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Exile and Return: Contexts and Comparisons1

Exil et retour : contextes et comparaisons
David Leishman, Steve Murdoch, Siobhan Talbott et John Young
p. 5-18

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  • 1 The editors would like to express their gratitude to a number of people and groups who have helped (...)
  • 2 Selected verses (1, 2, 3, 8, 9) from George Abel, “The Ootlin” from the collection Wylins fae my Wa (...)

THE OOTLIN2

I’m back to Starnyfinnan efter fifety years awa,
An’ hardly meet a livin’ sowl wi’ whom I essed to
jaw;
I fin’ mysel’ an ootlin I’ the pairis’ that wis hame;
I coontit upo’ cheenges here, but naething noo’s
the same.

The hoosies o’ the clachan, ‘at I left in claes o’
thack,
They’re spick an’ span wi’ cans an’ sclaits upo’
their heid an’ back;
Nae doot, it’s richt an’ up to date; but, man, I
miss the breem,
An’ this is nae the clachan o’ my homesick, nichtly
dream.

The kirks are nae the same to me; the ministers
are new;
I dinna see sae mony fowk on Sawbath i’ the pew;
The dominie is nae like fat I haed fin at the
skweel;
The doctor’s unco wise-like, but I dinna ken the
chiel.

Ye bed me stop my chirmin, for ye say that it’s
ill-faured;
But, min’ ye, I’m an ootlin here excep’ i’ the kirk-
yard,
An’ cronies there, they winna speak as i’ the days
o’ aul’—
My cert! they’re seelent billies that are lyin’ i’
that faul’.

I thocht to pack my pyockies, an’ gae back across
the sea,
But Nance, my faithfu’ pairtner, has refeesed to
gyang wi’ me;
Ah weel, I’ll hae a freen an’ chum fin she’s abeen
the sod,
An’ I’ll get back the ither anes when comes the ca’
o’ God.

  • 3 For more on this recent interdisciplinary approach see also David Worthington’s introduction to his (...)

1An important recent trend in Scottish academia has been the emergence of a confident, vibrant, outward-looking and cutting-edge internationalist approach to Scottish history. Scholars have become increasingly involved in developing Scottish historical and cultural studies both within and outwith Scotland, particularly where specialised societies and academic bodies are established to pursue similar aims—societies such as the Société française d’études écossaises (SFEEc). Since October 2000 this important group has brought together scholars in a venture to pursue Scottish studies across a number of disciplines within France and further afield. In Scotland, the intellectual and institutional links between the universities of St Andrews and Strathclyde reflect and, to a certain extent, lead this movement among the younger academics with similar objectives. In both Scotland and France, these “new-internationalists” can be defined by their commitment to archive-based research excellence, the importance of non-Scottish archives for the study of Scottish history, and an open willingness to analyse Scotland and Scottish themes within the larger European and international academic community. More importantly, they show a desire to explore new approaches to scholarship through an active engagement and understanding with other disciplines, not least with those engaged in the study of literature, cultural studies, archaeology and sociology.3

  • 4 For the development of various types of Scottish communities abroad see Alexia Grosjean and Steve M (...)
  • 5 Recent relevant publications from this institutional link include W. P. Kelly and J. R. Young (eds) (...)
  • 6 For a discussion of “exile” and the use of the word in its Irish historical context see Maria B. V. (...)

2In recent years, this thirst for an interdisciplinary approach has manifested itself in a burgeoning scholarship on the theme of migration, emigration and the formation of Scottish expatriate communities and networks of all descriptions.4 Since 2006 the St Andrews-based “Scotland and the Wider World Project” has hosted a number of events on the themes of overseas migration, community development and network building. But there have been other events even more focussed on the theme of exile and/or return. A particularly “exiled” focused event was held at the University of Aberdeen in 2007, organised by David Worthington under the auspices of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies. More recently, the “Back to Caledonia” symposium organised by Mario Varricchio at the University of Edinburgh Centre for Diaspora Studies in May 2010 focused more particularly on the theme of “return”. The University of Strathclyde is the Scottish partner in the International Research Network of the Institute of Ulster Scots Studies at the University of Ulster and it focuses specifically on the relationship between Scotland and Ulster in the early modern period. In September 2010 it held a conference on the theme of Scotland and the 400th anniversary of the Plantation of Ulster: Plantations in Context.5 Yet while the pertinence of the topic remains constant for historians, scholars of literature and sociologists it is also of significance for those who have found themselves in exile, both historically and in the present day. However, we should not think that the topic of exile is a particularly or peculiarly Scottish topic for consideration, although space here prevents a full run down of everyone else’s “exile dilemma”, or indeed every Scottish case-study.6

  • 7 There has been a long tradition of scholarship that has believed that “a significant element [of th (...)
  • 8 Jane E. A. Dawson, “Knox, John (c. 1514–1572)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford Uni (...)

