Highlight Talks
On selected days throughout the year the team at Robert Burns Birthplace Museum and volunteers hold a Highlight Talk exploring the life and works of Robert Burns!
About Highlight Talks
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21st January 2026 4th February 2026 18th February 2026 plus 10 more date(s), see below for more info |
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| Doors 2.15pm / 2.30pm - 3.30pm | |
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Robert Burns Birthplace Museum Murdochs Loan Alloway, Ayr KA7 4PQ |
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Free but booking required Find Tickets |
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| Call 01292443700 | |
| Visit the event website here |
Wednesday 7th January: Freedom and Whisky Gang Taegither
Macon McCormack, PhD in economic and social history of the Scotch Whisky industry, Freedom and Whisky Gang Taegither: Changes to Scotch Drink documented in the works of Robert Burns.
Macon McCormack, historian, will speak on the political, economic, and social tensions that transformed whisky in eighteenth-century Scotland, discussing how the writing of Robert Burns reflected this transformation. This highlight talk explores what is known about Scotch whisky production and consumption in Scotland during Burns' lifetime, including the roles of women in distilling and inn-keeping, and highlights Burns' omissions regarding illicit activity in his career as an exciseman. This tumultuous period in history shaped Scotch whisky, and like the poetry of Burns, was carried with the diaspora across the world to become a global commodity which radiates the heritage of Scotland with each dram.
Wednesday 21st January: Song Of The Stag - Folklore And Fiction
Rebecca Brown, co-founder of the charity Folklore Scotland, brings us Song Of The Stag - Folklore And Fiction, a journey through the ways that storytelling can make an impact on community, history and even politics.
Wednesday 4th February: A PASSION FOR LIVING
Tamara Fulcher, Communications and Marketing Lead Officer, Galloway and South Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere, arrests our attention with A Passion for Living: The Galloway & Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere.
Wednesday 18th February: ANDREW CARNEGIE:FROM RAGS TO RICHES
Dave Dewar, teacher and playwright on Andrew Carnegie: From Rags To Riches. Andrew Carnegie left Dunfermline aged 12 with his family to emigrate to America. By age 35 he was a millionaire, by 65 he was the richest man on the planet. He then gave it all away.
Wednesday 25th February: Allan vs Poe: Between Homes and Nations
This illustrated talk at the Burns Birthplace Museum will be presented by Enrica Jang, Executive Director at The Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum in Baltimore, Maryland (USA), in collaboration with POEtic Justice of Ayrshire. POEtic Justice will share the Allan family’s history in Scotland and place Poe’s upbringing within its original cultural context. Together, the presenters trace the transatlantic ties that shaped Poe’s early life and literary imagination.
Like Robert Burns, Poe emerged from modest and uncertain circumstances and wrote with emotional intensity and fierce independence. Both writers transformed personal hardship into lasting literary legacy resonant for their respective nations far beyond their lifetimes.The program will explore Poe’s Scottish connections, his Baltimore family origins, and the broader nineteenth-century world of migration, commerce, and cultural exchange that shaped his work. A discussion and audience Q&A will follow.
Enrica Jang is Executive Director at Poe Baltimore, stewarding The Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum and producing the International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards. She launched both the festival—now in its eighth year—and the Saturday ‘Visiter’ Awards, an international competition for creative works inspired by Poe, judged by representatives from Poe sites in Richmond, the Bronx, and Baltimore. She is currently leading the expansion of Poe House, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a new visitor center & museum at the historic site.
Wednesday 4th March: PERSPECTIVES OF THE HIGHLANDS
Niamh Gilfillan, Learning Officer at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, in Perspectives of the Highlands of Scotland in the 18th and 19th Centuries considers sources such as travel journals (including those of Robert Burns) and Gaelic poetry from the 18th and 19th centuries to examine the various understandings of one of the most controversial geographical and cultural landscapes in the British Isles.
