Dunollie Castle’s Hidden Jewel drawing Scots diaspora-wide
published this on 4:53 pm, Friday, 10th July, 2009Community News| Homecoming Argyll| Tourism activities | Comments (rss) | Respond | Ping |
Dunollie Castle was the seat of the powerful Argyll Clan MacDougall.
The Hidden Jewel is The Brooch of Lorn is a clan treasure of silver diamond and pearl which has not seen the light of day from its secure bank vault for many years.
The Walking Theatre Company is the interface between the clan, the brooch, its story and an audience from across the Scottish diaspora clamouring to see its commissioned Homecoming 2009 performance of The Hidden Jewel.
A special copy of the original has been made for the show – in silver, crystal and Scottish freshwater pearls. The performance will be outdoors – from 17th – 23rd July , at and around the ruined Dunollie Castle on its promontory guarding Oban Bay.
The narrative thread weaves from the MacDougalls 1306 theft of the brooch from Robert the Bruce, its witnessing of the rise and fall of the clan, its disappearance while in the hands of the acquisitive Campbell Clan, its miraculous rediscovery and, in relatively recent times, Queen Victoria’s attraction to it.
As Royal admirers go, the brooch was lucky to have spotted in Victoria’s reign. Had the attraction been found later in old Queen Mary, widow of George V, the jewel might well have disappeared again. She was famous for taking things that caught her eye in the country houses of friends with whom she was weekending.
The gathering place for the Dunollie Homecoming programme is a superb new cultural space right in the heart of Oban, in George Street, Here there will be a new exhibition on The Brooch of Lorn, telling the story of the town at the same time and providing a box office for The Hidden Jewel.
The jewelled brooch, historically, had its own homecoming. Today it provides an incentive for others of Scots origin, in their turn, to come home.
Tickets for The Hidden Jewel, and full details of events in the full Dunollie Homecoming programme, are available online.
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