3This present collection of essays has been drawn from a conference entitled Exile and Return: Contexts and Comparisons / Exil et retour : contextes et comparaisons, which built on continued interest in such themes, for both those who study it and those who experience it. The conference itself had several functions. First and foremost it was the annual conference of the SFEEc and as such it had several subtexts. This was the first time that the SFEEc had met outside France and this carried some considerable symbolic importance given that it coincided with the Scottish Government’s “Year of Homecoming 2009”. Although not directly connected to this event, the SFEEc decision to meet in Scotland not only acknowledged the historic relationship between Scotland and France but more importantly the ongoing Franco-Scottish relations in historical, political and cultural terms. The physical location of the conference in St Andrews was also significant and emblematic, not least due to the role of St Andrews in the Scottish Reformation. That event (which celebrates its 450th anniversary in 2010) redefined the Franco-Scottish, although the realignment was not as fatal as some pessimistic scholars might have us believe.7 Moreover, and more interestingly in the present context, the Scottish Reformation was itself fomented largely by returning exiles, not least the one-time involuntary exile and French galley slave John Knox. Upon release he chose further exile in England and Geneva before his spectacular return home, which came to have far reaching religious and political consequences for Scotland.8 This conference, however, was not concerned solely with exile and return between or within Scotland and France, but encompassed a far broader focus, encouraging not only focus on specific locations or relationships, but contrasts and comparisons between experiences of exile and return across geographic locations, ideological spheres and academic disciplines.

  • 9 Alexia Grosjean, An Unofficial Alliance: Scotland and Sweden, 15691654(Leiden, 2003), pp. 165–90.
  • 10 Ginny Gardner, The Scottish Exile Community in the Netherlands, 16601690 (East Linton, 2004), pp.  (...)
  • 11 Alexia Grosjean, “Returning to Belhelvie 1593–1875: The Impact of Return Migration on an Aberdeensh (...)

4The importance of exiles in history should not be overlooked. Knox was not the only returned exile to serve as a catalyst for developments in Scottish society; others like Field Marshal Alexander Leslie assembled and formed the Army of the Covenant that humbled Charles I (1639–1640) and paved the way for the wider British Civil Wars.9 It was returning exiles that formed the new Scottish government at the Restoration of 1660 (not least John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale) and still more who engineered and helped overthrow that same restored Stuart regime in Scotland (1689) upon their return.10 Further waves of exile sought to inform British politics throughout the ensuing Jacobite period, though with less success. However, the impact on home also came through economic enrichment. Alexia Grosjean has previously demonstrated the ways in which returning migrants could transform a particular parish through building projects, agricultural improvements and the development of a civic infrastructure in Scotland based on wealth earned abroad.11 Nor should we forget the impact of exiles in actually writing history or informing the public imagination through literature. Among these are many members of the SFEEc.

5Though not exclusively so, the membership profile of SFEEc is also composed of exiles and/or the children of the diaspora. These include French academics, often with Scottish parents or partners with interests in Scottish studies, but also Scots now living and working in France. For many of these the 2009 Exil et retour conference represented a “return” to the homeland as “voluntary exiles” to speak on Scottish topics. They were joined by academics and postgraduates based in Scottish universities, many also voluntary exiles from further afield, some of whom have been particularly active in the SFEEc since the 2005 conference in Toulon. This increased participation from Scotland has unapologetically sought to bring the excellent research produced by the SFEEc to the attention of scholars in the non-Francophone world and facilitate a positive reception in a truly international and interdisciplinary environment. Although the vehicle for this project is a French journal, it is telling that ten of the eleven papers have been submitted in English, demonstrating that many French scholars wish to expose their work to the widest possible audience for international consideration, criticism and review.

