Burns Night 2025 – A legacy for today
The bard is back to take us out of the January gloom. As winter’s grip extends further and the bills of Christmas come in, Rabbie is here to lift us all with poetry, song, haggis, whisky and camaraderie. For individuals, it’s a chance to give up dry January, put aside the failed resolutions and again remember that life is for living. If the world is going to hell in a handcart, we might as well enjoy it while we can.
For others, it is a chance to replenish their depleted post-Christmas coffers. Throughout the world, pipers are earning a fortune outside the wedding season, ceilidh bands are waking from their New Year slumber, and caterers (and Ceilidh Clubs) are thankful, oh so thankful, that people want to party again. The fallow time is over; it’s harvest time again.
Why is Burns Night 2025 special
Let’s consider for a moment that people will raise a glass to a poet throughout the world. A POET. There are celebrations of Saints and gods. In our media-frenzied world, most days will be the International Day of Something. But to celebrate a poet? Isn’t that something great? Here’s a poorish lad from Ayrshire whose father wasn’t clever at managing farms. Yet, he gave his son an education and work where he could observe nature and chase girls.
Burns is still an inspiration in 2025
A master at capturing life experiences via words: the intensity of love “My Luve is like a Red, Red Rose”, The heartbreak of parting “Ae fond kiss and then we sever”; The value of friendship “ Should auld Acquaintance be forgot.” These words continue to inspire us and cause us to pause for a minute to consider what is truly important in life. Equality, social justice and the environment – it’s all in Burns.
Burns and the establishment
Does it matter that the establishment has taken the ceremony to its corporate heart but leaves behind the bits it doesn’t like – his sympathies with the French Revolution, his plans to work in a slave colony, his inability to keep his pants on? Are we sanitising Burns? He was a complex person – we all are – but maybe he was able to write so sublimely because of his contradictions. Any celebration of Burns should look at him in his entirety.
Would he have liked the clubbable atmosphere of most Burns Nights? Maybe, he was a Mason after all. Would he have enjoyed a good political discussion around wealth/inequality? Probably. Would he have wanted to rock the boat? Almost definitely. And there’s the rub. Burns Night 2025 is a worldwide celebration – held by lovely people who endeavour to keep some aspects of the memory, the words and the spirit of Burns alive. Yet, it is only partly the story of Burns.
As tech billionaires reshape our world for their benefit they would benefit from mulling over a Man’s a Man for a’ that. “Ye see yon birkie (fellow), ca’s a lord. Wha struts, an stares, an’ a that; Tho hundreds worship at his word, He’s but a coof (fool) for a’ that.” Put that in your rocket and smoke it, pal.
In our disparate world where the rich are too rich, and the poor are too poor, maybe compulsory Burns lessons for billionaires and policymakers can turn us towards a more equal society. Burns, by the way, was also an effective exciseman. Just sayin’.
Burns – speaking truth to power
To those holding Burns night speeches, remember you’re not just celebrating a poet but continuing a tradition of speaking truth to power. As Woody Gutherie said, “It’s a folk singer’s job to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” There will be lots of comfortable people scoffing haggis and raising a dram. Don’t let them get too comfortable. The legacy of Burns demands more than an immortal memory. We need more than lip service around equality, social justice and the environment. An ‘a that.
