‘Outlander’ outrage

I have never seen ‘Outlander’, and as a historian, am always very suspicious of such fictionalised time-travelling dramas about the past. The author of the books Diana Gabaldon has recently been in hot water over her use of terminology - notably the use of the word ‘Scotch’ as an adjective to describe things Scottish. Whilst it may have been used in the past other than for whisky it is at best antiquated and at worst deemed offensive by the Scots.

The redoubtable Deborah Dennison, a serious historian, writer and film maker on the Jacobite cause, has now written an excellent article for The Scotsman which assails the misrepresentation of the Highlands, Highlanders and Jacobites of the eighteenth century in the television series. As a fellow member of the 1745 Association, with no Scots ancestry but an historian’s appreciation of the history and identity of Scotland, I commend her article which can be read at "Outlander promotes a deeply distorted view of the known nature of the Gàidhealtachd".