[Tionndadh Gàidhlig]

As a final event in our series ‘Gaelic in Edinburgh: past, present and future’ – part of the Edinburgh 900 festival marking 900 years of Edinburgh as a burgh, on Sunday 22 June we ran a walking tour of some of the locations in Edinburgh’s Old Town most connected with Gaelic life in the city.

A large group joined us for this bilingual event, led by Professor Wilson McLeod. We started in Chambers Street, the site of the second Gaelic church in Edinburgh, and finished in Johnstone Terrace where the first Gaelic church in the city was established in 1769. In between these two sites we visited the grave of the renowed Gaelic poet Duncan Ban Macintyre in Kirkyard of Greyfriars church – now the only mainland church in Scotland to hold a weekly Gaelic service – and the site of his family home in the High Street (Roxburgh Court).

We also visited Makars’ Court to see the inscribed stones commemorating Gaelic writers, the Black Watch Memorial on the Mound, and the Bank Street window commemorating John Stuart Blackie – who led a successful campaign to establish the Chair of Celtic at the University.

The role of major national institutions in safeguarding Gaelic collections was also highlighted. Gaelic treasures – such as the Red Book of Clanranald and the famous Lewis Chessmen – can be seen in the National Museum and the National Library has a precious collection of Gaelic books and manuscripts.

You can follow your own self-directed Gaelic tour, using the recently-created bilingual resource covering Gaelic sites and Gaelic place-names in the city: Edinburgh’s Gaelic Footprints.