EVEN our National Bard is taking to the internet during the pandemic, with one of the world’s leading experts on the bard revealing new detail about Robert Burns’s home Ellisland on Zoom tomorrow.
Professor Gerard Carruthers, Francis Hutcheson chair of Scottish literature at Glasgow University, will host the online seminar Burns@Ellisland, which is already attracting international interest.
Burns fans from around the world have signed up for the free online seminar, which will take place at 11am tomorrow. Carruthers is keen to include local people and anyone interested should apply by emailing: Moira.Hansen@glasgow.ac.uk
Ellisland Farm, on the banks of the Nith near Dumfries, includes a romantic cottage designed by Burns in 1788 after the success of his Kilmarnock edition. It was here that he finally set up marital home with the young Jean Armour, and parts of her stove remain in the cottage kitchen.
Currently closed by coronavirus, the charitable trust which took over Ellisland’s management last month hopes the seminar will increase membership and help raise funds.
Professor Carruthers said: “The seminar will look at Burns’s crucial Nithsdale social relationships and at the writing of Auld Lang Syne and Tam o’ Shanter.”
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