At this month’s meeting, Howe o’ The Mearns Heritage Club welcomed Dr Pia Coira, who has a special interest in the Gaelic language and its history. She addressed a full house on the topic of “Gaelic Place Names in The Mearns”.
It was a revelation to most of the members on how widespread Gaelic had been at its peak and how so many of our place names today stem from that period when Kenneth McAlpine became the first king of Scotland.
Dr Coira covered the links and impacts of other languages and the convincing case for Scots as a language and not a dialect.
Pia will be meeting regularly with another group of local residents when she starts a six week course of Gaelic lessons in the Campus library from today, 18th February.