  • 12 Marjory Harper (ed.), Emigrant Homecomings: The Return Movement of Emigrants, 1600–2000 (Manchester (...)
  • 13 Mark Wyman, “Emigrants Returning: The Evolution of a Tradition”, pp. 16–31 and Paul Basu, “Roots To (...)
  • 14 See for example John Macinnes’s article “Gaelic Poetry in the Nineteenth Century”, in Cairns Craig (...)

6The organisers of the SFEEc conference intended to build upon the previously mentioned corpus of work on exile communities by exploring the theme further, not least by looking at the subject through the lens of history, literature, culture and politics, but also by specifically homing in on the theme of “return” within the exile genre. Ginny Gardner’s work on The Scottish Exile Community in the Netherlands (2004) had certainly already revived interest in studying the mechanisms for supporting a specifically exiled, rather than migrant, community abroad. However the section on the return of this community to Scotland after the Williamite Revolution forms only a part of one chapter out of seven. For historians, the “return” element of exile was a theme meaningfully explored in the excellent Emigrant Homecomings, edited by Marjory Harper (2005) which had a significant Scottish content.12 More importantly, scholars who contributed to that collection, including Mark Wyman and Paul Basu, set what is probably the best conceptual framework for the historian of the topic.13 But the theme has a much older pedigree among literary authors and the scholars who study them. Gaelic literature in particular is famous for its voluminous corpus on the theme of enforced emigration, permanent exile and certainly the longing to return home. These themes have received sustained scholarly attention over the years, not least in the Gaelic/Highland context.14 At its best, there can be no doubt that readers of this corpus, or audiences to the songs of migration are left moved and contemplative. This is a topic further explored by several of the contributors to this collection.

  • 15 “Reflections on Exile”, in Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, pp. 173–86.
  • 16 “History, Literature, and Geography”, in ibid., pp. 453–73.
  • 17 “Reflections on Exile”, p. 181. The Scottish context to these remarks have been provided by the edi (...)

7Several contributors also refer to the seminal work of Edward Said. Said’s Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays (London, 2001), provide a wider conceptual and interdisciplinary context in which the conference theme of “exile and return” should be placed. Two articles in Said’s book stand out here. “Reflections on Exile”, examines the experience of exile from a personal, international, interdisciplinary and modern perspective.15 The strengths of an interdisciplinary approach are also advocated by Said in “History, Literature and Geography”.16 An internationalist approach to “Scottish Studies” as an interdisciplinary entity must therefore embrace such a conceptual approach. Said also reminds us that “although it is true that anyone prevented from returning home is an exile, some distinctions can be made among exiles, refugees, expatriates, and émigrés”. According to Said, whereas exile was traditionally and historically associated with banishment, refugees were a creation of the state in the twentieth century. For Said, expatriates, on the other hand, “voluntarily live in an alien country for social and personal reasons”. Indeed, France is the example given by Said here. Neither Ernest Hemingway nor F. Scott Fitzgerald was forced to live in France. It was their choice. Whilst expatriates may also experience the solitude and sense of detachment in exile, they do not suffer “under its rigid proscriptions”. An émigré, for Said, is technically anyone who emigrates to a new country and there may be choice involved (indeed voluntary emigration from both the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland is a key feature of Scottish emigration trends). Examples of émigrés given by Said include colonial officials, missionaries, technical experts, mercenaries and military advisers. Again, these examples represent key groups of people who formed the basis of many Scots abroad over the centuries. There is, however, a distinction between an émigré and an exile for Said, because although émigrés may experience a sense of exile, they have not been banished.17

  • 18 Raymond Gillespie, “Contrasting Communities”, p. 168.
  • 19 Edwin Muir, “The Horses”, in The Norton Anthology of Poetry (3rd edition, London, 1983), pp. 992–3.

8Yet, as Raymond Gillespie, among others, has articulated, it is quite possible to concede that “exile is a state of mind not linked solely to migration”.18 It is in literature, not history that this point can be most easily made. The return of “The Horses” to an appreciative human population after generations of exile in Edwin Muir’s post-apocalyptic world is just one striking example of how “exile and return” can ignite our imaginations.19 The impact remains evident in contemporary Scottish literature, where a novel like Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting (1993) culminates in a narrative of brutal, self-imposed exile that brings to light the vital tensions underlying the question of geographical displacement.

