'O'er a' my labours sey your skill': Poetic Responses to Robert Fergusson Event with Peter Mackay and Robert Crawford - Wednesday 15th October 2025

Join us in the bookshop to hear Makar Peter Mackay and Robert Crawford introduce, 'O'er a' my labours sey your skill': Poetic Responses to Robert Fergusson. Other contributors to be announced.

6.30pm on Wednesday 15th October at Golden Hare Books, 68 St Stephen Street, EH3 5AQ.

Buy a copy of 'O'er a' my labours sey your skill' and receive free entry to the event, or choose our Ticket-Only option for £6 (which can be used towards a purchase of the book at the event).

We will send an email to confirm your booking - please be sure to check your junk/spam folder!

About 'O'er a' my labours sey your skill' Dubbed his 'elder brother in the muse' by Robert Burns, the influence of Robert Fergusson upon eighteenth-century Scots poets cannot be overstated. A chronicler of Edinburgh and populariser of the 'standard habbie', he opened the door for generations of poets documenting urban life as it evolved throughout the Enlightenment and beyond. And yet, his popular legacy pales in comparison to his Ayrshire-born namesake.

In this collection, across Scots, English and Gaelic, a wealth of contemporary poets respond to his work. From tributes to biographies to departures, Scotland's most celebrated writers and emerging poets alike evoke the enduring impact of Fergusson upon their work, proving that, two hundred and fifty years after his death, his song immortal lives.

About Peter Mackay Peter Mackay / Pàdraig MacAoidh is a writer and academic whose work is heavily influenced by the diverse linguistic heritage of his birthplace – the Isle of Lewis. He is a native Gaelic speaker.

After being awarded an MA from Glasgow University and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin, Peter went on to work at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin and the University College Dublin. He also spent some time as the writer-in-residence at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, part of the University of the Highlands and Islands. In December 2024, Peter Mackay became our new Makar (the national poet of Scotland), the first to work primarily in Gaelic.

He has co-edited collections of essays on modern Irish and Scottish poetry and on Scottish Gaelic literature, including An Leabhar Liath / The Light Blue Book, an anthology of Gaelic love poetry which won the Donald Meek award in 2016.

Peter had his own collection of poems, Gu Leòr / Galore, published in 2015.

About Robert Crawford Robert Crawford is a poet, biographer, critic and literary historian who has published eight full collections of poetry and many prose books, including two major biographies of T.S. Eliot: Young Eliot and Eliot After The Waste Land. Emeritus Wardlaw Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews, he is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. His poetry has been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, and he has won two Scottish Arts Council Book Awards as well as the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award.