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The study examines historic occupational lead poisoning (occupational plumbism) amongst the mining labour force at Tyndrum lead mine in the Scottish southern highlands in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries set against the backdrop of the wider national context. Traditional archival research is combined with environmental science to both identify incidence of poisoning and the historic health risk factors that were specific to the industry, particularly at the surface of the mine. Emphasis is placed upon employment practices, technology and wider social conditions such as diet and alcohol and the toxicity of the different compounds of lead (mineralogy) that the workers were exposed too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narrow strips of sea do not always function as 'chokepoints' for the communities that live around them. This article interrogates the historiography of the 'corridors' of the Moray Firth region, taken here to be inclusive of the Dornoch Firth, the Cromarty Firth and the inner Moray Firth, and incorporating the Inverness, Kessock and Beauly Firths. Although public and private bodies use the term 'Moray Firth' frequently, with few exceptions historians have refrained from doing so. The settlements of the northerly part of the coast, in particular, have been poorly represented in the region's historiography, a theme interrogated in the first section of the article. Social and cultural interactions across the firth are explored, drawing specifically on the history of seven settlements around the Beauly-Wick edge: Pictish Portmahomack, Norse Dingwall, the medieval burgh and pilgrimage site of Tain, early modern Dornoch, nineteenth-century Wick and the modern industrial centres of Invergordon and Nigg. These communities interacted with others situated on the coast to the south. The article concludes by proposing several new questions and approaches for future historical writing on the Moray Firth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historiography of British land occupations has, in the main, concentrated on anti-enclosure protests. In part this is because the Hobsbawmian land invasion has been largely confined to the north-west Highlands and Islands of Scotland, an area that has not always occupied a central place in our studies of rural resistance. And even when the region has come to occupy centre stage the interpretation of these events has often remained mired in older and now much-challenged paradigms. This paper thus begins by returning to the classic land invasion in the context of an exploration of events of protest in the Scottish Highlands but does not dwell long on the much-discussed formal seizure. Instead, the paper will use these and the question ‘when is an occupation not an occupation?’ as point of departure. At times landowners simply ignored the occupation and continued their own utilisation alongside the occupiers. Whilst small in number when compared to the mass of other protests these non-contested occupations tell us much about general processes of resistance evident in the post-1918 Highlands and of the essential fluidity and contingency of such events. Drawing strength from an older ideology and set of tenurial relations, and acting out a very particular set of protest performances that emerge from individual and localised micro-political contexts, the informal occupation of land alters both our understanding of Highland protest and the history of land invasions more generally. In their adaption of the form of the land occupation, crofters and cottars in the north west Highlands and Islands remind us that even the most privatised of shared spaces offer opportunities for subversion and resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing Scottish Highland presence in the Caribbean after 1750 was indicative of two things. On the one hand there was a British imperial agenda intent on promoting economic development and security in the Caribbean. On the other there was a domestic agenda, with a focus on introducing the sweeping changes to Highland society that would complete the process of Highland pacification. There was also, however, a deep concern for the socio-economic and cultural survival of the Highlands which encouraged countless Highlanders to engage in myriad imperial pursuits. This article links the global with the local by considering the rise of charitable enterprise in the Scottish Highlands, one of Britain's most vulnerable regions. In considering the establishment of the region's first hospital, the Northern Infirmary at Inverness, and three academies at Fortrose, Tain and Inverness, it establishes the Scottish Highlands’ intrinsic link with the Caribbean's plantation economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the cultural nationalist movement in the Scottish Highlands during the period 1875-88, through the lens of the Celtic Magazine, a source which has been overlooked by historians. The cultural nationalist movement resulted from the intertwining of the crofters' land reform movement with a Celtic cultural revival. It was propelled by intellectuals who promoted the distinctive Celtic nature of the Highlands and demanded recognition from the government. An imagined Highland nation, distinct from the rest of Scotland, arose from the cultural nationalist movement but fitted within a wider 'unionist-nationalist' identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries antiquarians, geologists and savants debated whether the summits of particular Highland mountains were the vestiges of iron-age forts or evidence of extinct volcanoes. A blend of antiquarian-historical methodology deeply affected the geological narratives that British savants and gentlemen of science developed during this period. The histories of architecture, and the fine and practical arts regularly functioned as proxies for visualizing the history, structure and operations of the earth. The case of vitrified forts discovered in Scotland highlights how the theoretical and practical arts directly informed geological theory to create what George Bellas Greenough (1778–1855) claimed was a ‘philosophical pursuit’. Focusing on the contributions of John MacCulloch (1773–1835) over the ambiguous identification of vitrified ruins, this paper shows how geological history was entwined with broad cultural interests in the progress of society and its rise from Nature. First, the essay examines the meaning and role of ‘imitation’ and ‘copying’ in art and architecture. Second, it applies these concepts within the framework of the vitrified-ruin debate that antiquarians and geologists engaged. Third, it demonstrates how the ‘imitation’ of Nature in the practical arts was a useful tool for making claims about earth structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the history of Scottish witchcraft between 1563 and 1600. The author explores the beliefs concerning witchcraft within the Northern Highlands, specifically Ross, Sutherland, Caithness, and the Outer Hebrides, examines how the Scottish clan structure impacted these beliefs, and analyzes these dynamics in terms of witch-hunting.

