The society’s lecture programme for 2021 has now been finalised.
The spring season will be delivered by Zoom and begins on 10 February with Ruari Halford-MacLeod on Flora Macdonald and the Loyalist Attempt in North Carolina, 1775. There are limited places still available for this talk and those interested in attending should email info@royalcelticsociety.scot to reserve a place. There is no fixed charge for entry but donations via the PayPal button on the front page of www.royalcelticsociety.scot would be appreciated.
The second lecture will take place on 25 March, with Kirsty Archer-Thompson of Abbotsford House. Kirsty will speak on 250 Years of Sir Walter Scott: Past, Present and Future, inspired by this year’s 250th anniversary of Sir Walter’s birth. Sir Walter was a towering figure in the society’s early history.
These lectures will be followed by talks from Dr Bob Irving on 20 April on the Tobermory galleon, a ship of the Spanish Armada wrecked off the coast of Mull in 1588, and completed on 15 May with Shelagh Macpherson Noble on the life of her ancestor, explorer and Austalia pioneer Alexander Macpherson.
Following a break for the summer, it is planned to resume the 2021 series with Eileen Budd on 14 September, speaking on recent work completed on James Macpherson and the Ossian poems. The intention is for the Autumn lectures to take place at our preferred venue of the Dome Room in Edinburgh’s New Register House. On 14 October we will hear from Dr Virginia Blankenhorn of Edinburgh University on the life of Margaret Kennedy Fraser, finishing with the Very Rev Dr Emsley Nimmo, a member of the council of the society, Dean Emeritus of the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney, and Rector of St Margaret’s Gallowgate, Aberdeen, who will speak on the history of Episcopalianism in Scotland. We are cautiously optimistic that these will be able to proceed face to face, although all will depend on how the Covid virus behaves between then and now.