Gap in our story

During a recent walking trip on Mull I came across numerous abandoned villages vacated ­during the Highland Clearances.

On my return to Edinburgh I visited the Museum of Scotland to learn more about the Clearances, but I was sorely ­disappointed by the dearth of information contained therein. What information it had was contained within a video on the “Scottish diaspora”.

The Highland Clearances were responsible for the largest ­migration, both internal and ­external, of Scottish people in history but the Museum of Scotland fails to present this, preferring to maintain the myth of shiny, happy Scots travelling the world enriching both themselves and the receiving nations only for their progeny to return to Scotland for the Homecoming: Shiny, happy history.

The Highland Clearances were originally called “Improvements” but were romanticised by Victorian authors into ­“Highland Clearances” and now the Museum of Scotland prefers “diaspora”.

The Museum of Scotland does the Clearances a disservice and should, instead, present all Scottish history, warts and all, and not politicise our past with an SNP positivist agenda for Homecoming Scotland 2014.

Neil Sinclair

Clarence Street

Edinburgh