Photo: fragment of Stone of Destiny now in Australia (c) Queensland Museum. Further details below This blog provides a little key information behind the news stories that have been widely published in the media on 17 and 23 January 2025. I am in the midst of publishing research that relates to tiny fragments that I
The Authenticity’s Child project stepped up this summer with Small Grant funding from the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust for research costs, the start of which coincided with the summer Coronation of Charles III. The Stone therefore moved from Scotland to London and back to Edinburgh Castle, with a short peregrination to St Giles Cathedral.
My aim in this blog is to give you a sense of public responses to the media’s interest, summarised here, and the call that was made in the media for people with information about any fragments of the Stone to share their stories with me. A summary of my story about the 34 fragments stemming
I’m using this blog to share the extensive media interest that has arisen in this project, and will update it periodically (last revised 24 January 2025). The focus of the interest is 34 fragments generated during the repair of the broken Stone in 1951, before it was returned to the authorities at Arbroath Abbey, and
In this photograph, taken at his 1952 graduation, you see Ian Hamilton. As a Glasgow University student he had the idea for, masterminded and undertook the removal of the Stone of Scone / Destiny from Westminster Abbey in December 1950. He was motivated by the political agenda of the man on the right, John MacCormick.
Readers of ‘My life is in pieces – new lives for the Stone of Destiny‘ will already know that not quite all the Stone of Destiny is in Perth. I don’t just mean the wee fragment gifted to Alex Salmond in 2008 that hit the headlines in January 2024. Yes, there are geological samples; one
Many people write and think about the Stone, and in creative ways. I experimented a little myself with writing ‘as’ the St John’s Cross / its replica in My Life as a Replica. My Glasgow colleague Dr Ewan Campbell here kindly shares his own experiment with object biography, in relation to the Stone. This is
Culture Perth & Kinross and the University of Stirling have just published a comic about the Stone of Scone. The Culture Perth and Kinross Youth Collective produced it as the outcome of a workshop jointly organised by Culture Perth & Kinross and the University of Stirling, working with Magic Torch Comics, and with funding from
The first formal presentation on my Fellowship research-in-progress took place at ACHS 2024 Galway on 5 June. The conference theme was ‘Custodianship’, my paper assigned to a session on ‘Responsibility: Cultural Stewardship across Borders – Navigating the Complexities of Global and Local Heritage Responsibilities’. I addressed the part that changing custodianship and movement plays in
an artist with something to say (source: Wyllieum) So, the good news is that Scottish artist George Wyllie (1921-2012) had lots more to say in relation to the Stone of Destiny than I had previously recognised (see first project blog). I am grateful to the artist’s daughter, Louise Wyllie, co-author of Arrivals and Sailings: The
The Stone of Destiny has two enduring characteristics. One is to galvanise the nation of Scotland and the other is to twist the knickers of the British establishment. Last week, that celebrated lump of sandstone has demonstrated its power yet again (Alex Salmond cited in The Daily Record, 7 January 2024) Scottish nationalist Salmond’s assertion
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