This is a past event
Elphinstone Institute Public Lecture Series
From 2011–2013, the personal papers of folklorist and poet Hamish Henderson were, for the first time, sorted through methodically by the Hamish Henderson Archive Trust. The Trust was formed to find a permanent home for the papers which, for various reasons, had lain in abeyance since Hamish's passing in 2002. Steve Byrne and Chris Wright worked through around 30 boxes of material, totalling some 10,000letters from 3,000 correspondents, over 130 diaries and notebooks, alongside manuscript items, press cuttings and ephemera. Steve Byrne reflects on the methods and discoveries along the way, giving a fuller picture of what is amongst the collection, and where it sits alongside other Henderson material already in major libraries. The papers were eventually acquired by Edinburgh University Library in 2013 and are now available for research.
From Arbroath on Scotland's east coast, Steve is best-known as a founder member, in 1998, of the award-winning Scots folksong group Malinky. A graduate of the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh, in his time he's been Traditional Arts Officer for the City of Edinburgh Council; song cataloguer on the landmark Kit o Riches/Tobar an Dualchis sound archive project; and co-founded the Hamish Henderson Archive Trust to help secure the papers of the Scottish poet, folklorist and peace activist.
Steve currently works part-time with the Edinburgh community music charity Scots Music Group, alongside a busy career as a performer, record producer, researcher, lecturer, author and advocate for traditional arts. Steve has recently co-founded a new organisation, Local Voices, to expand his Scots song projects in schools, based on bringing archive material back to the communities in which it was collected. At present he is part of the German-Scottish team working on a new critical edition of Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and is "resident rummler" on the Scots Language Radio podcast with renowned broadcaster Frieda Morrison.
- Speaker
- Steve Byrne
- Hosted by
- The Elphinstone Institute
- Venue
- MR051, MacRobert Building
- Contact
-
Admission £3.00
Students free
No booking required