Search results for ""birlinn""

On the brink of the First World War, Scotland was regarded throughout the British Isles as 'the workshop of the Empire'. Not only were Clyde-built ships known the world over, Scotland produced half of Britain's total production of railway equipment, and the cotton and jute industries flourished in Paisley and Dundee. In addition, Scots were a hugely important source of manpower for the colonies. Yet after the war, Scotland became an industrial and financial backwater. Emigration increased as morale slumped in the face of economic stagnation and decline. The country had paid a disproportionately high price in casualties, a result of huge numbers of volunteers and the use of Scottish battalions as shock troops in the fighting on the Western Front and Gallipoli - young men whom the novelist Ian Hay called 'the vanished generation'. In this book, Trevor Royle provides the first full account of how the war changed Scotland irrevocably by exploring a wide range of themes - the overwhelming response to the call for volunteers; the performance of Scottish military formations in 1915 and 1916; the militarization of the Scottish homeland; the resistance to war in Glasgow and the west of Scotland; and the boom in the heavy industries and the strengthening of women's role in society following on from wartime employment.

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Mull and Iona are two of the most visited islands in Scotland, and have played a central role in the history of the country. As the cradle of Christianity in Scotland, Iona has been a place of pilgrimage for almost 1,500 years and was a beacon of intellectual light during the Dark Ages, when magnificent works such as the Book of Kells were crafted by the monks of the abbey founded by St Columba. This book provides a full and engaging history of the islands from the time of their earliest human inhabitants to the present day. The gazetteer lists all the places of interest from all periods in the islands’ history, from the world-wide renowned churches, crosses and grave slabs on Iona and the magnificent restored Duart Castle on Mull, seat of the clan Maclean, to the planned village of Dervaig, the townships in the Ross of Mull and Ardmeanach which were cleared during the nineteenth century and the mausoleum of Lachlan MacQuarrie, the much esteemed 18th-century Governor of New South Wales.

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Opened in 1980, the West Highland Way was Scotland’s first Long Distance Route and remains the most popular, with more than 15,000 walkers tackling it each year. It runs from Milngavie, on the outskirts of Glasgow, to Fort William. The 152km route passes along the east of Loch Lomond, the largest expanse of fresh water in Britain, and across Rannoch Moor, Scotland’s grandest wilderness, through some of the finest scenery of mountain and stream, woodland and moorland, that Scotland has to offer. This eleventh edition of the Official Guide has been fully revised and updated to include new information and photography and a new full-colour folding map prepared for this edition by Nicolson Maps, all packaged in a weatherproof plastic wallet.

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This 100k (60 mile) walk was opened in 1996 and has rapidly increased in popularity, with thousands of walkers walking all or parts of it every year. Visiting a number of places closely associated with St Cuthbert’s life, the journey is full of historical interest and natural beauty. It can be tackled in its entirety, or sections can be walked separately, making an ideal day or weekend outing. Today’s pilgrims travel from Melrose in the Scottish Borders to the Holy Island causeway at Beal. In the right conditions, the path across the sand here makes a superb finale to the walk. This completely revised edition of the Official Guide adds an entirely new full-colour folding map, prepared by leading Scottish cartographer Nicolson Maps for this edition, and packaged with the Guide in a weatherproof wallet. It is illustrated in full colour with photographs throughout and new maps (also by Nicolson Maps) at the opening of each section. Full of information about the historical and natural features of the route, the Guide also covers appropriate equipment for walkers, way-marking, car parking, accommodation and the Country Code. After the walk, the Guide makes a wonderful souvenir of one of Britain’s most evocative long-distance ways.

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Tir a'Mhurain is a collection of photographs that reflects the impressions gathered by Paul Strand and his wife Hazel during their 3-month visit to the Hebrides in 1945. Juxtaposing people and landscape, Strand's beautifully sequenced photographs depict the perfect complicity he saw between nature and habitation in their wild terrain. Whether it is a view of the rocks and the sea or a grinning shepherd boy; scuddling clouds hanging over seaside house or the wrinkled face of an old lady framed by a knitted shawl, Strand's images transcend the ephemeral. This extended portrait captures the essence and complexity of a singular place. This is a true masterpiece of photography.

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This sticker atlas is a stimulating and fun way to introduce children to the various regions of Scotland and introduce the immense variety of the country’s landscape, flora and fauna, and places of cultural significance. Ben Blathwayt is renowned for his beautiful and detailed illustrative work, which is ideal for this medium.

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The Highland Clearances stands out as one of the most emotive chapters in the history of Scotland. This book traces the origins of the Clearances from the eighteenth century to their culmination in the crofting legislation of the 1880s. In considering both the terrible suffering of the Highland people as well as the stark choices that faced landowners during a period of rapid economic change, it shows how the Clearances were one of many 'attempted' solutions to the problem of how to maintain a population on marginal and infertile land, and were, in fact, part of a wider European movement of rural depopulation. In drawing attention away from the mythology to the hard facts of what actually happened, The Highland Clearances offers a balanced analysis of events which created a terrible scar on the Highland and Gaelic imagination.

