Celebrating the North: A Poetic Vision for the Future of Northern Studies
In February 2026, Cáit O'Neill McCullagh, Poet in Residence at the UHI Institute for Northern Studies (INS), led an engaging and inspiring workshop for staff and students.
During this session, participants were encouraged to reflect deeply on their personal experiences and creative ideas. The workshop provided a supportive environment for attendees to explore various poetic forms and techniques, allowing them to express themselves and share their thoughts through writing.
The workshop concluded with an opportunity to create and share visions for the future. Staff and students expressed their poetic thoughts on how the Institute functions as both a guiding light and a stable foundation at the intersection of the North Atlantic and the North Sea.
They were also encouraged to share their own "poetics of possibility" with Cáit as inspiration for a new poem she has been invited to write. This poem celebrates the Institute and the futures it is helping to build for Northern Studies, the North, and beyond.
After carefully considering all the valuable contributions and insights shared by the staff and students, Cáit crafted a poem that captures the essence of their collective thoughts and experiences. This collaborative effort has culminated in a piece aptly titled 'Northern Studies.'
NORTHERN STUDIES
This is what it is to bend your gaze North;
to give all your noticing. To turn the map, not
as yun chiel Ptolemy did. No, upend. Centre
your compass outwith otherness. Let
North light spill its kindnesses upon you:
swell of learning: sprackled glisk; pole star—
boillsgeadh, mareel. Ben Bhreac & rune,
knowing North is to let the pulsed beam
of that house of light at Rubha Robhanais
reach into you—its naming made in the mouth
of Pict & Nórdmaðr & Gàidheal. As tides meet:
Atlantic & Easter Se, be in the between. Be
in the Swelkie & soar the lift as the greeve
weather flits from it. Søga, dùthchas—
all worlding above the 57th parallel & mair
as that. Hear with acuity of deer; note
even one breath as it falls to ice. The kite:
learn time from their patience; silence—
A mountain cannot be known in an hour;
nor person; nor line; nor stone. Be in city &
pasture; on road, all gaits. In the plurality
of machair. Think like archipelago: because
North & because there are always other shores;
other wisdoms. The world is our seminar &
we meet. Some under the risen sun, some our
faces bathed by moon. Travelling time’s zones;
futuring from pasts; being present. Prophets
of possibility, opening the curtaining of our rooms;
opening. Laptop. Book. Self. Imagination &
reason are our Sharepoint & you are here—
Welcome Northwise.
Cáit O'Neill McCullagh for the Institute for Northern Studies.
With thanks to members of the Institute for sharing their reflections on what it means to study, research and have their being oriented Northwards
A former undergraduate student of the Institute’s first iteration of the BA Cultural Studies (Highlands & Islands), and postgraduate of the University of Oxford, Cáit O’Neill McCullagh was supervised during her PhD Studies in ethnology, in the Northern Isles, by Professor Ulrich Kockel (while at the Intercultural Research Centre, Heriot-Watt University) and by Professor Donna Heddle.
She began writing poetry at home in Easter Ross, in the Scottish Highlands, in 2021. Her poems have been published widely in journals, magazines, newspapers, and in anthologies. Her first full-length collection ‘The Bone Folder’ was published by Drunk Muse Press in 2024, and was shortlisted for The Saltire Awards in 2025. The judges praised her work for being a distinctive debut that broadens the scope of Scottish Poetry.
Cáit’s poetry reflects the linguistic and wider cultural traditions of her Irish and Highland upbringings; her research and work as an archaeologist and ethnologist in the Highlands and Northern Isles, and her experiences of living with cancer. Her poems explore diverse themes, including the outcomes of colonialism; conflict, illness and healing; migration; and belonging in and with places.
In 2025, she won the McLellan Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize.
Notes
- Niclaus Germanius’ 1467 map of Britain and Ireland, drafted after Ptolemy’s 2nd Century CE Geographia, shows Scotland running west to east at a right angle to England, rather than south to north.
- Sprackled glisk: (Scots) clambering flashes of light
- Boillsgeadh: (Gaelic) gleam, flash, shine
- Mareel: (Shaetlan) Sea phosphorescence / bioluminescence
- Rubha Robhanais: (Gaelic) Hebridean location of David Stevenson’s lighthouse (mid-19th century) known as ‘The Butt of Lewis’
- Nórdmaðr: (from Old Norse) man (person) from the north
- Søga: (Faroese) derived from Old Norse saga, story; epic
- Dùthchas: (Gaelic) kinship, heritage, ecologically embedded / place-based, connected
- A mountain cannot be known in an hour: After Nan Shepherd, ‘The Living Mountain’
- Machair: (Gaelic) coastal habitat, fertile grassy, wildflower abundant.