Essay

PREMIUM

File photo from 1910 of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) on a horse-drawn carriage driven by Emmeline Pankhurst.

The historical realities of feminism, freedom and equality in Scotland
A FEW weeks ago. I said I’d return to a re-evaluation of Cunninghame Graham’s stories and sketches. I haven’t forgotten the promise but since I’ve been rereading them, I’ve realised so much material needs to be resifted and thought through.

Without Will Maclean (below) there would be almost no images of the Highland Clearances in Scotland’s visual arts other than those of William McTaggart in the late 19th century

essay Will Maclean's art offers a window into the Highland Clearances

A view of rowing boats and ships in Table Bay, with Cape Town and Table Mountain in the background, South Africa, 1766. Engraving by P.C. Canot after a drawing by William Hirst. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images).

PREMIUM The impossible choice facing a gifted Scots explorer in Africa

From left; Alasdair Taylor, Euan Smillie, Greg Barry. Not pictured for reasons unknown is Seth Tinsley.

INTERVIEW Elephant Sessions celebrate a decade in music

Despite his support for the war, RB Cunninghame Graham wrote a desperately moving account of horses being rounded up in South America to be sent off to suffer and die on the battlefields of Europe

essay Robert B C Graham's paradoxes from WWI to the rising Scottish independence movement

King Charles ascension holds historical significance

BACK IN THE DAY King Charles has ascended to the throne - but what now?

The Ipané was RB Cunninghame Graham’s first solo full of stories. It takes us from Paraguay and the Argentinian Pampas to the US and Africa, and to Scotland

essay An exploration of RB Cunninghame Graham’s unique literary legacy

Stephen Gethins, former North East Fife MP, explores Scotland's place in the world for the book

THE BIG READ Why now is the time to create foreign policy for an independent Scotland

Faslane activists maintain there is a close link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons

SPECIAL REPORT How Faslane Peace Camp activists are reacting to the Tories' nuclear power push

RB Cunninghame Graham’s legacy has been largely ignored by Labour and the SNP

ESSAY Why have Labour and SNP ignored this great Scottish literary and political figure?

Alan Grant (right) with John Wagner, one of his The Bogie Man co-authors

essay A tribute to the comic book genius who mixed Scottish and American culture

Leif Erikson’s voyage included ‘tvo menn skoska’ who carried out reconnaisance of mainland America

BACK IN THE DAY The mysterious Scots who may have undertaken first European exploration of New World

Alexander II was very influential, despite a lack of prominence

BACK IN THE DAY This Scottish king drew the Border - and we should know a lot more about him

Ruth Nicol’s painting A Place to Work, Read and Listen, MacDiarmid’s Room, Brownsbank

ESSAY Celebrating Hugh McDiarmid, one hundred years after the poet first appeared in print

Alexander Graham Bell is credited with patenting the first practical telephone

BACK IN THE DAY The triumphs and controversies of Alexander Graham Bell

Sevastopol, Crimea: A Navy sailor stands opposite the Andreevsky Flag (the flag of the Russian Navy) on the first anniversary of the signing of the decree on the annexation of the Crimea by the Russian Federation

HISTORY How Scotland forged its international links before the Act of Union and beyond

Milne's Bar in Edinburgh - Image Credit: Richard Sutcliffe

Essay Alan Riach: Were old centres of Scottish culture full of 'toxic masculinity'?

There are major issues with all perspectives on independence –and tensions between them reflect complex political situations

COMMENT Should Scotland campaign for radical change, or 'just get independence first'?

Unions' experience of fair work has been a disappointment

COMMENT Will Scotland achieve its goal of being a fair work nation by 2025?

Peter Guthrie Tait (1831-1901) conducted experiments to determine the density of ozone and the effects of passing electrical discharge through oxygen and other gases

BACK IN THE DAY The unfortunate tale of a pioneering Scottish scientist

Lieutenant-Colonel and British Army officer Colin Mitchell (1925 - 1996) listening to bagpipes with some of his Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders regiment, Scottish Highlands, UK, 2nd May 1968. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Daily Express/Getty Images).

SCOTLAND AND EMPIRE The last battle of the British Empire – and the Scot who imposed brutal Argyll Law on Aden

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

Looking back Remembering Old Tom Morris, one of the founding fathers of golf

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

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

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

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