9Thus the SFEEc conference sought to explore the theme of “exile and return” in its broadest context, encompassing themes of geographic displacement, intellectual, religious and cultural exile, and therefore exploring the theme of “return” not only in terms of the physical, but also in terms of the transfer of ideas and aspects of “return” through cultural osmosis or literature. The results were truly rewarding with stimulating contributions delivered across a number of fields. A selection of these is reproduced in the following pages and the rewards of an interdisciplinary approach are apparent.

  • 20 See for example Gardner, The Scottish Exile Community in the Netherlands; Rimantas Zirgulis, “The S (...)

10Christian Auer and Gordon Pentland closely examine the theme of political exile, Auer in particular questioning whether political exile was of a specific nature or part of a wider trend in emigration. He argues that those in political exile, more than others, were able to retain a fundamental part of their identity, thus reinforcing the conclusions of scholars of earlier Scottish exile communities.20 In her contribution, Kathrin Zickermann also explores the nature of an exiled community. Striking in her analysis was the fact that although the Scots she focused on were in exile due to politic-religious tensions within Scotland, once in exile they formed a community drawn from several different nations, showcasing in this German example both Anglo-Scottish and Franco-British co-operation abroad in response to a climate of religious uncertainty at home.

  • 21 The relationship between the Highlander and service in the British Empire is explored briefly in Ma (...)
  • 22 Roderick Watson, “Internationalising Scottish Poetry”, in Cairns Craig (ed.), The History of Scotti (...)
  • 23 See for example Moray Watson, “Iain Crichton Smith: Exile, Sparseness and the Clearances”, in Studi (...)

11The importance of these essays lies not only in the specific case studies they examine, but in the themes they shed light upon. There is, perhaps, a tendency to view “exile” as something inherently both forced and negative, and in some cases this was demonstrable. Thomas Brochard explores the experience of the exiled northern Highlanders, pressed into service by the British Crown in an attempt to both remove perceived troublesome elements from the Highlands and in a cynical bid to acquire cheap troops for foreign campaigns.21 Yet, as several of the contributors to this volume have successfully argued, “exile” from the Highlands need not always have been enforced and was, in fact, often voluntary. Camille Manfredi explores the self-imposed exile of Sorley in Peter Urpeth’s novel Far Inland (2006), who leaves his homeland on Lewis to travel to Glasgow in an attempt to improve his life. Although the journey is not forced as such, nonetheless he eventually becomes exiled from both his birthplace and his new community. This is a theme well known to scholars and readers of Iain Crichton Smith, who have commented previously on the dilemma of Gaels, for whom return to their unchanging native island is prevented by the changes that exile has wrought within themselves. For example, Roderick Watson observed that “As Lewismen, exiled in effect from the society in which they were raised, Iain Crichton Smith and Derrick Thomson have felt the pains of such separation with literal force”.22 Jean Berton here revisits the theme of exile and return in Crichton Smith’s writing, skilfully adding to the existing corpus23 through thoughtful reflections on subject. Berton in particular raises the question of how temporality intersects with language to shape the sense of loss experienced both by those who are exiled and by those who attempt the impossible return home.

  • 24 Raymond Gillespie, “Contrasting Communities”, p. 168.

12Exile neither had to come as a result of some brutal oppression, nor even be something to be endured by those who left more willingly. The Scottish painters examined by Marion Amblard chose to travel abroad to train for their profession. The debate as to whether sojourning or even long-term occupational migration actually represents “exile” is one which frequently concerns scholars of the theme and is one which is tackled throughout the collection.24 In the case of the artists it was certainly necessitated by a lack of opportunity to train in Scotland. These individuals voluntarily travelled abroad in order to further their careers, but they often found themselves thoroughly enjoying the experience. For some there may have been no opportunity to return to Scotland and thus many remained abroad to continue with their learning or on internal exile within Britain, usually in London, in order to make a living. Is there sufficient evidence to reveal to us whether they actually felt in exile or even longed for return? Amblard here attempts to answer these difficult questions. Indeed her paper reminds us of the very non-uniformity of the experiences of the exiles examined in this selection, including those who returned to Scotland. Christian Auer describes a “synecdoche form” of exile, one which was both geographical-spatial and ideological; thus a multi-dimensional form of exile. Aside from physical exile, more tangential elements of exile have been afforded attention—that of the imaginary exile suggested by Manfredi, or the distinction between physical and psychological estrangement as suggested by Celine Sabiron. Manfredi, for instance, analyses a form of exile which, while initially grounded in simple geographic terms, slips into the realm of the fantastic by appearing as an atemporal non-space accessible through Shamanic trances. The question of liminality is even more specifically addressed by Sabiron who chooses to focus on the moment of homecoming, when exile is at an end but the return home not yet fully accomplished. In this way, Sabiron furthers this important exploration of the liminal spaces, whether geographical or social, contained within the apparent binarity of “exile and return”. Sellin too disrupts this duality in his study of Robin Jenkins, which focuses on the writer’s “foreign” novels. Here the exiled characters’ confrontation with a symbolic Other in Afghanistan or Malaysia often leads to a disintegration of established borders, value-systems and identities.

