Happy St. Paddy's Day 2011!

Have a grand St Patrick's Day out there any of you Irish who might be reading! Even if you're not Irish, remember that St. Patrick was actually Scottish!

Next year, you can wear one of my lovely t-shirts from my online store, History Buffs Unlimited!

I also suggest you treat yourself this St Patrick's Day and buy The High King's new album "Memory Lane". It's very good, and I suggest it highly!

Here's a couple other Irish songs for you to enjoy in the meantime:

St Patrick was a Gentleman

And one of my favorites at the moment:

Highland Paddy (It's about the Irish who had been living in Scotland and went back over to Ireland to fight for their own people)

Share your favorite Irish song with me this week! Drop me a comment or email and let me know!

Erin Go Bragth Everyone!

Slainte, Hazel

Clan Graham

Well, I said I would try to write more than I did last month and things just keep preventing me (mostly myself!) I've been working on too many things, and I was not home all weekend, so it builds up after a while. However, today I am going to tell you about the Clan Graham.

Whenever there was a battle to be fought for the good of Scotland, you could find a Graham there. Sir John Graham who fought with Wallace, James Graham the Great Marquis of Montrose and his descendent, John Graham known as Bonnie Dundee. They were fearfully loyal, would fight to the death as many of them did, and would never give Scotland up to tyranny.

The Grahams actually came from Norman stock like the Bruces, and the first Graham in Scotland was Sir William de Graham. The names derives from Grantham in Lincolnshire. Sir William de Graham accompinied David I on his way to claim the Scottish crown and also witnessed the charter founding the Abbey of Holyrood in 1128. His line of Grahams were that of Montrose. Those who have always fought for the king.

Tha Grahams took no part in the Jacobite troubles of '45 however, but James Graham 3rd Duke of Montrose pleaded with parliament to repeal the Disarming Act; the law that forbid the Highlanders to wear their tartan.

The Graham's badge shows a falcon Proper killing a stork Argent. For those of you who do not know heraldry, you can see a picture of it here as well as other information regarding Clan Graham. The clan motto is Ne Oublie. It's French, likely something from Sir William being a Norman, and means "Do not Forget". This was also the Graham's war-cry when going into battle.

The clan plant badge is the spurge-laurel, I couldn't find a picture of that, but I'm sure you can look it up. The Graham tartan, as registered in the Vestiarium Scoticum is a green tartan with black plaid stripes. A very simple tartan by comparison to others.

The Chief of Clan Graham is known in the Gaelic as An Greumach Mor or The Great Graham. The Chief resides at Buchanan Castle now, though in the old days, he lived in Mugdock. However, most of them owed several different places. Montrose did for example.

I will promise to at least be back next week to tell about some famous Grahams. If you think of any famous Grahams would would like to know more about, please let me know and I will do my best!

Slainte, Hazel

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Gallant Grahams

Well, I apologize for the not very epic petering out of the MacGregor month. That's what you're just going to get when I'm writing! ;-) But I did a lot of Rob Roy last year, so if you want to read about the most famous MacGregor, look back to some of my earlier posts.

This month, however (and I will try to write a bit more this time) I am going to focus on Clan Graham. Right now I am reading Nigel Tranter's amazing novels on James Graham, the first Marquis of Montrose and I wanted to share a little bit of his story with everyone, so I decided to do a Graham month. We will also be talking about the many John Grahams and how they turned the tide at many battles. (I will also try to tell you a good way to keep them strait!)

The next post, I will write a little of quick information about the clan itself. If you have any questions or comments, are from Clan Graham or you want to know about a particular Graham, just let me know, and I will do my best!

Slainte, Hazel

History Buffs Unlimited! Open for Business!

I finally started a store on CafePress.com, and I'd love you all to come and take a look at it! I am still adding things, and will be for as long as I can come up with them, but right now I have a good selection of Scottish things and other things pertaining to everything historical! My shop is called History Buffs Unlimited and it's mainly a place to get fun novelty t-shirts and items for history buffs. I also have a section for literature as well for those of you who love the classic authors! Please go and take a look, even if you are just window shopping! Drop me a comment here to tell me what you think. The store itself is lacking but I will get to that later. Let me know if you have any suggestions, questions or anything particular you might be looking for! I'd love to hear your ideas! Here's the link: History Buffs Unlimited (You can also find it in the link bar to the left where you can check out my cousin's store on Zazzle as well!)

Have fun! And again, please let me know what you think! I'd like some feedback!

