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This social history of the 'ordinary' people of the south-western
peninsula of Argyll, in Western Scotland, has become a classic
since its original publication in 1984. It is reprinted here with a
new Introduction by the author, a native of Kintyre who knows its
geography intimately. The greater part of the book is based on
original research from a wide range of sources, from nineteenth
century registers of the poor to material passed on through the
oral tradition. It traces the evolution of the extraordinarily
mixed stock of Kintyre from the Gaelic settlement in the fifth
century AD through the subsequent settlements of the Lowlanders and
Irish, and explores the nature of these diverse cultural legacies.
The darker aspects of social history - epidemic diseases, sanitary
and housing conditions and destitution - are also explored, and the
sinister activities of grave-robbers in nineteenth century Kintyre
are substantiated for the first time. There is also information on
Irish immigrant families, the anglicisation of native surnames and
surviving Gaelic elements in the local dialect.
Poet and historian Angus Martin was born in Campbeltown in 1952 and
has lived there all his life. In this, his thirty-seventh book, he
has employed his intimate knowledge of the history and families of
his native community to produce the definitive account of the
distillers, distilleries and related trades and industries which
transformed a small West Highland fishing town into the
whisky-making capital of the world. Exhaustive research in
neglected sources has resulted a study with unprecedented detail
and insight.
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West (Paperback)
Angus Martin
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R325
Discovery Miles 3 250
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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This is an adventurous new collection of poems in which past
companions are recalled, and the lives of the occupants of
long-ruined farms imaginatively reconstructed, amid a spectacular
landscape of hills, moors and cliffs. The fauna and flora of
Kintyre's west coast come to life in affectionate detail. The poems
- all written in the winters of 2015/16 and 2016/17 - also capture
the spiritual values inherent in the silence and strangeness of
remote places. They will speak both to local people who know and
love such places as The Inneans, Craigaig and Largiebaan, and to
those who have appreciated Angus Martin's poetry in the past or who
wish to discover it now.
While reflecting the style and character of its predecessor, 'A
Summer in Kintyre', this new book is rich in differences. The
narrative begins in April 2014 and ends in September, but real time
is irrelevant, as the author dips frequently into history and
prehistory, evoking people and events associated with the places he
visits by bicycle and on foot. Artists, poets, musicians,
cave-dwellers, convicts, winkle-pickers, travelling tinsmiths,
shipwrecked sailors, saints, school friends, fishermen, shepherds,
farmers and fellow-ramblers share the pages with flowers,
butterflies, birds, otters, whales, adders, and much else. A close
engagement with places, people and nature is ever-present and,
using the journals he has kept since his teens, the author is able
to recreate his early adventures in the outdoors. Besides familiar
haunts in South Kintyre (Learside, Ben Gullion, Inneans, and
Largiebaan), he visits Barr Glen, Ballochroy Glen and Lussa, and
explores their history. Illustrated with 50 images, the result will
inform and delight any reader with an interest in one of Scotland's
most fascinating yet least appreciated areas.
A Third Summer in Kintyre completes Angus Martin's trilogy of books
about consecutive summers spent walking and cycling in Kintyre,
exploring the history and natural history of the places he visits
and documenting his own past. In this book, which covers the year
2015, he also looks back on his literary beginnings and mentors, in
particular the poets Iain Crichton Smith, Edwin Morgan and Robin
Fulton Macpherson. Largiebaan, an area of cliffs and Atlantic
seascapes, features prominently in his accounts of searches for
botanical rarities. But his journeys also take him into North
Kintyre, where he visits ruined settlements in Carradale Glen, the
deserted shepherd's cottage of Lagloskin, and a laird's grave in a
remote glen near Killean. As readers have come to expect, the reach
of Martin's curiosity is broad, encompassing place-names,
languages, literature, genealogy, social history, folklore, flora
and fauna, all interspersed with human presences, people met and
people remembered. For all who love Kintyre and its little-visited
scenic corners, this book will evoke the pleasures of times past
and perhaps also inspire personal journeys in the author's
footsteps.
