Introduction

Robert Burns, Scotland's self-proclaimed national bard, was mourned, and his birth and life celebrated, at suppers or ‘festivals’ held on or around 25 January (his birthday) from the start of the nineteenth century. Like the first, held in 1801 at Alloway, near Ayr, Burns's birthplace (but on 21 July, the fifth anniversary of his death), most took place in Scotland, although by no means exclusively, and over time a pattern was established whereby Burns's birthday was celebrated annually, and internationally. On 25 January 1859, the centenary of Burns's birth, there was hardly a town, village or hamlet in Lowland Scotland where some kind of celebration marking the occasion was not organized. The project was orchestrated by Burns enthusiasts in Glasgow in 1858 who sent invitations to participate in it around the globe. One contemporary counted 676 local festivals in Scotland alone. There were also dinners, soirees, lectures, exhibitions and concerts in many other parts of the world where Burns's works were read – participants often interconnected by means of the new electric telegraph. Ulster, with its strong social, economic, religious, cultural and linguistic ties with south-west Scotland, was one of these places, although the orchestrated campaign of celebration reached out to the farthest extremities of the British Empire as well as the United States. That the nineteenth century was the heyday throughout Europe of the Romantic cult of the national hero, and of national milestones, jubilees and anniversaries, serves as a warning against exaggerating the significance of the outpouring of public enthusiasm for Robert Burns.