Thoughts of a Modern-day Burns Collector

Abstract

To acquire, to preserve, and to inform. These seem to me to be the driving passions of the collector. My collecting of Burns editions, editions about Burns, Burns artefacts and Burns traditions emerged naturally from my love of my own locality and community. Burns's work has been, and to some degree still is, part of the east Ulster community in which I have lived all of my 50 years. There is a joy in finding, a satisfaction in acquisition, but we never truly own anything. My article will outline some of Ulster’s wider cultural context, but will focus upon a selection of items and stories I have found or which have been passed down to me. Burns is indeed Scotland’s National Bard, but the Ulster-Scots community are his kinfolk too.