Ruairidh Erskine

Ruaraidh Erskine of Marr (15 January 1869 – 5 January 1960) (Scottish Gaelic: Ruaraidh Arascain is Mhàirr) was a Scottish nationalist political activist, writer and Scottish Gaelic language revival campaigner. Early life Ruaraidh Erskine was born The Honourable Stuart Richard Joseph Erskine at 1 Portland Place, Brighton, East Sussex, England on 15 January 1869. He was the third of the four children born to William Macnaghten Erskine, 5th Baron Erskine (1841–1913), an army officer, and his wife, Caroline Alice Martha Grimble. The family were descendants of the Erskine Earls of Buchan. Erskine claimed that he learned to speak Scottish Gaelic from his childhood nanny, who came from Harris, and that this kindled the enthusiasm which was to be a main hallmark of his career. His imagination was fired early by the Irish nationalist movement and these combined influences, together with his family's Scottish roots, led to his development as a prominent Gaelic nationalist, whose compelling dream was of a self-governing Celtic Scotland. As essential steps towards the realization of this dream he was actively involved in the fostering of Gaelic consciousness and in the extension of Gaelic usage, especially in the written form. He hoped that a significant extension of Scottish Gaelic literature would contribute to the raising of literary standards, in a reaction against what he saw as the degrading influence of music-hall and ‘pop’ culture on Gaelic verse in the second half of the nineteenth century. He probably also viewed his activity as a response to the dominance of folklore in the Gaelic literary world. Journalism and the Neo-Jacobite Revival In 1890, Erskine and Herbert Vivian co-founded The Whirlwind, a weekly newspaper. The paper was published for less than a year, but printed works by a number of notable artists, including Walter Sickert and James NcNeill Whistler. It advocated nationalism, peace, free trade and Irish Home Rule, and opposed female suffrage and socialism. It also espoused a Jacobite philosophy, and the restoration of the House of Stuart. Erskine, along with Vivian and Melville Henry Massue founded the Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland in 1891, and he was president of the organisation in 1893, 1894 and 1897.