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Mary Contini grew up in East Lothian on top of her family's Italian Cafe. She is the best-selling author of numerous books about Italian life and cooking, including 'Dear Francesca', 'Dear Olivia', 'Valvona & Crolla: A Year at an Italian Table'. She is a Director of Valvona & Crolla, the renowned Edinburgh restaurant, delicatessen and cookery school. Bob Dewar was first published nationally when he was sixteen, and his work has appeared in numerous book and magazines regularly since then. He has had exhibitions in Edinburgh and Italy, and for fifteen years did political and social commentary for 'The Scotsman'.

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Jim is ready to take part in the rally. Follow him as he skids round corners, speeds through the forest and races towards the finishing line.Benedict Blathwayt's award-winning illustrations are full of detail which are guaranteed to stimulate the interest of very young children (ages 0-5) and help develop their powers of observation.

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'A gripping high-octane masterpiece' – Andrew Child To make the perfect Spanish whodunnit cocktail, take one dead gangster, mix in six shifty expats, add one ruthless baddie and garnish with a suspicious police officer . . . Daniella Coulstoun has recently moved to the Costa Blanca. When the dead body of a prominent London gangster is discovered in the cellar of her bar she quickly becomes the number one suspect. With the police closing in, the local expats turning on her and a psychotic rival to the dead gangster in the background, Daniella knows she needs to nail the real killer, and fast.

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Gillian Galbraith was an advocate specialising in medical negligence cases and was the legal correspondent for the Scottish Farmer magazine. She has also written on legal matters for The Times. Now a full-time writer of fiction, Gillian lives with her husband, young daughter and assorted animals and bees near Kinross.

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Malachy Tallack has written for the New Statesman, the Guardian, the Scottish Review of Books, Caught By the River and many other publications, online and in print. He won a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust in 2014, and the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2015. He is from Shetland, and currently lives in Glasgow.

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Shirley McKay was born in Tynemouth but now lives with her family in Fife. At the age of fifteen she won the Young Observer playwriting competition, her play being performed at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs. She went on to study English and Linguistics at the University of St Andrews before attending Durham University for postgraduate study in Romantic and Seventeenth-Century prose. She was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger. Shirley works as a freelance proofreader.

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Alexander McCall Smithis the author of the highly successfulNo. 1 Ladies' Detective Agencyseries, which has sold over twenty-five million copies. Since then he has devoted his time to the writing of fiction and has seen his various series of books translated into over forty-six languages and become bestsellers throughout the world. These include the44 Scotland Streetnovels, first published as a serial novel in theScotsman, theIsabel Dalhousienovels, theVon Igelfeldseries and theCorduroy Mansionsnovels.

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This notebook features a beautiful cover illustration by acclaimed nature artist Jane Smith. It contains 176 pages of lightly lined paper, head-and-tail bans, a ribbon marker and band to keep it securely fastened.

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This notebook features a beautiful cover illustration by acclaimed nature artist Jane Smith. It contains 176 pages of lightly lined paper, head-and-tail bans, a ribbon marker and band to keep it securely fastened.

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This notebook features a beautiful cover illustration by acclaimed nature artist Jane Smith. It contains 176 pages of lightly lined paper, head-and-tail bans, a ribbon marker and band to keep it securely fastened.

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Bringing together six short stories – two of which are previously unpublished – One Last Dram Before Midnight is the perfect Christmas gift for fans of Denzil Meyrick. These tales take us from Jim Daley’s early days pounding the beat in Glasgow as a young constable to a light-hearted whisky smuggling romp involving Hamish and some ghostly pipers. Includes four previously eBook exclusive stories: 'Single End', 'Two One Three', 'Dalintober Moon' and 'Empty Nets and Promises'.

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LONGLISTED FOR THE MCILVANNEY PRIZE 2019 When reporter Rebecca Connolly is told of Roddie Drummond’s return to the island of Stoirm she senses a story. Fifteen years before he was charged with the murder of his lover, Mhairi. When he was found Not Proven, Roddie left the island and no one, apart from his sister, knew where he was or what he was doing. Now he has returned for his mother’s funeral – and it will spark an explosion of hatred, bitterness and violence. Defying her editor's wishes, Rebecca joins forces with local photographer Chazz Wymark to dig into the secrets surrounding Mhairi's death, and her mysterious last words of Thunder Bay, the secluded spot on the west coast of the island where, according to local lore, the souls of the dead set off into the after life. When another murder takes place, and the severe weather that gives the island its name hits, she is ideally placed to uncover the truth about what happened that night fifteen years before.

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