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Joan McAlpine
What a week it has been in New York for NYC Tartan Week. Today, we join tens of thousands in the Tartan Day Parade, 6Th Avenue, New York, proudly carrying the banner asking Americans to help us save the home of Auld Lang Syne and wearing Burns Check from The Scotland Shop
We’ve been here for three days and have already done so much to raise awareness of the race to save the Robert Burns Ellisland Museum and Farm. The trip was financed by our grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund Scotland.
From Central Park (where the Burns family flute caused quite a stir!) to the American-Scottish Foundation supper club, St Andrews Society of The State of New York reception, the VisitScotland Diaspora Breakfast, and Caledonian Society ceilidh with Whisky Kiss— we’ve spoken to hundreds of people about Ellisland and the plans to restore it as a truly special international destination.
It has been wonderful to see just how much affection there is here for Burns and his music — especially in the city that has made Auld Lang Syne part of its own story. The trio of musicians in our party, Robyn Stapleton, Claire Mann, and Becky Hill, have been outstanding, bringing the songs written at Ellisland to life with such warmth and authenticity, alongside that remarkable 200-year-old Burns family flute. They have been fantastic ambassadors, speaking to Americans besides myself and my colleague Katie MacDonald
The presence of Sam Heughan as grand marshal of the parade has lent a distinctively Jacobite theme – and as Burns wrote, Johnnie Cope, White Cockade and Jacobites by Name at Ellisland that suited us perfectly, with the trio moving some to tears with their Jacobite set.
There is real interest in what we are trying to do — not just to preserve Ellisland, but to create something new: a place where people from around the world can come, stay, and experience the landscape that inspired Burns’s greatest work.
And today, we look forward to marching in the Tartan Day Parade — a wonderful celebration of Scottish culture here in New York.
If you’d like to find out more about the campaign, go to: www.ellislandfarm.co.uk