A programme of events to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Paisley’s Weaver’s poet Robert Tannahill has been announced. 

Robert Tannahill was born on June 3 1774 and the charity OneRen has announced a range of events that will mark the poet’s legacy.

These events will also highlight the ongoing need to provide support for men’s mental health as Tannahill is assumed to have died by suicide in 1810.

The majority of Tannahill’s poetry was created in the early 1800s when he partnered with composer Robert Archibald Smith, who set some of his words to music.

 

Glasgow Times:

Most notably, the pair worked together on The Braes of Balquhidder, which became the basis of the ballad Wild Mountain Thyme.

OneRen’s first event is a free evening of song and verse at Paisley Central Library on June 3 and will include a new poem from Tannahill Makar Shaun Moore, live music, and a Q&A session with members of the Tannahill McDonald Club and guest speakers.

On June 4 the Paisley Central Library will host the Paisley Weaver Poet Robert Tannahill Lecture with Professor Fred Freeman, which will explore Tannahills’ body of anti-sectarian, abolitionist, and anti-war songs and poems accompanied by musical illustrations.

The lecture will coincide with the release of the fifth CD in Professor Fred Freedman’s internationally acclaimed Complete Tannahill Songs and will be available for purchase at the event.

A dedicated display to Tannahill’s legacy is also being planned for the Paisley Museum once it has gone through its £45 million refurbishment.

Professor Gerard Carruthers FRSE said: “Robert Tannahill is one of Scotland’s greatest songwriters.

“Inspired by Burns certainly, he is a great lyricist of nature in his own right during the early nineteenth century Romantic period, and his lyrics and tunes resound around the world down to the present day.

“There is so much more still to discover and present too about the Paisley poets and songwriters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,” he added.

OneRen is also continuing their annual support to the No Substitute for Life football tournament, to be held in Ferguslie on July 13.

The tournament was created to celebrate the memory of those lost to suicide, while also promoting awareness and understanding of suicide and improving mental health and wellbeing.

This year the tournament will incorporate work from Shaun Moore.

A further performance is also being planned to mark Doors Open Day on September 7 to 8, to showcase the proximity of Paisley Town Hall to Tannahill’s statue, which was paid for by public subscription in his memory.

Additionally, it will highlight that on the centenary celebrations of his birth 15,000 people walked to Paisley’s Gleniffer Braes to listen to his music, symbolising Tannahill’s status as a great of Scottish cultural heritage.