Highlanders

James MacKillop is an American Celtic scholar, arts journalist and academic living in Jamesville, New York.

“The author has scoured hundreds of arcane tomes and dozens of hard-to-reach archives to fill out a compelling, detailed nuanced story of a marginalized and frequently misrepresented people. But he wears his learning lightly. The reader is thankful that he often takes into account popular perceptions and mis-perceptions. Like cleaning up the distortions of history to be found in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.”—Douglas Brode, author of Shakespeare in the Movies

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsPrefacedelete deleteThe Limits of GenealogyA Note on the Words “Celt” and “Celtic”1. The Foundationsdelete deleteWhere Are the “Highlands”?delete deletePeopling the Landscapedelete deletePrehistoric Testimonydelete deleteThe Scots/Gaels: Ethnogenesisdelete deleteThe Pictsdelete deleteIreland and the Highlandsdelete deleteThe Norse in the Highlandsdelete deleteThe Scottish Gaelic Language2. Medieval Highlands and Islandsdelete deleteThe Hammer of the Norsedelete deleteThe Lordship of the Islesdelete deleteThe Rise of the Clansdelete deleteEnumeration, Rivalries, an Alliancedelete deleteFeuds and Forays3. The Seventeenth Centurydelete deleteOne King, Two Kingdomsdelete deleteWars of the Three Kingdoms, 1639–1651delete deleteA “Bald” Poetdelete deleteDeparture of the Stuarts: The First Three Decades4. The Dreary Eighteenth Centurydelete deleteHighland Society Before Cullodendelete deleteThe Jacobites, 1745–1746delete deleteMisery and Emigration5. Romantic Ameliorationdelete deleteImposture in Badenochdelete deleteIndigenous Voicesdelete deletePoetic Admirers from the Outsidedelete deleteAbbotsforddelete deleteThe Sett That Expressesdelete deleteA Royal Patronessdelete deleteAway from Balmoral6. After Romancedelete deleteSheep Over Peopledelete deleteThe Blight of the Tubersdelete deleteThe Great Disruption of 1843delete deleteMightier Than a Lorddelete deleteThe Comic Highlanderdelete deleteSuas Leis a’ GhàidhligCoda: Known Up Close Then Seen from AfarGlossary: Persons, Places, VocabularyBibliographyIndex