13Throughout this collection a distinction emerges between those exiles who operated within distinct national communities, or those who operated within ideological arenas, and those who operated on several levels. Amblard’s painters chose to operate within distinct national communities, despite becoming integrated into Italian artistic life. Auer raises the question of contrasting exile experiences, considering that while his exiled Scottish martyrs were often relatively comfortable, this was in stark contrast to the exiled Highland peasants, whom he describes as often “destitute”. Zickermann’s community of Reformed Protestant exiles were bound together by religion, yet fundamentally continued to remain separate from their continental allies: the British Reformed exiles worshipped in different institutions to their European counterparts. She also raises the question of a figurehead for exiles, acting to draw the community of exiles together, in this example through the person of the Englishman William Waller. This in itself raises questions of nationality, identity and exile allegiance of those Scots under discussion.

14What we learn from these papers is that exile could be both permanent and temporary, and both short- and long-lived. Amblard highlights the temporary nature of the settlement of her artists; recognising that a rise in the availability of training in Scotland, coupled with the development of the Romantic School, turned the attention of Scottish painters to the Middle East. This ended the need and the desire of this group to continue to exile themselves to Italian destinations, but it did not stop them travelling abroad. Zickermann’s exiles were also fundamentally affected by political events in the locations they settled, be it the Netherlands, Bremen or Lüneburg. Moreover they were also affected by personal desire which allowed them to change location and/or return home whenever it suited them to do so—for example, Robert Hog opted to stay abroad some 20 years after the Williamite Revolution, the consequences of which could have seen him return home. Brochard, while also considering the temporary nature of the stay of the exiles he discusses, recognizes that the impact of such exile continued long after the time of return. It seems that people were (and are) fundamentally affected by protracted periods away from their homes, either within their own nation or during stays further afield.

  • 25 George Abel, “The Ootlin” from the collection Wylins fae my Wallet (Paisley, 1917), pp. 37–41.
  • 26 Charles Murray, “Hame”, in Leslie W. Wheeler (ed.), Ten Northeast Poets: An Anthology (Aberdeen, 19 (...)
  • 27 Iain Crichton Smith, “No Return”, in Selected Poems (Manchester, 1985), pp. 110–2. In this evocativ (...)
  • 28 See for example Éamon Ó Ciosáin, “The Irish in France, 1660–1690: The Point of No Return”, in O’Con (...)

15If the impact of exile on the individual was traumatic, then it also had wider implications for the societies they left, settled and sometimes to which they tried to return. The consequence of the exile experience on both homeland and adopted land is a fundamental theme within this collection. The notion of cultural exchange is often key—as evidenced both by Amblard and Graham. Brochard sees the impact of the return of the Highland exiles as fundamental to that region’s “civilization” and the development of bi-culturalism within Britain. Exchange of knowledge and experience is also fundamental—such as that highlighted by Graham when considering exchanges between Scotland and North-West France. Pentland distinguishes the political use of the notion of “exile”—particularly in shaping radical culture in Scotland. Most notably, perhaps, Sabiron suggests that the physical return home did not necessarily provide a meaningful “homecoming”—discerning a homecoming that was actual but not complete. This is again a notion frequently conjured up by those exiles moved to versify the subject. As George Abel described in his poem The Ootlin reproduced at the start of this journal, the theme of return migration and the associated feelings generated by the return, or the dream of the return home, are far from new, particularly in the field of literature.25 We need only compare the feelings of loss for the exile in Charles Murray’s Hame with the disappointment of the returnee in Myles Campbell’s Bogsa nan Litrichean / The Letterboxfor evidence of a continued pre-occupation with the theme of “exile and return” among the literati.26 Iain Crichton Smith even ventured that there could be “No Return” at all due to the distance of the mind from home, let alone geographical considerations.27 Again this literary evocation mirrors the findings of scholars who scrutinise exile groups, some of whom have articulated when and why a point of “no return” might be reached.28

