Maybe it’s because I hail from a different Celtic country, but I feel an odd kinship with the Scots and with Scotland. So I am quite happy to celebrate the birthday of that country’s greatest bard, Robbie Burns, in the company of whisky, haggis, neeps and potatoes.
We go to a little school room in the middle of nowhere and often we can hear the skirl of the pipes luring us through the dark January drizzle towards a misty lamp denoting the entrance and casting a yellow glow over the faces of the party goers.
There are some interesting and informative sites relating to Robbie Burns and how to run a Burns night properly and traditionally. Here are a few: www.rampantscotland.com/know/blknow_burns_supper.htm (this tells you about the organisation) and www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/burnsnight/ (this is a useful source of information about Robbie Burns and his poetry) and another www.scotlandsmusic.com/robert-burns.htm.
You may or may not know that Robbie Burns, apart from being a great fan of the ladies and leaving many a bed before the husband returned, was also a freemason. Robert Burns was initiated an entered Apprentice in Lodge St. David, Tarbolton on 4 July 1781, at the age of 23. His initiation fee was 12s 6d. (This would be the equivalent of £67.00 today and undermines the errant nonsense that it’s cheaper to be a Mason in this day and age than it was then). Like many other times in his life, Burns came into the Lodge amidst a controversy. Originally, there had been only one Lodge in Tarbolton, chartered in 1771 from the Lodge Mother Kilwinning, In 1773, a group broke away from the Lodge, forming Lodge St. David No. 174, and the original became St. James Tarbolton Kilwinning No. 178, only to be reunited in 1781, 9 days before Burns’s first degree. However, while St. James was clearly the older of the two lodges, St. David’s name was used, and the seeds were sown for further dissension. Burns in the meantime was passed to the degree of Fellowcraft, and raised to the degree of Master Mason on 1st October 1781. The Lodge record book reads as follows:
“Robert Burns in Lochlea was passed and raised, Henry Cowan being Master, James Humphrey Snr. Warden, and Alexr. Smith Jnr. Do., Robt. Wodrow Secy. and James Manson Treasurer, and John Tannock Taylor and others of the Brethren being present”
Brings to mind the freemasonry stories surrounding Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. However, higher arches and on the square aside, we shall be toasting the spirit of Robbie Burns tonight.
