And 2009 Highland Year of Homecoming is almost on us

The Scottish Government has announced a grant of £60,000 to support a major conference during 2009 Highland year of Homecoming. The Director of the initiative, Fiona Hampton, was also Director of Highland 2007, whose recently published evaluation report has just been discussed by For Argyll.

The 2009 festival will last for ten months, running from Burns Night, on 25th January until St Andrew’s Day on 30th November. It has five main themes – Robert Burns, whisky, golf, great Scottish minds and innovations and Scotland’s culture and heritage.

How will Argyll fare in these five categories?

• Argyll may not be able to lay claim to Burns but one of his celebrated loves, Highland Mary (Campbell) was from Dunoon and there is a statue to her near the Pier.
• Whisky and golf are two big strengths throughout Argyll and the Islands. The distilleries should be well to the fore in May, which is being marketed as ‘Whisky Month’ within the festival. And whatever the ownership position of Loch Lomond Golf Club wil be by then, it is hosting the Barclays Scottish Open in July 2009.
• We have our share of great minds and achievers, some unsung. For Argyll will brining some of these to local, national and international attention during the festival.
• For culture and heritage Argyll is right up there as the birthplace  of modern Scotland through Dunadd, also a significant site in the Kingdom of Dal Riata; with Kilmartin Glen the second most significant cluster of archaelological remains in the UK; the Isle of Iona, with its links to St Columba through its Abbey and to the Book of Kells; Finlaggan on Islay the seat of the Lords of the Isles; and the isles of Mull and Islay two of the UK’s best wildlife resources.

A key piece of evidence in the report on Highland 2007 was that residents and non-residents of Scotland alike made their top three strengths of the country its landscape and environment, its historic places and buildings and its traditional music. Argyll has a wealth of all of these. It needs to get moving, strategically and purposefully, to nail its identity to these major parts of everyone’s expectations of Scotland.

Among the 2009 Highland Year of Homecoming events will be a show at the Clyde Auditorium, celebrating the songs of Burns; and the whisky month in May, with participation from distillers across the country and the major, innovative Spirit of the West food and drink event – in Argyll – hosted at Inveraray Castle. (Do they know that there’s a Canadian folk rock band, Spirit of the West; and that there’s a cowboy festival with the same name at Sioux Falls, South Dakota? There’s a few good prompts to cement the event into the Year of Homecoming.)

The biggest clan gathering in 200 years will be in Edinburgh in July and a flotilla of boats will travel the length of the Caledonian Canal, from Fort William to Inverness.

The Edinburgh International Science Festival will be showcasing the contributions made to innovation by Scots, and an exhibition of contemporary art inspired by Burns will be hosted at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library.

These are keystone events in the programme. Argyll has its own programme which For Argyll will highlight throughout the ten month festival.

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