  • 29 In all scholarship of return migration, identity features strongly. See the arguments in Harper, Em (...)
  • 30 In so doing she reinforces the findings of a scholar of Canadian return migrants. See Marilyn J. Ba (...)

16Such thoughts of distance and the permanence of exile elicit a number of questions regarding the place of the migrant. Indeed one theme that pervades this collection perhaps more than any other is, unsurprisingly, the question of identity.29 The particular importance for exiles of where they came from, or where they “belong”, appears to be central to many of the exiles discussed in this volume. Both Graham and Sabiron note that “home” is fundamentally linked to a house or family, or, as Graham puts it, in “the place where one invests one’s sense of self”. Sabiron, interestingly, considers two homes—one original, one exile—suggesting that in some cases, at least, the destination to which individuals were exiled became a second home, which they often identified with no less than the original.30 Jane Gray also sees identity as linked to knowing where one’s “home” is, but as well as this, considers the issue of “divided” identity—of “hybridity”—of belonging to multiple identities but therefore of identifying truly with none. In an exciting conclusion she demonstrates that the experience of exile can in its own way enhance the “experience of belonging”. Gray and others conclusively demonstrate the validity of researching the “exile and return” theme, particularly in a climate where contemporary Scotland is forced to re-evaluate issues of gender, race, ethnicity and all that these imply for the contemporary understanding of Scottishness. Many exiles currently living in Scotland may contemplate these issues while living in their new adopted homeland—a country to which Scottish exiles living abroad may or may not one day return.

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Notes

1 The editors would like to express their gratitude to a number of people and groups who have helped bring this collection to fruition. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to Dr Alexia Grosjean of the Strathmartine Centre for giving the non-native contributions a language edit. We would also like to thank the numerous bodies who sponsored the conference from which these papers are drawn including the University of St Andrews, the University of Strathclyde, the Institute of Scottish Historical research at St Andrews and the Centre for French Studies at St Andrews. Last, and certainly not least, we thank the Société française d’études écossaises for allowing us to host the conference and for providing financial support to do so.

2 Selected verses (1, 2, 3, 8, 9) from George Abel, “The Ootlin” from the collection Wylins fae my Wallet (Paisley, 1917), pp. 37–41.

3 For more on this recent interdisciplinary approach see also David Worthington’s introduction to his edited collection, British and Irish Emigrants and Exiles in Europe, 1603–1688 (Leiden, 2010), p. 27 and the authors within that collection, passim.

4 For the development of various types of Scottish communities abroad see Alexia Grosjean and Steve Murdoch (eds), Scottish Communities Abroad in the Early Modern Period (Leiden, 2005); For an interdisciplinary approach to Scottish networks, combining historical, sociological and social anthropological approaches see Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603–1746 (Leiden, 2006).

5 Recent relevant publications from this institutional link include W. P. Kelly and J. R. Young (eds), Ulster and Scotland, 1600–2000. History, Language and Identity (Dublin, 2004) and W. P. Kelly and J. R. Young (eds), Scotland and the Ulster Plantations: Explorations of the British Settlements of Stuart Ireland (Dublin, 2009). Young has examined the role of return migration of Scottish refugees and descendants of Scottish migrants from Ulster to Scotland in the 1640s and at the Revolution of 1688–90. See, for example, John R. Young, “Escaping massacre: refugees in Scotland in the aftermath of the 1641 Ulster Rebellion”, in D. Edwards, P. Lenihan and C. Tait (eds), Age of Atrocity. Violence and Political Conflict in Early Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2007), pp. 219–41, and John R. Young, “The Scottish Response to the Siege of Londonderry, 1689–90”, in W. P. Kelly (ed.), The Sieges of Derry (Dublin, 2001).

