From Ron Maxwell: Tonight my heart is in the Highlands. In 1746 the flower of Scotlands manhood, its bravest sons, stood their ground and charged into the massed fire and bayonets of the proud English army - an army a long, long way from their homes in Bristol, Leeds, London and Portsmouth. Its a long complicated, passionate and sanguinary tale, but in the aftermath of that battle the Clans were hunted down, forbidden to wear the tartan, forbidden to speak the Gael, forbidden to sing the songs of their ancestors, forbidden to bear the claymores of their fathers, stripped of their very Scottishness. In the decades that followed they were betrayed by many of their own Clan Chiefs, who sold their common land - the land that had been held in trust for a thousand years - sold it to the landlords from the South. To make room for sheep. And so the Highlanders were scattered to the winds, herded on to wooden ships under sail, to colonize the new worlds of North America and Australia. But many stayed, poor as they were, conquered as they were, in the glens, the moors and the isles. Today the ghosts of Culloden have returned. Or maybe they never left. Will the people of Scotland hear the shrill wailing of the bagpipes as they go to the polls tomorrow?
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 00:26:52 +0000
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