch Urr. The open moorland landscape is now rare in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright - most has been planted with stika spruce and similar trees.

Claudia Klaver on JR McCulloch

2010-06-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

Wind turbines seen from above Knocknalling

2010-06-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

Digital boost for rural economy as multi-million datafarm approved

Sunday Herald 20 June 2010
By Colin Donald, Business Editor

Promoters of the nascent datafarm sector, a potential pillar of Scotland’s green economy of the future, are celebrating a “major breakthrough” this weekend, after Internet Villages International’s 240-acre site at Ecclefechan was given the green light by Dumfries and Galloway Council.

IVI, in partnership with US infrastructure giant APC by Schneider, claims to be pioneering a new kind of data storage facility that will draw from and stimulate Dumfriesshire’s plentiful renewable energy sources, and which employs what it claims is the UK’s first risk-reducing “build-as-you-go” occupancy model.

Approval for the scheme, whose backers are finalising a multi-million pound storage deal with one of Britain’s biggest companies, has been hailed by local and national development officials, as well as the IT industry. With hundreds of downstream jobs in a data “cluster” in prospect, it is seen as a landmark development for the hard-pressed rural economy of the south west. It will also raise Scotland’s global profile in the fast-moving world of data storage and “cloud computing” – the growing trend for remote storage of personal and corporate data as PC’s give way to hand-held and mobile devices.

The Ecclefechan site is strategically close to the M74 and the major north-south power and fibre optic connections. It is close enough to sources of biomass, wind, and energy from the proposed Solway tidal barrage to have realistic aims of being 100% renewables-powered. As well as independent power sources, the rural location also appeals to an increasingly security-fixated industry.

Tony Fitzpatrick, head of economic regeneration at Dumfries and Galloway Council, told the Sunday Herald: “Rural economies seldom get opportunities that offer the possibility of major structural breakthrough, so something like this that is in accordance with the local plan is exceptional. We are already strong in renewables and we now have a chance to connect these two sunrise industries. Rural isolation is normally a barrier to economic development and growth but here we have something where relative isolation is an asset.”

Fitzpatrick also claimed the establishment of data centre assets in Dumfriesshire, with its potential cross-fertilisation with the academic “cluster” at Crichton Campus in Dumfries, could have “economically and socially significant” consequences.

“We have a problem with the haemorrhaging of young talent from the area. [Cloud computing] could make the area a good bit more sexy, and make us better able to retain our ‘bright young things’ and to attract others. We want to create a digital age community, a plan which has kind of been on hold until this scheme received planning permission.”

Tony Day of APC Schneider has been actively promoting Crichton Campus as the site of a “data university”, the core of an industry-academic collaborative project.

Dr Michael Bonaventura of the Carbon Centre, Scotland’s leading centre for carbon-reduction science, called the IVI development “hugely exciting... the ICT industry, specifically around datacentres, will be a vital industry partner for us.”

Mike Shiel, head of electronic markets at SDI said: “We welcome the news that this [scheme] has been granted as it signals an important development in our ongoing work to create a large-scale, renewable-powered data centre industry in Scotland.”

Polly Purvis, director of ScotlandIS, the IT trade body said: “An announcement of this scale is fantastic news and is of course welcomed by ScotlandIS as this type of activity aligns itself well with the established, successful and growing Scottish datacentre market.”

“Current operators from IBM to IFB are already investing significantly in their sites in Scotland to ensure they can compete internationally with industry best practice on power usage, environmental standardised service delivery. We’re developing the ‘Naturally Cool’ brand to promote member capabilities and Scotland as a location which has a great many sustainable resources available, which are vital to a long term data-based economy.”

The M74 corridor also has a consented scheme at Peelhouses near Lockerbie, previously owned by IVI, now by Lockerbie Data Centres (LDC). The project is currently completing design proposals with building proposed to start in September 2010. LDC’s design work includes input from Shell UK which is preparing plans to divert off-site of the North West Ethylene Pipeline, considered a security risk by the industry.

Elsewhere Scotland also boasts a proliferation of smaller-scale, usually urban or suburban developments. These include IFB’s Tier 3 datacentre in Aberdeen, Onyx Group in Edinburgh, Lumison in Edinburgh, Amor the North East and Alchemy who have approval for a datacentre in Shetland. Gillespie Investments is also promoting a renewables-powered datacentre in Airdrie.

The green-lighting of a strategically important project on Scottish soil will increase pressure on the SNP-led government to lobby Westminster for changes in Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which penalises large energy users like datacentres, regardless of the source of their energy or their overall impact on carbon emissions. The legislation promoted by the previous government is seen as threatening to “strangle an industry at birth”. One expert said: “The government itself barely understands the implications of CRC, let alone the international players who have the rest of the world to chose from. If it survives people will only store data here if they have to be in the UK, whereas the name of the game is attracting global investment to Scotland.”

Origin of Scottish enlightenment

2010-06-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

Sometime towards the end of October 1724, the last stand of the Galloway Levellers took place near Little Duchrae farm in Balmaghie parish. Around 200 Levellers, some armed with guns, took up a defensive position on an earthwork where they waited for the earl of Stair’s dragoons, led by major Gardiner to attack. Gardiner had instructed his troops to use minimal force, but the Levellers do not appear to have put up much of a fight. Most were captured and taken back to Kirkcudbright, but only a few arrived there. Most were allowed to escape en route.
The lack of bloodshed at Little Duchrae followed the pattern of previous encounters during May and June 1724. When the local justices of the peace and heritors (larger landowners) encountered large groups of armed Levellers, negotiations rather than conflict ensued. When the troops were involved, the Levellers dispersed rather than confront them.
Why was the Levellers uprising such a bloodless affair? One possible reason is that there was that even king George I had expressed sympathy for their grievances so they were seen as misguided rather than wicked. Another possibility is awareness of recent history. In 1666, an armed uprising which began in Dalry had ended in the battle of Rullion Green near Edinburgh. In 1679, there had been the battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Brig which had involved many from Galloway. More recently, during the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, Jacobite forces had advanced towards Dumfries but turned back rather than risk a repeat of the 1689 battle of Dunkeld when the Cameronian regiment had held off a fierce assault by a Jacobite force. The Cameronian regiment and Major Gardiner also fought the Jacobites at the battle of Preston in 1715. In 1724, John McMillan of Balmaghie was minister to the ‘civilian’ (religious sect) Cameronians. Since several of the enclosing landowners the Levellers had risen up against were active Jacobites in 1715, the fear that a cycle of violence might break out again was a legitimate fear.
So, although the lack of bloodshed in 1724 has relegated the uprising of the Galloway Levellers to footnote to Scottish history, the peaceful resolution of this event marked a significant victory for reason on both sides. It was the first sign of Enlightenment in Scotland’s long and bloody history. And it happened here, near Little Duchrae farm in Balmaghie parish in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.