Martin Martin: early modern Hebridean traveller and author

Martin Martin: early modern Hebridean traveller and author
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This is a past event

A free lecture by Dr Donald William Stewart of Sabhal Mor Ostaig, UHI, organised by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

Today, the name of the late seventeenth-century Hebridean traveller Martin Martin is well-known as the author of an ambitious, compendious, fascinating, and sometimes controversial account of his native Western Isles, and the lives, traditions, customs, and beliefs of their inhabitants. Martin's Description set the agenda for future writers about the islands, but his own life remains somewhat obscure. 

With funding from the British Academy, and with the assistance of colleagues and of islanders themselves, Dr Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig UHI , and the Centre for Research Collections, University of Edinburgh, has been tracing Martin's extraordinary life, collating his writings in manuscript and print, and setting him both in a regional context and within wider Scottish and European scholarship. Martin undertook his voyages and compiled his books at a time of widespread hardship in the Hebrides resulting from extreme weather events and severe economic crises. How might we read him today? 

Speaker
Dr Donald William Stewart, University of the Highlands and Islands
Hosted by
King's Museum
Venue
New King's 10
Contact

museums@abdn.ac.uk