Essay

Looking back

Peter Mullan, back row second from left, played Old Tom in the 2016 film Tommy's Honour

Remembering Old Tom Morris, one of the founding fathers of golf
THIS month marks 201 years since the birth of Old Tom Morris, the famous St Andrews golfer, four-times winner of the Open Championship, and the man responsible for designing many golf courses around Britain and Ireland.

Alexander Moffat: 'Alasdair Gray (Study)'.

ESSAY Eyes of the world on Alasdair Gray again as international conference opens

Margaret Tudor ruled in place of her son while he grew up

BACK IN THE DAY Margaret Tudor: The mother who ruled in place of her royal kin

Archibald Campbell (1598 - 1661), the 8th Earl of Argyll

BACK IN THE DAY How Red Argyll saved his skin – but in the long run not his head

Alasdair Gray by Alexander Moffat (2009)

ESSAY Celebrating Alasdair Gray, the maker of imagined objects

James Gordon Bennett founded the New York Herald

BACK IN THE DAY The story behind the Scottish father of modern journalism

James III is not often remembered as a powerful king and he died as he fled the field at Sauchieburn

BACK IN THE DAY How the kidnap of the King of Scots came back to bite the family

James Boswell fit into an increasingly cosmopolitan age

ESSAY James Boswell, meeting with celebrities and 18th-century name-dropping

King Charles II brought a constitutional upheaval

history How Scotland reclaimed a king during the Restoration

Chalmers became the first Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland after it was formed in a
breakaway from the Church of Scotland in the
1843 Disruption

essay How the Free Kirk split weakened Scotland

In company, at parties, Norman MacCaig could sometimes launch into a flyting

essay Poets on the attack: The entertaining lost art of flyting

The Battle of Loudoun Hill should be much more famous than it is

BACK IN THE DAY The Battle of Loudoun Hill: A pivotal battle in the fight for independence

The Thomas Randolph inscription at Edinburgh Castle and, left, the Scots attacked and captured the English-held castle in 1314

BACK IN THE DAY Soldier, fighter, diplomat – this man did it all: The tale of King of Scots’ nephew

Archbishop of St Andrews James Sharp was brutally murdered by a gang of vengeful Covenanters

BACK IN THE DAY Murder on Magus Muir: The assassination of Rev James Sharp

Poems to get us back to nature

ESSAY Three poems to return you back to the value of nature

Sir George Bruce of Carnock died in 1625

BACK IN THE DAY The Scottish pioneer whose genius created the first undersea mine

John Maclean, shakes hands with politician and socialist activist David Kirkwood at Glasgow’s 1919 strikes

ESSAY From Chicago to Glasgow: The history behind May Day

Sandy Moffat painted Hugh MacDiarmid and FG Scott with William Johnstone

CULTURE Marking the centenary of the birth of Hugh MacDiarmid - and the Scottish renaissance

It was in 1728 that the Royal Bank of Scotland changed banking forever

BACK IN THE DAY The Scottish banking innovation that is still in use today

Generations of Burnetts played a large role in Scottish affairs, but it is Crathes Castle which is the chief adornment of the family

BACK IN THE DAY The best tales from Scotland's most prolific Lowland Clans

Keats noted Arran’s mountains, ‘black and huge over the sea’

ESSAY Encounters with one of Scotland's greatest renewable resources

No party is standing enough candidates in Edinburgh to command a majority

LOCAL ELECTION PROFILE Who can get Scotland's historic capital looking at the future again?

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

ESSAY Alan Riach: The art of conflict

Robert the Bruce rallying his troops before battle in 1314

BACK IN THE DAY Scotland's clans: How Robert the Bruce’s family grew in influence

TOPSHOT - A Ukrainian service man plays the violin in the dugout of a position on the frontline with Russia-backed separatists, not far from Gorlivka, in the Donetsk region, on December 22, 2020. (Photo by Anatolii STEPANOV / AFP) (Photo by ANATOLII

ESSAY Notes towards a manifesto for arts in a time of war

23rd July 1955: An elderly couple competing in a Scottish folk singing contest, known as a Gaelic Mod, in the Hebrides.

