Burns Night

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet that wrote many famous poems and songs. He was born in 1759 in Alloway, Ayrshire, in the cottage that still stands. He married Jean Amour, and had 9 children, only 3 surviving infancy. He is rumoured to have fathered three more children over his lifetime. He was a farmer as well as a writer, and moved to several places including Edinburgh. He died on 21st July 1796 and 5 years after that date a group of his friends got together in his cottage on his birthday on 25th January to remember him. This grew into a tradition that is not only followed in Scotland, but all over the world. The first still extant Burns Club was founded in Greenock in 1801, by merchants who were born in Ayrshire and some knew him. They held the first Burns Supper on what they thought was his birthday on 29th January 1802, but a year later they discovered the Ayr parish records had his date of birth as 25th January 1759. This supper can be formal or informal, and often involve a tradition Scottish food called haggis and reciting his poetry.

The usual format of a formal Burns Supper is as follows:

1. Piping in the Guests
2. Host’s welcoming speech
3. Selkirk Grace
4. Starter/Soup Course
5. Piping in the Haggis
6. Address to the Haggis
7. Main Course
8. Dessert and other courses
9. Immortal Memory
10. Address to the Lassies
11. Reply to the Laddies
12. Works by Burns
13. Vote of Thanks
14. Auld Lang Syne