Wednesday 18th March: HUGH MILLER: THE DAVID ATTENBOROUGH OF HIS DAY
James Ryan, the National Trust for Scotland's "resident fossil hunter" at Hugh Miller's Birthplace Cottage and Museum in Cromarty - Hugh Miller: The David Attenborough of his Day. Fossil hunter, folklorist, man of faith, stonemason, geologist, editor, writer and social justice campaigner – Hugh Miller was one of the great Scots of the 19th century and a champion of citizen science. Now as we celebrate the 185th anniversary of his most famous book "The Old Red Sandstone", join James as he uncovers the life and legacy of this brilliant man.
Wednesday 1st April: GREEN INITIATIVES AT THE ROBERT BURNS BIRTHPLACE MUSEUM
Chris Waddell, Learning Manager at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum - ‘Ilk Cowslip cup shall kep a tear’ - Green initiatives at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum. Inspiration, in part, from Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson by Robert Burns.
Wednesday 15th April: Scotland Beneath the Surface
Author L Bruce Keith, retired Chartered Surveyor and Environmentalist - Scotland Beneath The Surface: a subterranean odyssey exploring the natural and man-made heritage under our feet. Based on his book of the same title.
Wednesday 29th April: ON ALASDAIR mac MHAIGHSTIR ALASDAIR
Peter MacKay/Pàdraig MacAoidh poet, senior lecturer (University of St. Andrews), broadcaster and, since 2024, Scotland's Makar, considers, as a Scottish poet, not just a Gaelic one, Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair. The greatest Gaelic poet of the 18th century, Gaelic tutor to Bonnie Prince Charlie, his Jacobite vehemence, and sexual explicitness (exceeding that, for some 19th century critics, of Burns or even Rochester), which meant that his work was subjected to political and moral censure in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Wednesday 13th May: GAELIC IN CARRICK
Dr Aonghas MacCoinnich, Senior Lecturer, University of Glasgow - Evidence for Gaelic in Carrick and How It Died Out . Carrick (roughly South Ayrshire) is one of the three, old divisions of Ayrshire - Cunninghame, Kyle and Carrick.
Wednesday 27th May: CHILDREN AND LANGUAGE CHANGE
Jennifer Smith, Professor of Sociolinguistics at Glasgow University: From imitators to innovators: children and language change.
Language is uniquely human. We are the only species that has the ability to talk about the weather, what we will eat for dinner tonight, why we did not like the film we saw at the weekend. Language is also constantly changing - a granny sounds very different to a grandchild - and children are at the centre in driving language change. How exactly does this happen?
In this talk I examine the speech of children from the north-east of Scotland in the key years of language development: first in preschool (aged 3-4) with their caregivers, and then in preadolescence (12-13) with their peers. In doing so, we can track the dynamics of language change as the children move from imitation in the caregiver-dominated speech of the home to innovation in the community-dominated speech of the wider world.
Wednesday 10th June: THE BURNS SUPPER 1801-2026
Hugh Farrell, Robert Burns Birthplace Museum Volunteer, presents The Burns Supper 1801 to 2026. A look at the Suppers held in Burns Cottage 1801 - 1809 and 2016 -2026. Hugh's talk will reference his experiences of participating in and organising these events over the 6 decades from 1972 - 2025.
Wednesday 24th June: BURNS AND BLACK LIVES
Clark McGinn, author and honorary research fellow, Centre for Robert Burns Studies, in ‘Burns and Black Lives’ (based on his book of the same title), through meticulous research and a compelling narrative, examines Burns’ connections to the transatlantic slave trade, highlighting the paradoxes and moral conflicts during the poet’s time. He does not shy away from uncomfortable truths, presenting a nuanced portrait that challenges readers to reconcile Burns’ literary genius with the ethical ambiguities of his time.
Booking for Highlight Talks at Robert Burns Birthplace Museum is recommended to guarantee entry. Due to limited capacity in the venue, any available seats will be allocated to attendees who have not booked on a first come, first served basis, meaning that entry cannot be guaranteed without booking.
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Additional Dates: 04 February 2026, 18 February 2026, 25 February 2026, 04 March 2026, 18 March 2026, 01 April 2026, 15 April 2026, 29 April 2026, 13 May 2026, 27 May 2026, 10 June 2026, 24 June 2026
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