Tuesday launch for Blaeu's Orkney and Shetland
(Story dated: SAturday, September 96, 2006)

What was it like to live in Orkney and Shetland nearly 400 years ago?

The launch of Blaeu's Orkneys and Shetland, edited by James M. Irvine, next Tuesday (September 12), provides a good opportunity to read eight texts which were translated for the first time only two years ago.

The book reproduces enlargements of the well-known map by Timothy Pont, the survey for which has been dated to 1592, and which includes more place-names than any subsequent map until the Ordnance Survey of the 19th century.

Blaeu's Atlas Novus, of 1654, which contained the eight texts in Latin, was the first atlas of Scotland.

Irvine has attributed the 12,000 word New Description of the Orkneys and a shorter New Description of Shetland which were written between 1644 and 1646, to the Rev Walter Stewart, minister of South Ronaldsay.

The former account provides perceptive insights into rural life and the health and character of “the common people” and fascinating glimpses of social life in Kirkwall in the relatively affluent period between the famines of the 1630s and the Cromwellian austerity of the 1650s, as well as comments on the high status buildings of the time. Stewart records that Gaelic was spoken in South Ronaldsay.

His description of “Schetland” refers to the ponies, weaving, fishing, pets, drinks, dress, trade, customs, manners and health. The leading families of the time are named - even the remarkable Lawrence of Gernigo from Walls, who wed when 100 and was said to have gone fishing 40 years later.

Capt Irvine, who is now retired from the shipping industry and is a regular visitor to Orkney and a lifelong student of Orcadian history, has added detailed editorial footnotes to the text and details the results of his research into its provenance, reliability and local significance. He is the author of the guidebook to Skaill House and has written and published Trace Your Orkney Ancestors and The Orkney Poll Taxes of the 1690s.