Who has not heard of Ellis Island, the immigration gateway to the United States of America? Who has not somewhere seen a faded photograph of a sea of faces there, many of them Scots and Irish emigrants with most of the Scots leaving their homeland in the wake of the Highland Clearances? Who has not squirrelled away a tear at the thought of those so hugely displaced and at their courage in pioneering life in a far and unknown place – if indeed they reached it?
The producers of the annual Tartan Day on Ellis Island programme are in search of historic and vintage tartan items for use in a new exhibition entitled: Tartan – Scotland’s Enduring Icon. The exhibition is scheduled to launch in April 2011 as part of the programme’s 10th anniversary celebration.
It will trace the history of tartan as well as the bold and innovative ways in which tartan is embraced in contemporary fashion and design.
The project is produced by the Clan Currie Society, an international not-for-profit educational and cultural institution with many strong ties to Argyll and Bute. The Society is also looking for items which may have been produced for films such as Braveheart, Rob Roy and the Highlander series.
Ideally the clan Currie Society would appreciate items to be donated but is in the position to purchase items in certain circumstances.
The Clan Currie Society can be contacted:
- by e-mail: clancurrie@mail.com
- by post: P.O. Box 541, Summit, NJ 07902-0541 USA.
The Clan Currie Society
The Clan Currie Society is an American-based, international, non-profit cultural and educational organization. It has over 3,000 members worldwide that gather via the Society’s website and at special events and clan gatherings.
The Society was originally formed in Glasgow in 1959with the aim of furthering the knowledge and appreciation of the MacMhuirich (pronounced MacVurich) bardic dynasty.
Today, the organization is a respected producer of outstanding projects and events ,honouring Scotland’s rich culture and ancestry. The Society’s signature events include The Pipes of Christmas – a musical celebration of Christmas performed on bagpipes and brass, harp and fiddle, and organ – and the annual observance of Tartan Day on Ellis Island.
The MacMhuirichs served for over 700 years as professional poets to the Lords of the Isles. Today, Councillor Robin Currie serves as Councillor for the Isle of Islay, where, at Finlaggan – now the site of a superb heritage centre – the Lords of the Isles held their historic seat.
Later the MacMhuirichs became poets to the MacDonalds of Clanranald, among other prominent Highland clans and families. The Red Book of Clanranald, one of Gaelic Scotland’s literary treasures, was penned by successive generations of the MacMhuirich family.
In more contemporary times, MacMhuirich poetry and short stories have been chronicled in Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica, Angus MacLellan’s Stories of South Uist, Thomas Owen Clancy’s The Triumph Tree (Scotland’s Earliest Poetry 550-1350) and An Laebhar Mor – The Great Book of Gaelic. The ancient and historic MacMhuirich name and its anglicized equivalent Currie can be found throughout the Western Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
The Society’s scholarship programme includes:
- the Alex Currie Memorial Scholarship for Bagpipe, administered by the Gaelic College of Nova Scotia, Canada
- the Pipe Major Kevin Ray Blandford Memorial Scholarship, administered by the National Piping Centre in Glasgow,
- the Col. William McMurdo Currie Memorial Scholarship for the Clarsach, administered by the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
The Society also sponsors music competitions at various Highland Games and Gatherings.
The photograph at the top, showing the main immigration station building on Ellis Island, now the museum, is by copyright holder, chensiyuan and reproduced here under the GNU Free Documentation licence.
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