Ulster Scots

The Linen Hall Library has a depth of material that sheds light on the local love of Burns and helps explain in part why the Gibson Collection came to be deposited in the city....

Len Pennie, Scots poet and activist (@missPunnyPennie on Twitter) writes about her relationship with Burns, and picks out the foreign language Burns editions from the Gibson collection....

I’m Iona, a Scots Sangster fae Huntly in Aiberdeenshire. I muived tae Glesca in 2015 an stairted studying Scots Sang unner the tutorship o Rod Paterson, ane o Scotland’s maist celebrated sangsters an exponents o Burns sangs. Ane o the first collections thit Rod telt me tae gang an luik…...

The Gibson Collection, wi its squatter o Burns quairs, Burnsiana, an Burns material, is a testament tae the routh o historical links atween Ulster an Scotland. It minds us that Burns’s poetic leid, ‘chiefly in the Scottish dialect’, wis, an aye is, shared on baith sides o the Irish Sea.…...

James Orr was certainly attuned to his surroundings, but he and his contemporaries also felt compelled to raise their heads and look about them, engaging both poetically and physically in the political struggles of the age. Orr was part of an Irish rebellion, which is commemorated in the early 1800s…...

There are many fascinating and surprising artefacts in the vast trove of the Gibson Collection. I came across one particular piece during a recent rummage that I’d lke to bring to your attention. It’s called “Phrenological Development of Robert Burns” and it was published in 1834 in Edinburgh....