An essay is presented in which the author discusses what are identified as universal principles of resistance to colonialism among the indigenous peoples the Gaels and Native North Americans in the Scottish Highlands, known as a' Ghàidhealtachd, and the North American West. It examines the significance of storytellers in the perpetuation of mythology within indigenous societies, the social structures of Gaels and Native North Americans, and distinct environmental conditions. It also discusses Native American tribes and Scottish clans.

The article discusses the potential use of Protestant missionary society records to investigate nineteenth-century Highland Catholicism as of May 2014, focusing on the reported efforts to encourage Catholic historians to read Protestant religious history sources in order to reassess the apparently changing lives of Gaelic-speaking Roman Catholics. The historical records of the Edinburgh Society for the Support of Gaelic Schools and the National Library of Scotland are mentioned.

Traditional historiography has perceived the early-modern northern Highlands as a region that lacked dynamism and had little contact with the outside world. I propose to establish a mercantile framework between the region and the Baltic in a period of European conflicts, but also of commercial opportunities. I investigate the trading relations between an outlying society and Scandinavia, and explore the presence of northern Highlanders to add to the successful network of Scots and Gaels from other Highland areas operating across the Baltic commercial world. These trading exchanges demonstrate the integral location of the northern Highlands within international trade routes. It further illustrates the diversity of a Nordic trade with its multiple points of entry across Scotland, despite the limited scale of these exchanges. The role of the region in international trade remained marginal, but was not altogether non-existent, as assumed in traditional historiography. These commercial relationships can be primarily described as resource-led. The limited identifiable commercial diaspora of Scottish far northerners suggests that they invested the mercantile and burghal ranks of Baltic towns rather than consigned themselves to peddling activities. These northern Highlanders could be found in both itinerant and settled communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the prominence of religious issues in the historiography of Restoration Scotland, understanding of the position of the Kirk in the Highlands remains sparse. This article seeks to address this lacuna through analysis of two related themes. Firstly, it looks at provision, discussing the Kirk's financial, material and manpower resources, as well as the challenge posed by Gaelic. Secondly, it traces the extent of Nonconformity, both Presbyterian and Roman Catholic, with a view to judging the degree of adherence to the established Episcopalian structure. It concludes that the Kirk, while facing challenges, retained a position of unrivalled religious dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This collection of documents mainly consists of manuscripts held in the National Records of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland. The records all relate to Catholics in Scotland in the 1720s and 1730s and to the state of the Scottish Mission in that period. All but one were penned by Church of Scotland ministers and Royal Bounty catechists. The remaining item is a memorial to Propaganda Fide written by a Scottish Catholic. These riveting accounts shed valuable light on the Scottish Mission and on the contrasting perceptions Protestants and Catholics had of the 'State of Popery' in the early eighteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the mountain range known as Druim Alban or Dorsum Britanniae in medieval Scotland, which acted as an ethnic and political boundary between Picts and Gaelic speakers. The author explains that historiography has attempted to cite this medieval place-name, discusses how medieval and early modern sources lead historians to believe Druim Alban was a watershed, and examines the relationship between Druim Alban and the Scottish Highlands watershed Carn Droma.

The article present a report over Centre for History, part of the Scotland-based University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI), which has been in existence for over seven years. It states that the centre was established in 2005 as an integral part of institute specialising in the history of the Highlands and Islands. It further details the vision as outlined by James Hunter on 19 May 19, 2006 in his inaugral lecture is also presented.

