Add to this, it was St Andrew’s Day yesterday.
St Andrew’s Day is Scotland’s official nationwide day, celebrated as November fades and winter settles in. Rooted within the historical veneration of Andrew the Apostle, whose legends and relics helped form Scottish identification for almost a millennium, St Andrew’s Day is well known in Scotland with a type of cheerful vagueness; some individuals dutifully attend a ceilidh, others make a noble try at cooking haggis and nonetheless others merely elevate a glass and declare it a superb excuse for a celebration.
However overseas, Scots, and the descendants of Scottish migrants, mark the event with better enthusiasm. Expats, vacationers and Scotland-enthusiasts in Dunedin final weekend loved 5 hours of Scottish meals and leisure within the Octagon — replete with a swashbuckling haggis ceremony, the drone of bagpipes, the kicks and prospers of Highland dancers, three separate pipe bands and even some Oamaru stone lifting.
The spotlight, as I’m reliably knowledgeable by my good friend Ron, was the Irn-Bru ice cream.
In the meantime, I’m positive there can have been an important many Scottish-themed celebrations the world over yesterday . You’ll be able to guess that Scots, or descendants of Scottish folks, can have united within the sacred St Andrew’s Day custom of doing one thing vaguely Scottish, then insisting it’s precisely what their ancestors would have wished.
St Andrew, by the by, is the disciple who launched his brother, the Apostle Peter, to Jesus. Andrew was a fisherman, and was referred to as upon (alongside stated brother) by Jesus to be “fishers of males”. (Given Scotland’s outstanding fishing trade, his patronage is quite apt.)
Andrew met his finish on a diagonal, or X-shaped cross — his was not a typical crucifixion. In addition to being Scotland’s patron saint, he’s additionally the patron saint of Greece and Russia, in addition to fishermen, fishmongers, singers, sore throats and spinsters. He’s a busy man.
I’m not solely positive how Andrew grew to become the patron saint of Scotland. Medieval legend insists that Andrew’s relics had been smuggled from Constantinople (now Istanbul) to the longer term St Andrews, courtesy of a sure Regulus — though the one historic Regulus on document had inconveniently lived a century too early.
Different historians recommend the relics most likely got here with Acca of Hexham within the eighth century. Then, in 832, the Pictish king Oengus supposedly prayed his method by being outnumbered by Angles, earlier than witnessing a heavenly X blaze throughout the sky — handily recalling the aforementioned crux decussata (diagonal cross) upon which Andrew was martyred.
Oengus received the battle and gave Scotland its patron saint together with its saltire. Later writers embellished this connection, particularly after the Synod of Whitby, when Andrew conveniently outranked Columba in apostolic seniority. By the point the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath declared Andrew “the primary to be an Apostle”, his standing as Scotland’s patron saint was safe.
Whereas archaeological proof factors to prolonged occupation of the realm by Māori previous to the arrival of Europeans, Dunedin is nonetheless a metropolis based on Scottish religion, formed by Scottish planning and proudly dedicated to its northern sister metropolis.
Based in 1848 by the Free Church of Scotland, Dunedin took its very identify from Dun Eideann, the Gaelic for Edinburgh. The early settlers constructed their dwelling within the type of the Scottish capital, from Princes St and the Water of Leith, to dour Presbyterian sensibilities and civic structure. Charles Kettle’s formidable plan for town consciously mirrored Edinburgh’s New City, topography be damned.
This connection between Dunedin and Edinburgh exists to the current day. The Dunedin-Edinburgh Sister Metropolis Society, for instance, was established in July 1974, and revitalised by then-mayor Sukhi Turner in 2004.
It’s a improbable society that works to protect and have fun Dunedin’s sturdy hyperlinks with Edinburgh by occasions similar to final weekend’s St Andrew’s Day celebrations, supporting Scottish arts and training, and collaborating with town’s quite a few Scottish societies and clans.
For some members, the celebrations are deeply private. As Ron Waterproof coat, a member of the sister metropolis society, displays: “Once I got here to Dunedin I used to be very homesick, so I didn’t get entangled in any Scottish society. Once I began my Scottish radio present, I started Scottish historical past. About eight years in the past I joined the Dunedin–Edinburgh Sister Metropolis Society, solely to get entangled in serving to to organise St Andrew’s Day … a five-hour celebration of every part Scottish. It’s an important day.”
The Dunedin-Edinburgh relationship is alive in different methods, similar to within the studying room of the Centre for Irish and Scottish Research on the College of Otago.
Throughout my undergraduate days, I used to be privileged to review beneath the tutelage of Prof Liam McIlvanney, Stuart Chair in Scottish Research on the aforementioned centre. He taught me to like and respect Scottish literature, from the gritty crime fiction of Ian Rankin to the beautiful poetry of Kathleen Jamie.
Now the general public can go to the centre to benefit from the Scottish and Irish holdings of the Nationwide Library of New Zealand, together with treasures from the Dunedin Burns Membership and personal collections.
Then there’s Ron’s Scottish radio present, the one stay Scottish broadcast in New Zealand, airing Sunday nights at 8pm on radiodunedin.co.nz and 1305 AM.
Ron’s present is simply one other thread on this tapestry (tartan, maybe) of connection, celebrating Scotland’s musical inheritance whereas deftly weaving historical past, melody and reminiscence into the material of Dunedin’s cultural life.
It has been 51 years since Dunedin and Edinburgh had been formally twinned. It’s solely pure that the character of metropolis partnerships is shifting.
The world at this time is extra digital, extra interconnected and extra cell. Exchanges as soon as performed by delegation are actually mediated by screens; cultural connection more and more flows by artwork, music, analysis and heritage initiatives quite than ancestry alone.
However at coronary heart, this relationship stays the identical. There’s a recognition that identification — Scottishness, Celtic-ness, if you’ll — can journey, evolve and return strengthened.
For Dunedin and Dunedinites, “Scottishness” isn’t dusty nostalgia. Quite, it’s a dwelling, rising factor of civic life, seen in its festivals, establishments, inventive industries and on a regular basis rhythms.
What’s going to the following 51 years maintain for Dunedin and Edinburgh? I can solely speculate, however I’m sure the connection will endure, not merely due to Dunedin’s Scottish heritage, however due to the individuals who care sufficient to nurture it.
• Jean Balchin is an ODT columnist who has began a brand new life in Edinburgh.
