Abstract

We live in a dominion of the dead. With sites of remembrance, our noteworthy deceased are scattered throughout touristic landscapes. Yet, commemoration of the significant dead is often contested, and ‘heritage that hurts’ is imbued with politics of remembrance. As a proud and strong country within the United Kingdom, Scotland often calls upon it's symbolic departed to give credence to its national identity and to serve as a warning for the future. This visitation to sites of momentous death, disaster, or the macabre is known as ‘dark tourism’.

In Scotland, a country born out of turmoil with its dominant neighbour, England, many places are associated with cultural trauma. Indeed, battlefields of yesteryear have shaped Scottish nationhood, with the bloody carnage of the past influencing modern-day ‘Scottishness’. Other sites, associated with rebellious acts or the casualties of religious bigotry or political persecution, are integral to Scottish dark tourism. Moreover, victims and villains from Scotland’s tragic past, often obscured by time, offer us counsel regarding our own modern fights, follies, and misfortunes.

This guidebook will take you to places of ‘pain and shame’, as well as sites of difficult heritage throughout Scotland. From the Borders to the Highlands and Islands, this book will allow you to explore the history of Scottish places associated with fatality and spaces of ruination or forgotten traumascapes. However, as you engage in dark tourism, you are not a ‘dark’ tourist, but merely someone interested in understanding your own sense of being in a fragmented world built upon a turbulent past. As our significant dead become spectacular in a society that values spectacle, this unique guidebook permits you to sightsee in the mansions of the departed. As you do, have reverence for those who came before us and heed the messages each ‘dark place’ can impart.