The article discusses nineteenth century Scottish physician and estate manager Dr. John MacKenzie and his opposition to emigration from the Scottish Highlands and Islands. It comments on his belief in science-based agricultural improvement to maintain the region's population. The author considers MacKenzie's manuscript diaries and addresses how his family background and education influenced his ideas. The Highland and Islands Emigration Scheme, supported by British Assistant Secretary to the Treasury Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan and his administrative associate Sir John McNeill, is examined. MacKenzie's agricultural improvement advocacy on the family estate at Gairloch in Wester Ross, Scotland is considered.

The article discusses the use of dress, particularly the tartan, by Scottish Highland elites to portray the Highlands of Scotland as modern, economically developed and loyal to Great Britain from 1745 to 1815. The relationship between Scottish Highlanders' expression of cultural identity through material culture and Great Britain's political party the Whig Party is discussed. The Highland elites' use of dress, including to represent social hierarchy, social status, and the Highlands' relationship with British imperialism through the Highlands' putative martial culture, is also discussed.

This study accurately runs through all the editions and translations of Ossian's poems and Scott's "Lady of the Lake" consulted by Nodier in order to prepare his travel to Scotland. We have identified the very copy of Chapman's guide-book used by Nodier on this trip. Thanks to this guidebook, Nodier modifies his travel plans and reorganizes the story of his expedition in the form of new quest for the Holy Grail: the Highlands and Ben Lomond become the subject of this quest. An unpublished letter of Nodier to Pr Hooker can be found as attached document. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 2009 and 2011, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) worked on a new study of Lochindorb Castle. This work has produced the first in-depth survey and contributed towards a new understanding of the ruinous site, located upon a small island on Lochindorb and previously little studied due to its remote and inaccessible location. At Inverlochy, RCAHMS carried out a detailed drawn survey of the castle in 1982 and this is complemented by a large number of archive items resulting from various studies and excavations at the site. In the light of new measured and photographic data being available for comparative work, this study aims to look afresh at the relationship between the two castles, to take a closer look at their form and function, and beyond this, establish how legitimate long-standing comparisons of the two castles remain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to enlarge the picture of Highland emigration, not only by examining a little-studied region, but also by incorporating the sociological concepts of migration networks and the ‘value-added migration process’. To illustrate the migration process and the importance of networks, this paper analyses the origins of one Highland community in the United States, Scotch Settlement, established in eastern Ohio in 1802. Many of the émigrés in Scotch Settlement came from Strathnairn and Strathdearn, both located south of Inverness. This article explores the migration process that led individuals from this area to eastern Ohio, focusing on the particular economic conditions of Strathnairn and Strathdearn and the role of networks. The southern and eastern Highlands have been seen as being more stable and more technically advanced. This may very well be true for much of this region, especially that which was geographically Lowland. However, parishes like Moy and Dalarossie may not have been so blessed. The significant out-migration from these parishes probably was not caused by accessible employment opportunities, but because of the lack of opportunity in their home parishes. However, the long history of migration from this area coupled with the many opportunities nearby, especially in Inverness, may have meant that the residents of this region were better able to cope. There seem to have been fewer social pressures keeping them in their parishes while well-established migration networks meant that they had many more opportunities to depart. The Scotch Settlement emigrants, faced with disheartening circumstances not of their own making, decided that to best provide for themselves and their families it would be necessary to emigrate to the United States where they could obtain ‘a better way of living’ than they could in Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on Gaelic emigration literature which was published in the aftermath of the Highland potato famine of 1836-37 and before that of 1846-50 in Scotland. Pattern of emigration from the Highlands in the course of the 19th century; Factors that contributed to a steady flow of emigrants out of the Highlands at the end of 18th century; Main sources of information for would-be emigrants.

Explores the representation of Highland Clearances in the Highland and Island Region of Scotland in historical museums. Role of economics in the production of history; Historiographical debates surrounding the Clearances; Creation of museums that trace the rise and fall of each Scottish clans.

Points out that Sir Walter Scott's nostalgic desire to re-experience the supposedly unfettered perception of children can be aligned with his broader antiquarian project of imaginatively recovering Scotland's past. Emigration during the Romantic period, most frequently from the Highlands of Scotland to North America; Anne Grant's poem 'The Highlanders.'

Traces the roots of Gaelic song tradition in the Scottish Highlands. Bards' enjoyment of high status and political and social clout before the 15th century; Dismantling of the clan system; Undermining of Celtic people's confidence in their own culture; Emergence of the vernacular tradition in the 19th century.