Speech given by Joan McAlpine, Project Director of the Robert Burns Ellisland Trust, on 7th January 2025 at the Parliamentary Reception hosted by South of Scotland Enterprise at the Scottish Parliament:

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It is serendipitous that I am here tonight to tell you about an inspiring cultural regeneration project, supported by South of Scotland Enterprise, and based at Ellisland Museum and Farm near Dumfries, the only home ever built by our national poet, Robert Burns.

Ellisland is where Burns wrote around 130 poems and songs, including Auld Lang Syne, the world’s anthem to friendship.  It is a beautiful and inspiring place to work — perhaps even more beautiful and inspiring than the building in which we currently stand, which happens to be my former place of employment.

I was an MSP when this Parliament unanimously passed the South of Scotland Enterprise Bill in June 2019, bringing SOSE into being. During the final debate, I moved a successful amendment calling for culture and heritage to be included in the agency’s remit.

I could not have imagined that almost seven years later I would stand here representing a project so closely aligned with that amendment’s ambition — and one that so clearly demonstrates SOSE’s commitment to culture and heritage as tools for community and economic regeneration.

Ellisland is of exceptional historical significance.  Burns chose it in 1788 for its beautiful riverside setting, which he described as “sweet poetic ground”. It was his first marital home with Jean Armour — a romantic place, and, we think, the best location in Scotland to experience nature through the poet’s eyes.

The site went into trust in 1928. It was reliant on volunteers and small donations. Years of underinvestment took their toll. The buildings are damp and crumbling, and the museum collection — including original Burns manuscripts — is at risk.

When our charity was formed in 2020 to save Ellisland, there were no permanent staff, no capital reserves, and a significant operational deficit. We had to build audiences and income almost from scratch.

We focused on raising Ellisland’s profile in innovative ways — even recreating the farm in the Minecraft computer game. We gained museum accreditation two years ago and created jobs for young people in heritage and tourism.

SOSE has been incredibly supportive throughout. Our first major collaboration was the renovation of a dilapidated building on the site as holiday accommodation. Auld Acquaintance Cottage now offers visitors the unique chance to stay on a farm built by Burns himself.

SOSE’s support also gave us the capacity to submit a successful first-stage application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund. We have commissioned architects to sensitively restore and adapt the farm, and we have launched an international fundraising campaign: Saving the Home of Auld Lang Syne to help deliver the vision.  A recent business case from Biggar Economics showed our plans can create 65 jobs and inject £1.5m a year into the local economy.

We do not need another picturesque ruin in Scotland.  Our trust’s approach is “conservation through use”, generating sustainable commercial income to support the heritage.

Burns would often retreat to write in a small woodland summerhouse known as the Hermitage. We will create a new generation of hermitages to offer accommodation, cultural holidays and artistic retreats — attracting visitors, and income, from all over the world.

The barn built by Burns will be transformed into a Centre for Song, because at Ellisland he devoted much of his energy to music. He wrote John Anderson, My Heart’s in the Highlands, and Bonnie Doon here — as well Jacobite songs like Johnnie Cope, which you will hear tonight.

Burns learned to play the German flute at Ellisland and passed on his love of the instrument to his son, James Glencairn Burns, who later performed his father’s songs. James’s flute was acquired for the Ellisland collection in the 1930s but lay broken and unplayable for more than a century.

We recently had the flute restored to playing condition — and you will hear it tonight. Robyn Stapleton, Claire Mann, and Wendy Stewart, all outstanding musicians from Dumfries and Galloway, will perform songs from the Ellisland songbook. This living musical tradition is as important as the buildings — it is the intangible culture Burns gifted to the world.

The flute is over 200 years old and extremely fragile. It can only be played on rare occasions. Tonight is one of those occasions.  We are delighted that its haunting notes will, for the first time, echo through Scotland’s Parliament.

And I hope I am not speaking out of turn when I say that Robert Burns himself would surely have been delighted by that too.