Blog Posts

The latest Radicalizing the Roots roster is full and it’s another really interesting and diverse group of participants! It’s going on two years since I started the Hidden Glen Folk School to provide the opportunity for participants to connect to the well-springs of Scottish Highland heritage, and in particular to an understanding of indigeneity from… Read more

I’m in the process of envisioning how to expand and extend the Hidden Glen Folk School of Scottish Highland Heritage to be an even more useful and powerful tool for personal and social transformation, especially with the help of my friend Tad Hargrave. What I have sensed from all working with many different participants over… Read more

There seemed to be a brief moment last week when certain Republicans in the United States were about to launch a new political brand harkening back to supposedly “Anglo-Saxon” traditions that underpin their cultural outlook and ethnic identity. The term “Anglo-Saxon” has long been used by the dominant group in British colonies to lend their… Read more

First of all, I’ll be offering the course Radicalizing the Roots: Decolonizing Scottish Heritage and Deconstructing Whiteness through Gaelic Lenses again, starting on May 13th. The effects of the pandemic have restricted the amount of time I have available to teach, but I’m trying to make time to offer these courses, especially because I know… Read more

There have been surprising and remarkable developments around Gaelic in the last couple of years, some of them quite unexpected. Although Gaelic remains highly endangered in Scotland itself and in the last speech community outside of Scotland – in Nova Scotia, Canada – there have probably never before been so many adults learning the language.… Read more

I’m excited to announce the release of a new book that I’ve been working on for the last year. It’s called Gaelic In Your Gob: Four Dozen English Words that Came from the Scottish Highlands. It’s a light-hearted exploration of 48 words that were borrowed into English from Scottish Gaelic, each of which is explained… Read more

DuoLingo released a version of their language-learning app for Scottish Gaelic in the Autumn of 2019 and in little more than a year, more than 500,000 people had signed up to gain some knowledge of a tongue that is in a highly endangered state due to centuries of neglect and persecution from anglophones, especially those… Read more

It seems safe to assume that every interest group has online fora where people can meet and discuss issues on the internet. I was recently asked to chair a Q&A session on the Ask Historians group on Reddit (on this webpage) so that participants can ask any questions that they may have about the history,… Read more

As we approach the winter solstice, the pace of life in the natural world begins to slow down and move toward hibernation. The traditional folk calendar of the northern hemisphere recognizes this reality (increasingly the farther north you go!) and allows for social gatherings focusing on reaffirming communal bonds and values, things we need to… Read more

It’s just over a year since I established Hidden Glen Folk School and began a string of blogs about the contemporary relevance and need for tradition. Samhain – the Gaelic New Year – is fast approaching and seems an appropriate time to look back on the last twelve months. This last year has been challenging… Read more