6 For a discussion of “exile” and the use of the word in its Irish historical context see Maria B. V. Garcia, “Irish Migration and Exiles in Spain: Refugees, Soldiers, Statesmen and Traders”, in Th. O’Connor and M. A. Lyons (eds), Irish Communities in Early Modern Europe (Dublin, 2006), pp. 172–5; Raymond Gillespie, “Contrasting Communities: A Comparative Approach to Irish Communities in Baroque Europe”, in Th. O’Connor and M. A. Lyons (eds), The Ulster Earls and Baroque Europe (Dublin, 2010), pp. 167–8. Some specific examples of the migrant experience might include Jason Harris, “Exiles and Saints in Baroque Europe: George Conn and the Scotic debate”, in Th. O’Connor and M. A. Lyons, The Ulster Earls, pp. 306–26. For an English case-study see Caroline Bowden, “The English Convents in Exile, and Questions of National Identity, c. 1600–1688”, in Worthington, British and Irish Emigrants and Exiles in Europe, pp. 297–314 and for a pan-British Isles case-study, see in the same volume Peter Davidson, “Perceptions of the British Isles and Ireland among the Catholic Exiles: The Case of Robert Cottington SJ”, pp. 315–22. These three Catholic exile case studies can be contrasted with the Protestants discussed by Siobhan Talbot, “‘My Heart is a Scotch Heart’; Scottish Calvinist Exiles in France in their Continental Context, 1605–1638”, same volume, pp. 197–214.

7 There has been a long tradition of scholarship that has believed that “a significant element [of the Reformation of 1560] was rejection of the long-established association with France” (I. Whyte, Scotland before the Industrial Revolution: An Economic and Social History [London, 1995], p. 92), a view which has been propagated by assertions that “the onset of the Protestant Reformation [in Scotland] shattered Scotland’s close relationship with France (enshrined in the ‘Auld Alliance’)” (J. Ohlmeyer, “Seventeenth Century Ireland and Scotland and their wider worlds”, in O’Connor and Lyons, Irish Communities in Early Modern Europe [Dublin, 2006], p. 459). In recent years however, the continuation of a Franco-Scottish relationship in several spheres after 1560 has been recognised. Matthew Glozier has re-examined the continuing military links and Marie-Claude Tucker has emphasised the continuing presence of Scots in French universities during the seventeenth century. Most recently, ongoing research by Siobhan Talbott has reassessed the continuing commercial relationship between Scotland and France. M. Glozier, Scottish Soldiers in France in the Reign of the Sun King (Leiden, 2004); M. Glozier, “Scots in the French and Dutch Armies during the Thirty Years’ War”, in S. Murdoch (ed.), Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War (Leiden, 2001); M. Tucker, Maîtres et étudiants écossais à la Faculté de Droit de l’Université de Bourges 1480–1703 (Paris, 2001); M. Tucker, “Scottish Students and Masters at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bourges in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries”, in T. van Heijnsbergen and N. Royan (eds), Literature, Letters and the Canonical in Early Modern Scotland (East Linton, 2002).

8 Jane E. A. Dawson, “Knox, John (c. 1514–1572)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online ed., Jan 2008, <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15781> [accessed 9 June 2010]; R. A. Mason (ed.), John Knox and the British Reformations (Aldershot, 1998).

9 Alexia Grosjean, An Unofficial Alliance: Scotland and Sweden, 15691654(Leiden, 2003), pp. 165–90.

10 Ginny Gardner, The Scottish Exile Community in the Netherlands, 16601690 (East Linton, 2004), pp. 178–206.

11 Alexia Grosjean, “Returning to Belhelvie 1593–1875: The Impact of Return Migration on an Aberdeenshire Parish”, in Marjory Harper (ed.), Emigrant Homecomings: The Return Movement of Emigrants, 1600–2000 (Manchester, 2005), pp. 216–32.

12 Marjory Harper (ed.), Emigrant Homecomings: The Return Movement of Emigrants, 1600–2000 (Manchester, 2005).

13 Mark Wyman, “Emigrants Returning: The Evolution of a Tradition”, pp. 16–31 and Paul Basu, “Roots Tourism as Return Movement: Semantics and the Scottish Diaspora”, pp. 131–49—both articles in Harper, Emigrant Homecomings.

