Alison Diamond

Alison Diamond is Archivist for the Argyll papers at Inveraray Castle, and project manager for Tìr Ìseal nan Òran (Tiree: the Low land of song). She has previously managed several large-scale Scottish heritage projects focussed on community engagement with historical records. As Education Officer at National Records of Scotland she created opportunities for schools to learn about the role of archives in understanding history.

Dr John Holliday

Dr John Holliday was Tiree’s doctor for thirty years. He set up the island’s archive and museum, An Iodhlann, and was a founder member of Fèis Thiriodh. He is a Gaelic speaker.

Douglas Roberts

Douglas Roberts is a freelance education consultant with a specialism in theatre and drama. He is a trained teacher with experience in primary and secondary teaching, and teacher training. He was Education Development Officer for Scottish Council on Archives for ten years, creating educational training and resources for the Scottish heritage sector, and Director of the Theatre of Remembrance Project 2017-18, facilitating school theatre performances based on WW1 letters and diaries. Douglas delivers a wide range of professional training, one-to-one tuition, project development. He designed the website you’re currently visiting.

Written In The Landscape

The idea for Tìr Ìseal nan Òran (Tiree: the Low land of song) project developed from conversations about a previous project on Tiree in 2019.

The Written In The Landscape project brought an “archives roadshow” to Tiree in May 2019. An exhibition of original records about Tiree from the Argyll Papers at Inveraray Castle was the basis for a week of informational talks and learning events at An Talla and An Iodhlann. We worked with Julie MacLennan at Tiree Primary School to bring drama workshops and archive handling sessions to the school, where children had the opportunity to explore stories contained in Tiree court papers and historical accounts. On the final evening, at An Talla, senior children from the Primary School performed a short play they had devised during the week with our drama practitioner.

Written In The Landscape was a partnership project between the Duke of Argyll’s archive at Inveraray Castle and the Argyll and Bute Council Archives (now the LiveArgyll Archives) to open up the family archives held by the Council and the Argyll Papers.  

We received really positive feedback from all who engaged in the roadshow events. There was enthusiastic discussion at and after the roadshow about developing a further project involving the artistic use and interpretation of these original historical records about Tiree. In September 2019 we returned for four days on Tiree to talk with teachers at the Primary School, local artists and historians about developing a project proposal.  

Tìr Ìseal nan Òran (Tiree: the Low land of song)

From these discussions John, Douglas and Alison developed the project Tìr Ìseal nan Òran (Tiree: the Low land of song). The project uses James Turnbull’s 18th century map of Tiree as a starting point. A collection of stories from Tiree’s past, all associated with historical documents and places on the map, and spanning history, myth and legend, are the basis of a series of artistic activities. These would include animated film; original music and song; poetry and creative writing; and devised drama. The planned activities would take place over a six month period and are drawn together in a dramatic performance involving students from Tiree Primary and High School.

This performance element of the project would be devised by our theatre education practitioner, in collaboration with the artists and Tiree Primary and High School, over a three-week period. We would offer training in drama skills and collaborate in creating dramatic presentations of the stories

In addition to the public performance we proposed to publish poetry and prose compositions, in English and Gaelic, as a printed booklet; to record music and song and make it available online; to create a touring trail of the locations on Tiree, with a guide booklet containing a map, wording and imagery from the project; to make film, which could also be published as standalone piece(s) of work; and the school expressed a wish to use the project as a starting point for future studies. 

Alongside the public performance, we envisage delivering exhibitions and displays featuring the stories and their related historical records; workshops addressing the use and context of archives, palaeography etc; educational handling sessions for the school and for the community.

We presented the project plan to school staff and local artists, and received enthusiastic responses. By early 2020 we had succeeded in achieving generous funding for the project from a variety of funders and had scheduled delivery between April and October 2020. The impact of Covid 19 however, was to stop the project in its tracks.

In 2022, Scotland’s Year of Stories, the project finally went ahead. Re-planned and expanded, the project started in February with the Artists receiving the set of stories and beginning work on their creative responses. It concluded in July 2022. You can see the work that was created by the project using the ‘Our Creative Work’ link above.