The Royal Celtic Society’s Council met on 7 December at the New Club in Edinburgh, to consider a number of funding proposals that have come before the society in the preceding quarter.
We are proud to announce that our ongoing relationship with the Clarsach Society continues, and the council approved the sponsorship of a concert at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival, which takes place at George Watson’s College next April.
Financial support was also offered to the Society for Highland and Island Historical Research, for a conference they plan to hold in 2023. We are very pleased to support the SHIHR in any way we can, in light of its ongoing commitment to original research projects in areas of Highland history that are historically poorly served by the mainstream academic community in Scotland.
Further funding was agreed for Professor Hector MacQueen’s edition of the essays of the late Dr David Sellar, formerly Lord Lyon King of Arms and long time Vice President of the Royal Celtic Society. Dr Sellar was a leading academic lawyer and historian and his work on the history of the Lordship of the Isles, in particular, was unique and ground breaking.
The final tranch of funding agreed by the meeting was to fund a production next year of The Seal Woman, by Marjorie Kennedy Fraser, the great writer and collector of Gaelic poetry and song. Following her death, Marjorie became a controversial figure, reviled by many for her contribution to Gaelic. However in recent years, largely as a result of the work of Dr Priscilla Scott (coincidentally the author of the Royal Celtic Society’s history) she has been rehabillitated. She was one of the first female members admitted to the society in 1923 and we are delighted to support this important recognition of her work. We look forward to this production being staged, and more detail of that will appear on this website in due course.