14 See for example John Macinnes’s article “Gaelic Poetry in the Nineteenth Century”, in Cairns Craig (ed.), The History of Scottish Literature (4 vols, Aberdeen, 1988), III [edited by Douglas Clifford], pp. 377–93. See also D. Thomson, An Introduction to Gaelic Poetry (Edinburgh, 1990 edition), especially chapter 6 where the cultural response to the exile and dispersal of the Gaels is discussed.

15 “Reflections on Exile”, in Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, pp. 173–86.

16 “History, Literature, and Geography”, in ibid., pp. 453–73.

17 “Reflections on Exile”, p. 181. The Scottish context to these remarks have been provided by the editors.

18 Raymond Gillespie, “Contrasting Communities”, p. 168.

19 Edwin Muir, “The Horses”, in The Norton Anthology of Poetry (3rd edition, London, 1983), pp. 992–3.

20 See for example Gardner, The Scottish Exile Community in the Netherlands; Rimantas Zirgulis, “The Scottish Community in Kedainiai, 1630–1750”, in Grosjean and Murdoch, Scottish Communities Abroad, pp. 225–45; Rebecca Wills, The Jacobites and Russia, 1715–1750 (East Linton, 2002).

21 The relationship between the Highlander and service in the British Empire is explored briefly in Macinnes, “Gaelic Poetry in the Nineteenth Century”, pp. 379–83. On the wider context of this, see A. Mackillop, More Fruitful than the Soil. Army, Empire and the Scottish Highlands, 1715–1815 (East Linton, 2000) and R. Clyde, From Rebel to Hero: Images of the Highlander 1745–1830 (East Linton, 1995).

22 Roderick Watson, “Internationalising Scottish Poetry”, in Cairns Craig (ed.), The History of Scottish Literature (4 vols, Aberdeen, 1988), IV, p. 320.

23 See for example Moray Watson, “Iain Crichton Smith: Exile, Sparseness and the Clearances”, in Studies in Scottish Literature, vol. 33 (2004).

24 Raymond Gillespie, “Contrasting Communities”, p. 168.

25 George Abel, “The Ootlin” from the collection Wylins fae my Wallet (Paisley, 1917), pp. 37–41.

26 Charles Murray, “Hame”, in Leslie W. Wheeler (ed.), Ten Northeast Poets: An Anthology (Aberdeen, 1985), p. 119; Myles Campbell, “Bogsa nan Litrichean”, in Christopher Whyte (ed.), An Aghaidh na Sìorraidheachd: In the Face of Eternity (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 44–5.

27 Iain Crichton Smith, “No Return”, in Selected Poems (Manchester, 1985), pp. 110–2. In this evocative poem the author opens with the lines “No, really you can’t go back / that island anymore. The people / are growing more and more unlike you”.

28 See for example Éamon Ó Ciosáin, “The Irish in France, 1660–1690: The Point of No Return”, in O’Connor and Lyons, Irish Communities,pp. 85–102.

29 In all scholarship of return migration, identity features strongly. See the arguments in Harper, Emigrant Homecomings, pp. 7–8 and contributors, passim. See also Siobhan Talbott who has also questioned the assumption that all Scots present in France adhered to a particular political ideology or Jacobite identity in Talbott, “Jacobites, Anti-Jacobites and the Ambivalent: Scottish Identities in France, 1680–1720”, in B. Sellin, P. Carboni and A. Thiec (eds),Écosse: l’identité nationale en question (CRINI, 2009), pp. 73–88.

30 In so doing she reinforces the findings of a scholar of Canadian return migrants. See Marilyn J. Barber, “Two Homes Now: The Return Migration of the Fellowship of the Maple Leaf”, in Harper, Emigrant Homecomings, pp. 197–214. Barber quotes a few lines from the diary of one Monica Storrs who wrote in 1938/1939 “And so I came Home. / But I’ve got two Homes now / Which is very puzzling”.

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David Leishman, Steve Murdoch, Siobhan Talbott et John Young, « Exile and Return: Contexts and Comparisons »Études écossaises [En ligne], 13 | 2010, mis en ligne le 30 septembre 2011, consulté le 16 avril 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesecossaises/211 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesecossaises.211

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Auteurs

David Leishman

Stendhal University, Grenoble 3

Articles du même auteur

Steve Murdoch

University of St Andrews

Siobhan Talbott

University of St Andrews

John Young

University of Strathclyde

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