Kintyre poet and historian Angus Martin's interest in placea'names
extends back over 40 years. This meticulously researched
exploration covers over 200 Gaelic place-name elements, plus many
others of Norse, Scots and English origin. Over 1200 individual
place-names are examined, from the well-known to the obscure and
forgotten. These names are drawn from a diverse range of sources,
from mid-19th century Ordnance Survey maps and field notebooks to
fishermen and shepherds whose store of names contained many known
only to themselves. As well as looking at the origin and meaning of
place-names, Martin also looks at their historical associations -
the events and families connected with them - to provide a full and
fascinating account which will illuminate the landscape of his
native Kintyre. This, then, is a book which will interest not only
students of place-names, but also archaeologists, local historians,
genealogists, naturalists, and anyone with a passion for Kintyre
and its colourful past.
In the idyllic summer of 2013 in Kintyre, the author's journeys by
bicycle and on foot were also 'a journey through landscapes of
memory and emotion'. The story begins in the rugged south-west, at
the Inneans and Largiebaan, and ends in the north-east, at a little
loch near Tarbert, with people, places and happenings a-plenty in
between. The people include poets Seamus Heaney, Hugh MacDiarmid
and George Campbell Hay, musicians Hamish Henderson, Dick Gaughan
and Jack Bruce, as well as hill-walking companions, past and
present. Incidents of drama on cliffs, episodes of irrational
terror and spiritual calm in remote places, memories of the
psychedelic Sixties, and a boat trip to Cara Island - haunt of the
infamous 'Broonie' - combine with the author's characteristic
ruminations, on history, natural history, folklore, place-names and
genealogy, to illumine the landscapes. The book contains 62
illustrations and six appendices and is a worthy successor to
Martin's 'By Hill and Shore in South Kintyre', published in 2011 by
The Grimsay Press. It will engage the interest and imagination of
all who cherish Kintyre and its outdoor delights, both natural and
cultural.
When it was first published in 1987, this picture of the lives of
country folk from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth
completed a trilogy on the history and culture of the author's
native Kintyre. The material, from both oral and written sources,
tells of everyday lives - working the land, raising livestock,
building and furnishing homes, finding fuel and preparing food and
celebrating special days. There are also accounts of
sheep-stealing, shinty battles, and violent encounters between
excise-men and the distillers - and smugglers - of illicit whisky.
Illustrated with maps of the peninsula and photographs and
reproductions taken or collected by the author.
For 20 years, since 1991, historian and poet Angus Martin has been
documenting in the Kintyre Magazine his observations and
experiences while walking the hills and shores of his native
Kintyre. This volume - an eclectic mix of natural history, history,
archaeology, folklore, and much else, ranging from snippets to
mini-essays - comprises a selection of 'By Hill and Shore' from the
past 40 issues, plus supplementary articles and some 90
illustrations, mostly his own photographs taken during the past 30
years. Rich in its evocation of places, people, and creatures great
and small, this anthology should provide lasting enjoyment to all
readers, at home and abroad, with a passion for 'lovely, long
Kintyre'.
The House of Argyll acquired its Kintyre lands in 1607 and sold
them in 1956. During that period, the Campbells exerted a powerful
influence in Kintyre, through politics, religion, and agrarian
reform. The core of this book is the 5th Duke of Argyll's estate
instructions to his Kintyre chamberlain, or manager, from 1785 to
1805. Through these annual directions, and the chamberlain's
responses, emerge the complex workings of a West Highland estate.
Kintyre historian Angus Martin has taken the late Eric R. Cregeen's
hitherto unpublished transcript of the instructions and illuminated
them with a lengthy series of commentaries, explaining agricultural
practices, social customs and cultural nuances, and providing
biographical sketches of the chief personalities of the time. The
study is informatively introduced by both Cregeen and Martin,
enhanced by 72 illustrations, ranging from eighteenth century
portraits to present-day photographs, contains a reproduction of
George Langlands' celebrated 1801 map of Kintyre, and is fully
furnished with references, notes and index.
A Lexicon of Alchemy or An Alchemical Dictionary Containing a full
and plain explanation of all obscure words, Hermetic subjects, and
arcane phrases of Paracelsus.
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