Events
A global Address to the Haggis: 225 years of the Burns Supper
CRBS Director Professor Pauline Mackay joins the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to discuss Robert Burns's incredible work and life on Burns Night 2026. She also discusses the Burns Supper at 225 years, Scottish Tradition, Global Reinvention project.
Global Burns: Burns and the Environment
Watch again the Queen's Anniversary Prize-winning Centre for Robert Burns Studies Global Burns 2025 as they explore Burns's creative and practical engagement with the environment, as both a writer and an improving farmer.
January 2024: Opening Lines - Tam o' Shanter
BBC Radio 4 Opening Lines: Tam O'Shanter
John Yorke explores Robert Burns’s only long form narrative poem, Tam O’Shanter. He discovers Tam’s wild ride through a stormy Scottish night where witches and warlocks are at play.
The programme was first broadcast on January 27, 2024 and contributers included the Centre for Robert Burns Studies' Professor Kirsteen McCue. The programme is now available on BBC Sounds.
Global Burns: Burns Studies at Glasgow: Past, Present and Future
Watch again the Centre for Robert Burns Studies special online event which took place on 24 January 2024. Global Burns 2024 celebrated the award of the Queens Anniversary Prize to the University of Glasgow in recognition of the range and impact of the projects undertaken at the Centre for Robert Burns Studies, chiefly 'Editing and Curating Robert Burns for the 21st Century'.
January 2024: The Food Programme - Haggis and Hosting: Celebrating Burns Night
BBC Radio 4 The Food Programme: Haggis and Hosting: Celebrating Burns Night
In the dark nights of January, celebrating the work of poet Robert Burns by feasting, toasting and speaking poetry has become a much-loved tradition in Scotland and around the world. Sheila Dillon is joined by a host of guests for Burns Night 2024 and visits the Centre for Robert Burns Studies to hear more about Rabbie Burns himself from Professor Gerard Carruthers. Firstly broadcast on 21 January 2024, it now available below
January 2024: Betwixt The Sheets Podcast: Robert Burns' Sex Life
Ahead of Burns Night on 25 January - Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society is finding out all about Rabbie Burns and his bawdy verse with Pauline Mackay, author of Burns For Every Day Of The Year, and lecturer of Robert Burns Studies at University of Glasgow.
By the time he died aged just 37, Burns had taken the country by storm with his romantic verse and was welcomed into the bosom of Edinburgh high society gentlemen clubs. Another side of Robert Burns' work was his bawdy work, which celebrates sexuality and barbed satire, much of which wasn't properly published until the 1960s due to censorship laws.
Global Burns, Burns and Adam Smith 2023
You can now watch the Centre for Robert Burns Studies special online event which took place in January 2023. The Global Burns event illuminated the ways in which Robert Burns was informed and inspired by the works of Adam Smith, on the tercentenary year of the birth of the Founder of Modern Economics.
The University of Glasgow London Burns Supper 2023
The University of Glasgow Alumni and friends took London's exquisite Caledonian Club by storm in January 2023 to celebrate the life of Rabbie Burns. We caught up with friends old and new, addressed the haggis, heard from the Centre for Robert Burns Stuides speakers Dr Clark McGinn and Dr Pauline Mackay, and of course danced the night away with a knees-up ceilidh.
The Art of the Burns Supper
The Art of the Burns Supper online event in January 2022, marked the end of a two year Centre for Robert Burns Stuides project, researching the history of Burns Suppers and mapping these events in the 21st Century. It also included the unveiling of a specially commissioned piece of artwork by David Mach, which so many of our alumni community helped to create by submitting images of their own Burns events in 2021.
January 2022: Abraham Lincoln, Robert Burns, and the Scottish Connection
In January 2022, Prof Murray Pittock, along with Ian Houston of the Scottish Business Network America, spoke to the White House Historical Association podcast The 1600 Sessions about the Scots influence on the White House.
Jan 2021: Global Burns, The Burns Supper Addressed
2021 marked the 220th anniversary of the first Burns Supper held and, although traditional celebrations may have been restricted due to lockdown, experts from the Centre for Robert Burns Studies explored the long history of celebration. They also considered the poet’s own lifetime conviviality and the lasting impact Burns celebration has had on Scotland and on the world.
Burns Scotland Lecture 22nd January 2021
The Burns Scotland Lecture 2021 was delivered by with Dr David Hopes (Head of Collections and Interiors, NTS). Entitled 'Birth of a Museum: The Burns Monument Trust and the formation of Scotland’s first literary museum (1814-1900)’, David's lecture gives a fascinating insight into the origins of the Alloway site.
Jan 2021: Burns Night Choral Contemplations
Kirsteen McCue and the Glasgow University Chapel Choir celebrated Robert Burns, and explored some of the many fantastic collaborations between CRBS and the choir. Alongside beautiful performances of some of Burns's best-loved songs, the 2021 event included a brand-new arrangement of 'O, were I on Parnassus Hill' by Katy Cooper, Choir Director.
June 2020: Robert Burns at Ellisland
Professor Gerard Carruthers explores the significance of Robert Burns's Ellisland Farm. In this June 2020 talk, Professor Carruthers discusses Burns's life and work during the time he lived at farm (1788-1791).