In Memoriam Rabbie Burns 

Trevor Campbell and Angus Edmonds are arranging an In Memoriam ceremony at the Burns statue in Centenary Park this year. 

The Society held a similar ceremony last year on the Sunday closest to his birth, but to avoid clash with Australia Day weekend (and hopefully avoid the summer storm we experienced last year), we are organizing the event to coincide with the Sunday nearest to the anniversary of Robert Burns’ death (i.e. 21st July in 1796) – Sunday 25th July at mid-day.

The ceremony will last about half and hour or just over.

In moving the commemoration to coincide with Burn’s death, we are ‘returning’ to the earliest practice.

The first ‘Burns Suppers’ were held by Burns’ friends on the anniversary of his death; hence, for example, the main toast is ‘The Immortal Memory’, a toast more suited to commemoration of a man’s death than his birth. I understand that these events began within a year or two of his death. Although they continue to this day as In Memoriam dinners, they have been largely superseded by the Burns’ Supper associated with his birth date, 25th January. The first Burns’ Supper was held in 1802 on 29th January by the Greenock Burns Club, otherwise known as The Mother Club (of all later Burns Clubs). The members had wrongly assumed that Burns was born on 29th January. However, when the club members discovered from Ayr parish records that he was born on 25th January, from 1803 onwards the Burns’ Supper has been held on or near to 25th January.

We do not know why the change was made from commemoration of his death to commemoration of his birth, but I assume it was because in Scotland in July the days are long, with virtually no evening time as it is light until almost ten o’clock. On the other hand, in January the days are short with darkness falling not much after four o’clock in the afternoon. The festivities of a Burns’ Supper are much better suited to the long winter evenings in Scotland. Also, in rural Scotland particularly, work continued well into the evening hours to take advantage of the natural light. In other words, it suited the Scots better to have their celebration of Burns in the winter rather than the summer.

As it happens, we likewise feel that a winter day suits us more than a summer one. We are likely to have better weather, with more sunshine, less humidity, and less chance of being soaked to the skin (as we were last year); and, as noted above, we avoid a clash with Australia Day. We invite all who share our regard for Scotland’s National Bard to join with us on

Sunday 25 July
At the Burns’ Statue Centenary Park
Ann Street
Mid-day Sunday 25 July 2010