Robbie Burns - His Story

By Nelson McCausland, Director, The Ulster-Scots Heritage Council

"He speaks to Scots; he speaks to a'"

Few poets excite such devotion as Robert Burns, the national bard of Scotland.  His appeal, however, goes far beyond his native land, with songs like Auld Lang Syne, Ye Banks and Braes o Bonnie Doon, and My Luve's Like a Red Red Rose, known throughout the world.

Burns was born into a poor farming family on 25 January 1759, in Alloway, near Ayr, south-west Scotland.  Though he had to work hard in the fields as a boy, in his spare moments Robert pursued his love of reading.

Scots, wha hae wi Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie!
(Robert Bruce's March to Bannockburn)

In a bookshop he came upon some poems by Robert Fergusson.  He had already written some verse himself but Fergusson's poems opened his eyes to the way in which the Scots tongue could be used.  Burns wrote both in English and Scots, but much of his best poetry is in the Scots language, also known as Lallans.

After the death of his father in 1784 Robert's family moved to another farm at Mossgiel, near Mauchline.  Here he had numerous affairs with several girls and fell in love with Jean Armour.  Jean's father, howver refused to allow the match.

By mid-1786 his amorous entanglements had made it almost impossible for him to continue in Mauchline, and he was about to leave Scotland for a job in Jamaica when his first book of poems was published.  The slim volume of 34 poems was a great suceess and all the copies sold within a month.

Soon literary Scotland was eager to know the author.  Burns went to Edinburgh and proved popular amongst the fashionable set, which enjoyed his company and conversation.

Two years later Burns married Jean Armour and bought a new farm.  The farm was unsuccessful, and  in spite of the popularity of his poetry, he made little money from it.  He managed to get a small government job in Dumfries, which provided a steady income.  Yet all the time he continued to pour our poetry and song.

Early in 1796 his health began to fail and he died on 21 July 1796 at the early age of 37, due not to alcoholism, as was often thought, but to a rheumatic heart condition.

Now 200 years later, he is regarded by many as the greatest Scot of all.

A year before he died, Burns said to his wife, "Ay, Jean they'll thnk more of me in a hundred years after this."

That prophecy was certainly fulfilled.

"What an antithetical mind! -
tenderness, roughness - delicacy, coarseness - sentiment, sensuality - soaring and grovelling, dirt and deity - all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay!"
Lord Byron of Burns