Burns Night & Burns Year
Last night was Burns Night, the evening when Scots all over the world get together and celebrate the poetry and Scotland of their national poet Robert Burns.
But today, 25th January is also the 250th anniversary of his birth in Alloway, near Ayr. Coincidentally or by design, his birth starts amost year long celebration of things Scottish called Homecoming which runs until St Andrew’s Day on November 30th. (see more at www.cd-traveller.com/en_scotlands_homecoming_year.php)
Not much of a farmer and a bit of a womaniser, he proved to be a better poet and writer of songs with hundreds conceived and many songs set to old Scottish folk songs. A recently opened museum in his hometown is operated by the National Trust of Scotland (www.burnsheritagepark.com)who, incidentally, were given some money by the Scottish food company Tunnocks, whose managing director and one of his granchildren both share their birthday with Burns.
The BBC (www.bbc.co.uk/robertburns) is creating a hige sound archive of all of the works of Burns read aloud bu Scots such as Robbie Coltrane, Robert Carlyle, Siobhan Redmond and even Prince Charles and the first minister, Alex Salmond.
The idea of the Homecoming Year is born of the minds of marketing people and is quite ambitious given the event lasts close to a year. Other tourist authorities will be closely watching to see if it ecourages more people than usual to go to Scotland. If it does expect there to be other homecomings (the Welsh one might be called Hiraeth) from other authorities over the future years
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