Focusing on Scotland's impact on the world

Published: 16 October, 2009

EDEN Court will become the focal point for the Highlands' contribution to Scotland's Year of Homecoming next week with concerts, films, exhibitions and talks.

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The keystone event, however, will be the three-day conference, "Scotland's Global Impact", attracting academics, writers, historians and other experts from across the world.

The conference, which will be opened by minister for parliamentary business Bruce Crawford, is being organised by the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute, and Professor James Hunter, director of the UHI Centre for History, will be among the speakers.

"We know as people living in this area what a huge part immigration has played in our history," Hunter said.

"That has often been seen as a negative with people of talent and ambition looking for outlets in a country far, far away. What we don't often hear about is those who settled in those countries."

The conference would provide an opportunity to hear about those success stories and the influence the Scots had wherever they settled.

"It's not an exaggeration to say that Canada was a country built by Scots," he said.

However, it will not just be a story of movement in just one direction.

"There's attention paid not just to people moving out of Scotland, but also those who have moved into Scotland like the Vikings, but also those who have arrived more recently from Poland and elsewhere," Hunter said.

The conference will also look at traffic to rather than from the Baltic as it considers not only the migrations of the last 250 years, but older migrations, including Scotland's historic links with Poland — at the start of the 17th century an estimated 30,000 Scots lived in Poland. "The conference will have a legacy in a variety of ways," Hunter continued.

"For a start it's a demonstration of the sort of thing we will see more and more of in the Highlands as the UHI takes off.

"There is no doubt that the Highlands have been disadvantaged by not having a university. If you go to a city of comparable size to Inverness like Galway in the west of Ireland, they are doing amazing things."

More immediately, the conference should boost the local economy by bringing people into the area. However, the organisers are also looking for local support and Hunter stressed that the conference will not just be geared to an academic audience and chairwoman BBC broadcaster Lesley Riddoch could also be relied on to keep the conference entertaining.

"One person I'm really looking forward to hearing is Douglas Gibson," Hunter added.

"He's not an academic, he's a publisher, and he will be talking about Canadian authors like Hugh MacLennan, Alistair MacLeod and Alice Munro, who have a strong Highland connection."

Another speaker highlighted by Hunter was Eric Richards, regarded as one of the leading experts on the Highland Clearances and the author of a controversial book on one of the most notorious figures of the Clearances, Sutherland factor Patrick Sellar.

"He's based in Adelaide and doesn't get here very often," Hunter added.

Other speakers will include world renowned battlefield archaeologist Tony Pollard, former co-presenter of BBC2's "Two Men in a Trench" with Neil Oliver; Professor Ferenc Szasz from the University of New Mexico on the links between Robert Burns and Abraham Lincoln; Professor Tom Devine, author of several successful books on Scottish history, speaking about Scottish involvement in the slave trade; singer, writer and broadcaster Margaret Bennett on the legacy of Gaelic song in eastern Canada; Professor Margaret Connell Szasz of the University of New Mexico on the connections between Gaelic Highlanders and Native Americans; New Zealand academics Rebecca Lenihan, Angela McCarthy and Dr Rosalind McClean on Scottish emigration and influence in their country; Dr Padraig Lenihan of the University of Limerick on Scottish soldiers in 17th century Ireland; and Leiutenant-Colonel Ian MacPherson MacCulloch of the Canadian Forces College, Toronto, on Scots and the Seven Years War.

Distinguished historian, Dr Ewen Cameron from the University of Edinburgh, will give the closing speech of the conference, summing up "Scotland's Global Impact".

The conference runs from Thursday 22nd to Saturday 24th October, starting at 9am each day.

Friday will take the theme "The Empire and Beyond" and Sunday will concentrate on the history of Scottish soldier.

Tickets cost £50 per day.

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