BBC Radio Shetland

The Declaration of Arbroath

Factual: History

The Declaration

Billy Kay presents a major series on one of the most iconic moments in Scottish history.

For the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath, Billy Kay presents a major series on one of the most iconic moments in Scottish and world history.

The Declaration of Arbroath: The Abbey of Arbroath

The Abbey of Arbroath

BBC Radio Scotland - The Declaration of Arbroath, The Abbey of Arbroath

Billy Kay celebrates the Declaration of Arbroath and examines its legacy today.

Billy Kay celebrates the history of the Declaration of Arbroath and discusses its status and legacy today.

In the final programme Billy looks  at the contemporary relevance of the Declaration and explores  its growing influence through the rise of modern Scottish nationalism in the late 20th  and early 21st century.  We hear a BBC archive clip of a remarkable Oxford Union debate in 1964 when Hugh MacDiarmid shared a platform with Malcolm X! There MacDiarmid quotes the famous passage about the Scots from the Declaration  “It is not for glory or riches or honours that we fight,  but only for liberty, which no good man will consent to lose but with his life” but then concludes that “my people have done little but betray that ever since!” 
One of the reasons for its increasing recognition was the availability of facsimile copies. The Burns Federation e.g. presented an engraving, text and translation of it to every secondary school and teachers training college in 1949, while  the Scottish Records Office published a  beautiful facsimile of it  for the 650th anniversary in 1970.  It was now conspicuous and instantly recognisable, and we will hear a passage read by the author, from one of Alexander McCall Smith’s Scotland Street novels where his characters discuss the Declaration hung on the wall of an Edinburgh coffee shop. 
We will also hear from generations of Arbroath people about what the Abbey, the Declaration and the town’s historic pageant celebrating  the Declaration means to them and their community. All agree with Dr Nicki Scott from Historic Environment Scotland  and Billy that the Abbey is imbued with an atmosphere that echoes the importance of what was created here 700 years ago.

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The Declaration of Arbroath

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