Lighthouse Letters by Sharma Krauskopf - Tartan Day As Big As St Patrick's Day

By Sharma Krauskopf

Tartan Day As Big As St Patrick's Day!

On December 19th 1991, in response to action initiated by the Clans & Scottish Societies of Canada, the Ontario Legislature passed a resolution proclaiming April 6th as Tartan Day, following the example of other Canadian provinces.

America followed suit on March 20th 1998, when Senate Resolution 155 (S.Res. 155), proposed by US Senate Republican majority leader Trent Lott, was passed unanimously. Scottish Radiance has had a Tartan Day page since the beginning. There are nearly as many descendants of Scots living in Canada as there are people living in Scotland; almost 5 million. In the US there are more than 12 million people of Scottish descent.

Tartan Day is a new holiday in the life of the world but it is growing. Now there is a huge parade called Tunes of Glory down New York City's Manhattan's 6th Avenue involving several thousand pipers and drummers. This year's parade is on April 2nd and you can find more information here. More and more the various Scottish related organizations across Canada and US are having big events around April 6th. Just do an Internet search of Tartan Day 2005 and see what is going on.

Even Scotland is beginning to recognize the day as evidence by the Scottish Executive's web site http://www.tartanday.gov.uk/ and the Scottish Parliament’s Tartan Day web pages. Another positive sign was last year it became a holiday in Angus, Scotland - see "Scotland's Tartan Day is returning to Arbroath in Scotland for the second year running. This now international event highlights an annual celebration of all things Scottish."

Tartan Day is growing but it needs all of us Scots or Scot descendent to help. You can help promote Tartan Day by e-mailing details of Tartan Day on to friends and family. If you have any access to e-mail listings or even media contacts, let them know about it also.

I received a email from Dr. Christopher Pratt a Founding Director, National Tartan Day - New York in which he listed some ways we can all make Tartan Day meaningful. Quoting from his letter:

There are so many ways to add meaning to this celebration. Honor your family, your heritage by learning more about contemporary Scotland and its people today. On National Tartan Day, 2005, wherever you are, share the celebration of contemporary and historic Scotland.

Start today to:

- welcome contemporary Scots to the world stage and encourage them to seek consistent self-reliance, trust and risk-taking, creativity and innovation as full players in the global marketplace

- remind your local and national elected officials that more than 12 million Scottish Americans and 5 million Scottish Canadians VOTE, and we like to see our political representatives celebrate with us as they do with other cultures on their holidays

- share that message with your local media to remind them that their< Scottish subscribers like to see stories about our cultural celebrations too
- read the Scottish news online at:
BBC Scotland - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/default.stm , The Scotsman - http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/ , and The Herald - http://www.theherald.co.uk/ , And now in the US on PBS, Tartan TV, see channel listings by
state online at: http://www.tartan.tv/Web/Site/NewSite/WhatisTTV/Tartan_TV_on_PBS.asp
- encourage the organizations and institutions with whom you are affiliated to engage with like organizations and institutions in Scotland including professional organizations, trade, church, universities, colleges, schools, hospitals, literary, artistic, cultural, athletic, research, etc

- encourage political, civic, fraternal, and religious groups to observe the contributions of Scots with declarations, services of commemoration, blessing of the tartans, exhibitions of Scottish life, crafts, trades, science and medicine, AND celebrate contemporary Scotland

- go to Scotland, bring your gift to Scotland, what you do is what you can do, go meet Scots, learn from them share with them, work with them, offer what you can, do what you do with contemporary Scotland - ensure that Scotland is included and understood in local discussions of diversity, immigration, religious freedom, education in schools, churches, libraries, colleges, etc
- go beyond Braveheart to learn about and tell the stories of your family and your part of Scotland, where your people come from, and where they live today, what they did, how they came to where you are now AND what as Scots you are doing today
- ask Scottish Development International, http://www.scottishdevelopmentinternational.com/pages/index.asp how you can help them help develop economic ties between the companies and schools, hospitals and municipalities where you work and those who do the same in Scotland today

- write to your local, regional, and national, Congressional or Parliamentary delegation on behalf of improved connections with contemporary Scotland

- ask your local, regional television, radio and print media including CBC, PBS, NPR, CBC Radio, the Travel/Discovery Channel, HGTV, etc to celebrate contemporary Scotland; ask them to produce feature programs about Scotland as they do about other countries, see http://www.cbc.ca/ , http://www.npr.org/ , http://www.pbs.org/ , http://cbc.radio-canada.ca/index.asp , http://travel.discovery.com/ , http://www.hgtv.com/

- hold your own National Tartan Day celebration in every city and town across your country to encourage family and neighbors to embrace contemporary Scotland

I have never doubted that eventually Tartan Day would be as big a celebration as St Patrick's Day. Our long time readers always welcome Breezy our Tartan flying Highland Cow back to prominence on his day. He has been 'showing his colours' on the internet since the very first US Tartan Day!

The only problem I for see is how do we we compete with green beer as I cannot think of a way to make Tartan beer. But there is always a wee dram!!!

Happy Reading,

Sharma

I love to hear from you so contact me by Email at sharma@sharmakrauskopf.com

You can find more articles in the archive under Island Miniatures/Lighthouse Letters.

I have three books which are directly related to this column. The Last Lighthouse tells how we bought our lighthouse, the day by day journal of a year at Eshaness entitled A Year in the Lighthouse and in Scottish Lighthouses our lighthouse is featured in the 31 lighthouses presented. You can find out more about these books and others I have written at my official author web site.

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