Robert Burns Night Supper
Robert Burns Night Supper
Why Asheville Sister Cities celebrates Burns Night
Asheville and Dunkeld & Birnam held Proclamation Events in autumn 2017 to officially establish their Sister City (Twinning) relationship. Among the various collaborative activities was the launching of Asheville’s first Burns Night event on January 25, 2019. This popular annual celebration has grown rapidly over the seven years to become one of the best attended in this part of the country. Our Burns Night festivities commence with the Piper leading a Tartan Processional to the dining area, the traditional Toast to the Haggis, Burns’ Selkirk Grace, the full Burns Supper, the Immortal Memory Recitation, Fiddle and Piping Tunes, Step Dancers, the Toasts to the Lads and Lassies, concluding with the singing of Auld Lang Syne. During the late afternoon there is Whisky Tasting and a Burns Seminar. And a special feature, unique to Asheville’s Burns Night, has been the Scottish greetings and music on Zoom from our Sister Cities friends in Dunkeld & Birnam.
Robert Burns (1759-1796) Life and Legacy
Robert Burns’ Tours of the Highlands, Stirlingshire & the Borders from the National Library of Scotland
Robert Burns, also known as the Bard of Scotland or the Ploughman Poet, was born in Ayrshire, in the Southwest of Scotland to a poor tenant farmer. He grew up in poverty and hardship leaving its traces in a premature stoop and a weakened constitution. Burns lived in the same century when England and Scotland were joined in union to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain. He witnessed the decline of traditional Scottish culture in the favor of English norms. He devoted the end of his life to preserving this dying culture, by traveling the county to collect traditional poetry and songs to get them published.
A formidable self-taught wordsmith, remarkable poet and a lyricist of genius in both Scots and English, he greatly influenced Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Steinbeck, Salinger, Dylan and Abraham Lincoln having written and published over 500 poems and songs. He was famous for his amours, love of friendships, and his rebellion against orthodox religion and won the hearts of ordinary people, and at the same time, drew the admiration of the aristocracy. Dying at the age of 37, his public life was no more than a decade, yet Robert Burns may be considered as the best-known son of Scotland as his reputation is international. There are statues of Burns all over the world, in places as far afield as North America and New Zealand. His likeness has appeared on bank notes, postage stamps, and soda bottles, and an edition of his poems has even been sent into space. In 2009, Robert Burns narrowly surpassed William Wallace as “The Greatest Scots” of all time by a public poll conducted by Scottish Television.