Slainte, Hazel

Kenneth mac Alpin

Well, I know I said I would be talking about the Macgregors this month, but frankly, I have been busy with so many other things that I have had very little time for post writing or simply writing in general. But since I have been feeling guilty, I plan to post a few more things in the last couple weeks of February.

So today, we are going to talk about Kenneth mac Alpin. As I said in my previous post, he was the first of the MacGregor race. He lived in 800AD in Scotland, during the time the vikings were raiding the country. Scotland was kind of in a continuos state of Civil War, the Scots and Picts never having really liked each other very much. But they began to realize that in order to fight off the enemy vikings, they were going to have to get together.

This was helped along by Kenneth mac Alpin. He was the first joint king between the Scots of Dalriada and the Picts. His father was a Scot and his mother was a Pict so that might have had something to do with it. He was created King of Dalriada in 840 and was known as Kenneth I. When the Pictish royal family was crushed by the viking invasions, he became king of the Picts as well, thus bringing the two nations together. Well, there was this one folk tale that says he actually did away with them himself, but we have no idea if that's true or not!

However, he obviously brought the two together to make Scotland stronger and able to withstand the vikings. Kenneth mac Alpin was also the one the establish the royal seat at Scone which from that day on would be where the Scottish kings were crowned. Scone became his capital and he ruled the people from there. He was buried on the island of Iona where most of Scotland's early kings were entombed.

So he brought together the Scots of Dalriada and the Picts of Pictland and eventually, they became a whole nation, that mac Alpin named Alba, the old Gaelic name for Scotland. So the MacGregors are obviously fiercely proud of being related to this man as he was the one who really created the Scotland we know today.

I will try to be back later as always. Please let me know if there is anything in particular you want to know about the MacGregors, or a famous MacGregor you with me to do a small bio on. Don't be afraid to tell me!

Slainte, Hazel

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The Royal Race

This month is the first month that I will be giving a clan the center stage. For February, we have the MacGregors!

Last year, I talked a lot about Rob Roy in February in honor of his birthday, but this year, I decided to honor his whole clan. So we are going to be talking a little bit about the history of Clan MacGregor and some of the famous men and woman (besides Rob) and at the end, I will give you a list of research books and novels that you can enjoy for further research.

Today, I am going to introduce their clan. The motto of Clan MacGregor is: S Rioghal Mo Dhream which means "Royal is my Race". From Gaelic though, it actually translates as "My Blood is Royal, but that's pretty much the same thing. You may be wondering about that because the Stuarts are the traditional royal family of Scotland, but the MacGregors can tie their lines way back to Kenneth MacAlpin. (For those of you reading Magnusson, that was chapter three) Their plant badge is the Scots Pine which they would stick in their bonnets to tell what clan they were from before clan tartans came into being. Here's a link to a site that will show you pictures of the arms and plant badge of the MacGregors.

That's all I'm going to talk about today, but I will be back later to talk a little bit about the history of the MacGregor clan!

Slainte, Hazel

Celebrations

So, as many of you know, today is Robert Burns birthday, and most of you will probably be having some kind of Burn's night celebration later this evening. What's also exciting, is that this is the anniversary of Bonnets and Broadswords. Can you believe I have been on here for a whole year? I think it's amazing, and I just want you all to know how much I have enjoyed writing and meeting new people who love Scotland and it's history through doing it. So for all my readers, thank you very much!

This next year, I am still going to be focusing on Scotland's history, but since I have already done most of the "this day in history" posts, I will be thinking of something else to do. I wanted to have months where I focused on a particular clan and wrote about their personal history and some of the great men and women of that name. For anyone interested in Robert the Bruce, you can expect a lot on him this June. This year, in preparation for Bannockburn, I wanted to focus on another of Scotland's greatest heros as I did with Wallace last year. So please, if you have any ideas about things you may want to hear about, any questions about history, just drop me a comment or an email at sirwilliamssquire@gmail.com And if you want to know about a particular clan, just tell me in advance and I will fit them in sometime this year.

And so, back to Burns, I regret to say that, due to way too much going on this weekend, I was unable to prepare anything for a Burns supper. I might throw together some stovies tonight, but my Burns Night will probably be reduced to sitting on the couch reading his poetry. But next year, perhaps I can gather the makings for a proper Burns Night.

As for Burns and his poetry, here are some links to two of my favorite Burns songs. Enjoy and have a good Burns Night!

A Man's a Man

Caledonia Not the song you're thinking, but one of my absolute favorite Burns songs!

Slainte, Hazel