ESSAY The works of Michael Newton: Unmitigated sinfulness and subversive infiltration

There were two huge battles in Kyiv in the Second World War

BACK IN THE DAY Kyiv under siege for third time in 80 years: The bloody history of Ukraine's capital city

The sun sets over Basalt pinnacles known as 'The Old Man Of Storr'

Essay Fifty shades of light blue: Our greatest weapons are laughter and sex

Iain Crichton Smith's poems are sheer brilliance

ESSAY Favourite Gaelic Poems: An anthology packed with delicious delights and dynamite

Lady Jane Douglas, right, and a print of Archibald Douglas in the House of Lords

BACK IN THE DAY The sensational court case on the Clan Douglas legacy

The River Clyde flows through Glasgow’s city centre and feeds the fertile meadows of Lanarkshire

TRAVEL Exploring the history and sights of industry along the River Clyde

Duncansby Head is featured in Chronicles of the First Light as points of residence and departure for the meditations and pronouncements it prompts

ESSAY Alan Riach: Poets not on publicity's agenda who offer antidote to war

Richard Murphy: A 'pro-people' energy policy must be at the core of all politics now

COMMENT Richard Murphy: Government must use its tax powers to correct energy market failures

As the clan prospered it built a castle at Douglas

BACK IN THE DAY The mightiest of Scotland’s lowland clans: How Douglas saw tragedy and triumph

Ecstatics: A Language of Birds is made up of images and words – the curlew is ‘a bone flute / the nestlings grow from air’

Alan Riach: Poetry books to bring pleasure amid self-serving politics

The Falklands Conflict, April - June 1982, 7 Platoon, G Company, 2nd Battalion Scots Guards on Mount Tumbledown celebrate the news of the Argentine surrender at dawn on 14 June 1982. (Photo by Paul Haley/ Crown Copyright. Imperial War Museums via Getty)

BACK IN THE DAY The illustrious history of the Scots Guards: How ‘The Kiddies’ became a major army asset

John McGrath says there are ‘different kinds of audiences, with different theatrical values and expectations’

ESSAY After Covid-19, what does it mean to have a good night out?

Iain Crichton Smith ‘used bilingualism both as a symbol of a broken self and as opportunity for humour’

ESSAY The grass is blue in Gaelic: Anthology helps reimagine modern Scottish theatre

'We don’t need to accept Project Fear’s attempt to say we would all become foreigners to each other'

yessay Why staying in the UK is the real risk facing Scotland's future

Of all the literary arts, drama, with its need to employ actors and technical staff, is the most immediately dependent upon financial support

ESSAY Dràma na Gàidhlig: Opening the curtain on neglected Scottish plays

For Scotland there are no certainties, whether as an independent nation or as part of the Union

yessay The indy movement needs something different in order to beat the status quo

When Scotland believes in herself she behaves differently and it is infectious

COMMENT How the Union has destroyed Scotland’s ability to believe in itself

18th February 1966: The Queen and Prince Philip driving through Barbados waving to the crowds. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images).

ESSAY A new beginning: Barbados, Brathwaite … and Scotland?

A painting by an unknown artist of The Battle of Balaklava, during the Crimean War

BACK IN THE DAY The Camerons and Seaforths: How two famed regiments were joined together

The 42nd Royal Highland Regiment and the Black Watch at the Battle of Waterloo during the Napoleonic War of the Seventh Coalition on 18th June 1815 at Waterloo, Belgium

BACK IN THE DAY The story behind Scotland's famous Black Watch battalion

Black Watch had a fierce contemporaneity, drawing deep questions up from the history of Scotland

ESSAY What should our National Theatre of Scotland be for?

A production of Something In It For Cordelia

ESSAY Alan Riach: Resurrections and other possibilities

The King’s Own Scottish Borderers began life as a regiment raised by David Leslie (right); left: Daniel Laidlaw, the Piper of Loos

BACK IN THE DAY The story behind the King’s Own Scottish Borderers regiment

Scottish playwright Liz Lochhead asks us to consider how history is passed on to younger generations in Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off

ESSAY Tales that are worth retelling: The revivals in Scottish theatre

The Saltire became Scotland’s national flag after a white cross appeared in the shape of an X in the sky

BACK IN THE DAY St Columba of Iona: How a saint came to leave a legacy here in Scotland

Landscape by Ruth Nicol

ESSAY Ecology and the arts: What does extinction mean for us now?

From left: TS Eliot, Hugh MacDiarmid and William Wordsworth offer us lessons on our world

How poetry and the arts can help to address the climate crisis

The Edinburgh conflagration that gave birth to modern methods of firefighting

BACK IN THE DAY The Edinburgh blaze that gave birth to modern methods of firefighting

How war and family shaped the poetry of Hamish Henderson

How war and family shaped the poetry of Hamish Henderson