VOLUME 6, NUMBER 10
"Dedicated to Celts Everywhere'
DECEMBER 1996/JANUARY 1997
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
• The Scottish Clearances — 6 & 7 » Ireland Canada Chamber of Commerce Vancouver Chapter — 8 & 9
• Christmas Concerts — 10
• Some Mother's Son — 12 & 13 • An Interview with Michael O'Malley Pringe George Celtic Club — 14 • Stage Eireann — 15 • Larry Cheevers: Consul of Ireland in BC — 16
• Alberta Irish Clubs —17 • Monette Funeral — 18
Winter Solstice —18
See Page 10 for Christmas Special Advertising Supplement
Limited Time Offer
Irish Fancy Store 110-3866 Bayview Street Richmond
Celtic Creations Lonsdale Quay Shopping Centre North Vancouver
Celtic Creations New Westminister Quay Shopping Centre New Westminister
Penny Lane Pub
5688 Main Sreet at 41st.
Vancouver
The Sunset Grill 2204 York Ave. Kitsilano
Culpeppers Restaurant 3135 West Broadway Vancouver
Oscars Art Books & Books 1533 West Broadway at Granville Vancouver
the Kam« of the rather'
■ -A
*fr Lias » choice no mother
should t-at* to make.
Some Mothers Son
Limited number of give away tickets at the above locations for the promotional screening of
"SOME MOTHER'S SON" in Vancouver.
The promotional screening will take place on Thursday
December 19 at 7:00 p.m. at Fifth Avenue Theatre.
Give away date - Tuesday, December 17,1996.
Tickets must be picked up in person, no telephone calls or holds.
ALSO, The first four callers to (604) 434-3747 after 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, December 17 will receive double pass tickets for the premier of "SOME MOTHERS SON". The winners will pick tickets up before the premier showing on Thursday, December 19 at the theatre.
Scotland's Ploughman Poet is Much Loved Worldwide
By R.L. ABRAHAMSON
Robert Burns is the best known of all the Scottish poets. He is most admired for having voiced the attitudes of the common people and for his innate lyrical sense.
His poems celebrate the simple, and often earthy, love between man and woman, the pleasures of convivial drinking and the fierce pride of the independent individual.
With his emphasis on the natural simplicity and the rights of the individual, he exerted considerable influence on the English romantic poets.
Burns was born on January 25, 1759 (later to become Burns Day), into a family of a peasant farmer in rural southwest Scotland. He took up farming at an early age but was not successful at it.
At the same time, he began writing poems for local circulation and had them published in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786), in the small town of Kilmarnock. This work, which contains most of his poems, was expanded in 1787 and again in 1793.
Copies of the Kilmarnock edition reached the literati in Edinburgh, who were immediately impressed to find their theories about the sensitivity of the common man confirmed by what they called this "ploughman poet."
Burns spent the winters of 1786-1788 in Edinburgh as a national celebrity, but he disliked the condescension with which he was treated and so returned to farming.
In 1789, he obtained the post of exciseman, or inspector, but the hard labour of his early farming years, along with his heavy drinking, ruined his health and he died on July 21, 1796.
Most of Burns' poems are short lyrical pieces. Holy Willie's Prayer is an exquisite satire revealing the hypocrisy of a sour, self-righteous man. It uses the dramatic monologue form to create a masterpiece of irony.
The Cotter's Saturday Night was for a long time the most highly regarded of Burns' poems, but it is flawed by Burns' use of sentimental English to flood the reader with emotion in contemplating the homely details of peasant life.
Burns' single narrative poem, Tarn O'Shanter, uses gothic con-
ROB¥RT BURNS — THE IMMORTAL BARD (1759-1796)
ventions for comic effect and is remarkable for its complex narrative voice, skillful meter and pacing, and successful fusion of English and Scots diction.
His many songs, such as Auld Lang Syne and A Red, Red Rose, are concise expressions of emotion, ranging from the tender to the bawdy. In providing vivid details of pastoral life and in delicately fitting the words to music, Burns proved himself a master of this genre.
In the last two centuries, Burns has become a national hero in Scotland. Many of his admirers have chosen to sentimentalize him, disregarding his true gifts and stature as a poet.
His overwhelming popularity led most Nineteenth Century Scottish writers to create lifeless sentimental imitations of Burns' pastoral verse.
Not until the poems of Hugh MacDiarmid, written more than a century after Burns' death, did Scottish literature began to free itself from his influence.
Although the sentimentalizing cult survives today, more astute scholars and critics now rank Burns as a major Scottish poet and one of the finest lyricists of the Eighteenth Century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
James Kinsley — Burns, Robert, Poems and Songs (1968)
Thomas Crawford — Burns: A Study of the Poems and Songs (1965)
Hans, Hecht — Burns: The Man and His Work (1985)
R.D. Jack and Andrew Noble — The Art of Robert Burns (1982)
John Maurice Lindsay — The Burns Encyclopedia (1970)
Donald Low — Robert Burns: The Critical Heritage (1974)
Scottish News Round-up
Pages 4, 5 and 6
The Scottish Clearances Pages 6 and 7