Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Neil McGuigan

@neilmcguigan.bsky.social

1.2K followers 440 following 67 posts

Historian aka dastardly re-writer of history, chiefly Britain/Ireland, focus on Scotland & n. England pre 1300 | Author of 500-page + award-winning monograph on the Age of Máel Coluim III | Disability parent | https://st-andrews.academia.edu/NeilMcGuigan

st-andrews.academia.edu

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · 29d

Máel Coluim II, 'Canbeg'

Adam Chapman @adamchapman.bsky.social · 29d

Slightly diminish a book: Treasure Islet

Dr Rebecca Warren @drrjwarren.bsky.social · 29d

Slightly diminish a book: Gone with the Breeze.

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Sep 8

Based on an article currently in press I believe published through Apardjón, the Aberdeen Journal for Scandinavian Studies.

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Sep 8

A recent talk I gave to the Scottish Society for Northern Studies on Earl Harald of Orkney and "12th-century Scoto-Orcadian relations" has been put on YouTube. Includes a new theory about the origins of Harald's branch of the Scottish royal dynasty:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIDR...

SSNS Seminar - Scoto Orcadian Relations in the Twelfth century, Dr Neil McGuigan

YouTube video by Scottish Society for Northern Studies

www.youtube.com

1 6 19

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Aug 25

Day conference celebrating Glasgow's 850th anniversary. Celebrating with scholarship, and doubling as a commemoration of the work of Norman Shead. Thursday 4 September 2025 -- 10.00 am- 4:30 pm, City Chambers.

7 11

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Aug 7

Used to have a National Geographic map of the Soviet Union & its ethnic groups on my wall as a kid & developed a peeve when the tv or radio (invariably football-related) referred to something USSR/CIS as 'Russian'. I think I saw the analogy between Russia/USSR and England/UK.

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Aug 7

Did some google booking, exact expression is used in various editions of the the 19th-century Beeton encyclopaedias. It could appear that the 1992 author is either 'influenced' by one of these or we have a very a curious manifestation of the 'library of Babel'!

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Aug 7

Bad copyediting? The 'Baltic' should make the "European" part redundant. If they writing before the Revolution Livonia was the name of a province of the Russian Empire.

1 3

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jul 17

There's a lot of flexibility of course, Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, they all changed in size, they weren't fixed units over long periods of time. But England was built from component units, it's arguably most natural to use them a bit when you want to give people devolution they can buy in to.

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jul 17

People will mostly accept these regions once they are there. The key to is making people feel they belong. The regions with the convoluted bureaucratic names & no history will struggle, there needs to be legitimacy, authority, etc. Hence groups of shires in their high medieval blocks is one idea.

2 1

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jul 17

Not fully serious as a real suggestion, but East Anglia & Wessex surely musts, they are ideal units for devolution in terms of size and historic identity.

1 2

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jul 17

Own suggestion from a few years ago, trying to aim at entities ("Home Counties" aside) as analogous to Scotland & Wales as pos., three "legal nations" of England from the 11thc & 12thc ("Mercian law", "Danish law", "West Saxon law") plus Cornwall, Northumbria & East Anglia.

1 3

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jul 17

Great to see books stores still thriving, though they are perhaps stretching the definition of 'independent'

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jul 16

No problem, hope you are well Darren!

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jul 16

Recently received this exciting new book, I really hope the tourist shops stock it. There aren't many quality books on Gaelic Scotland suitable for this kind of audience from real experts like Coinneach Maclean :
acairbooks.com/books/travel...

Travels in Another Country; A Guide to Gaelic Scotland | Acair Books

Until relatively modern times Scotland was largely a Gaelic-speaking nation. Areas that were described by Doctor Johnson in 1775 as being as remote and as u ...

acairbooks.com

2 10 29

Reposted by Neil McGuigan

North Ages @northages.bsky.social · Jul 11

July 11: Feast of Drostan († early C7th), founder-abbot of the Pictish monastery of Deir (Deer). Several dedications to him in NE Scotland including Episcopal church at Old Deer. The old church at Aberdour, Aberdeenshire, claimed his relics. Also Dec 15. The C10th Book of Deer #medievalsky

The Book of Deer, a pocket gospel-book, lying open.

1 18 57

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jul 1

Thanks. It’s an interesting idea Fiona!

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jul 1

Recently published, myself reviewing Ben Hudson's *Macbeth before Shakespeare*. Behind paywall, but in summary a good read that would have been a much better piece of scholarship had the author engaged significantly with research produced after the 90s:
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Benjamin Hudson, Macbeth before Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. xvii, 293; black-and-white figures. $37.99. ISBN: 978-0-1975-6753-1. | Speculum: Vol 100, No 3

www.journals.uchicago.edu

1 1 6

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jun 27

Enjoy! 😀

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jun 27

Pleased in particular with 'the chapters by McGuigan, Blanchard, and Weikert [were] particular standouts for this reader'. 🙂

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jun 27

Review of *Reigns of Edmund, Eadred and Eadwig*, eds Blanchard and Riedel, incl. my own contribution on 'Revisiting the End of Northern [English] Independence' in the latest issue of @royalstudies.bsky.social :
rsj.winchester.ac.uk/articles/499...

rsj.winchester.ac.uk

2 8

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jun 14

Founders of Poland, 'Pictish Piasts'? 'The male skeletons almost all carry a single, rare group of genetic variants on the Y chromosome...today found mainly in Britain. The closest known match belongs to a Pict buried in eastern Scotland in the 5th or 6th cent.'
www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

Secrets of medieval kings revealed by DNA from 900-year-old skeletons

New DNA evidence unsettles a nation’s founding myth

www.independent.co.uk

1 6

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jun 14

Isabel Bruce queen of Norway

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jun 10

Excellent, I didn't even notice you were in it too, eyeskip I guess!

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jun 9

New publication from myself today:
"The fame and significance of Dunkeld in the tenth and eleventh centuries"
clog.glasgow.ac.uk/ojs/index.ph...

6 21

Neil McGuigan @neilmcguigan.bsky.social · Jun 9

Happy St Columba's day. Today is released a new volume commissioned to mark the 1500th anniversary of the birth the saint. Features greats like Thomas Charles-Edwards, John Carey, Thomas Owen Clancy and Simon Taylor among others. I am also there.
clog.glasgow.ac.uk/ojs/index.ph...

2025: Ì Chaluim Chille: Interdisciplinary Studies on Iona and Columba on the 1500th anniversary of the birth the saint | Foillseachaidhean Rannsachaidh Oilthigh Ghlaschu

clog.glasgow.ac.uk

4 16