Inside Category Archives
Up Helly Aa - the Venues
We’re missing Up Helly Aa again - not just a fire spectacle but a major social event, with dances and performances in many venues in ...
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Origins of the Up Helly Aa Song
A huge procession of torch-carrying guizers is one of the most spectacular sights of the Shetland year. For anyone who heads out in ...
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The New Year, 1872 and the Truck Commission
The New Year of 1872 began in a special way in Shetland. On the first of January Sheriff William Guthrie began hearings in the Queens ...
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Accounts with Women Labourers
Thomas Hardy, probably the Victorian novelist most familiar with the grit of rural life, described the work of his agricultural ...
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The Fenian Raid on Unst
Shetlanders have long enjoyed jokes, pranks, and hoaxes, aka “plunkies.” Sometimes these have stretched to include British ...
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The real story behind the Shetland wulver
In recent years there has been a lot of discussion about the ‘wulver’, Shetland’s ‘kind and generous werewolf’, as someone ...
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Witchcraft in Shetland
Between around 1615 and 1680 Shetland was afflicted by a mania that was disturbing other parts of Europe. Ordinary Shetlanders and ...
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Shetland Footballer - James Hunter Thomson
James Hunter Thomson came from Deepdale (born 1884). There isn’t much that comes from Deepdale now. Uninhabited lang syne, you get ...
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The Bohemian Girl
In 1843 White’s, a firm of Quaker shipbuilders, launched a schooner, 125 tons, 104ft x 22.5ft x 12ft, the Bohemian Girl.
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Celebrating International Women's Day: Britta Laurenson
International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Here Jenny ...
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Get Your Skates On!
The weather has changed, the temperature risen, wind and rain are back, the frosty winter fun gone. In 1909 though, one organisation ...
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St Sunniva's Tableware
The pandemic meant no cruise liners came to Lerwick, but not many Shetlanders realise that an important one lies on the seabed at ...
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Winter Sports
We’ve had a fine spell of weather of late, snowy, frosty, crispy. Out for a walk one day I was told someone had been spotted skiing, ...
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Northwest Passage
On the 26th of June 1576, three ships anchored near St Ninian’s Isle. These were the Gabriel, a twenty-five tonne barque, the ...
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