Orkney demographics--change is coming

While not absolute, it is reasonably safe to say Orkney differs ethnically from present day Scotland.  At least to a degree.  The difference is Orkney's Viking heritage.  This heritage, however, is at risk.  So too, really, is that of the United States and for similar reasons. 

Even allowing for modern net population trends, Orkney remains culturally much less Gaelic in its expressions than what may be considered the stereotypical "Scot".  Its dialect (Orcadian) is quite distinct.  The people in these remote northern isles are more "Norse-like".  

Indeed, Scandinavia is a principal source for massive passenger liners that visit Orkney during the summer season.  An aside, but visits by these massive "cities on the seas" is problematic on a host of levels, not the least of which is existing infrastructure.  A growing local debate is taking place as to whether the highly touted benefit of cruise ship visits to the local economy even offsets the costs.  It is becoming clear that "industrial scale tourism" is not all it has been cracked up to be.  Many a skin flint aboard, so to speak. 

But as to population trends, among the current 32 council areas which comprise Scotland's government today, Orkney holds the least population--about 22,190 across its inhabited islands. 

Orcadia's census predicts an increase over the next five years of about 120 persons.  This increase, numerically, seems insignificant.  But in a cultural sense, it potentially may be a very large change--perhaps as much as a net 8.2% reduction of native Orcadians in the overall population, as the figure shows.   

Comparatively, Orkney (projecting a 0.5% net population increase by 2028) still lags Scotland's overall anticipated 1.8% population increase during the same time.  Scotland is growing.  New build and renovation construction was everywhere present in Glasgow; quite a difference from our previous visit in 2019.  Scotland's citizens are becoming more diverse, to use the politically correct term.  And as such, it too is becoming "less Scot". 

For now however, Orkney's people still largely retain an ethnic distinction that might be considered undiluted by the continuing influx of peoples settling from elsewhere...but change is coming even there.  

As to its ethnic fabric, Orkney is losing its youth to out-migration principally to Scotland's cities--Glasgow, Edinburgh.  This story of movement to urban areas chasing alleged "opportunities" has taken place throughout humankind's history.  It was most pronounced in the Medieval period, and it is ultimately credited with bringing about the end of feudalism.  Existentially, the English Parliament became so alarmed by the outflow of workers from rural areas, it passed the Statute of Labourers in 1351 A.D. to prevent serfs from migrating to market towns in search of better wages in the immediate aftermath of the plague.  

In any case, the ethnicity of Orkney's remaining population is becoming concentrated with age so to speak, as the young move away and become more cosmopolitan.   

From 1998 to 2020, the largest demographic percentage decrease (over 12%) occurred in Orkney's 0 to 15 age group; whereas the largest relative increase occurred in the two oldest age groups (65 to 74 and +75 years).  The elderly may be the guardians of culture, but there are fewer and fewer hands so to speak. Again, change is coming for better or ill.  

Over the next 10 years, the population of Orkney Islands is projected to decrease by 3.5% due to natural change--which means more deaths than births, and a senescent population showing a large expansion in the elderly demographic groups.  Concurrently, total net migration into Orkney (from within Scotland, within the rest of the U.K. and from overseas) is projected to counter this population decline, resulting in an Orkney migratory population increase of 4.7% over the same period.  Doing the math, that results in the net projected population gain in Orkney of 0.5%.

Over time, this migration trend will result in a relative reduction in Orkney's existing ethnic and cultural fabric, in its traditions as older Orcadians are replaced by new arrivals unconnected to the native land and seascape.

Further and perhaps of more immediate concern, Orkney is in jeopardy of losing many of its ancient cultural sites to the rising sea.  

What can be done, if anything, to protect these archeological treasures over the next several decades is unclear.  But these archeological sites cannot be separated from the economic future of Orkney.  Many are World Heritage sites.  So, Orkney's future is very strongly connected to its past.

What can be done by the Orkney Council to support and encourage local economic opportunities for future Orcadian generations is also unknown.  Opportunity indisputably will involve some sort of melding the old with the new.  Indeed, while in Orkney, for example on the Isle of Egilsay, we sailed to the island with a construction team placing a small-mast windmill generator for a farmstead.  Tidal generators are going into place in the tidal races in Orkney as well.  Technology has arrived, clearly. 

Projected demographics are therefore not totally bleak.  Some silver linings exist.  Orkney's 16 to 24 year old group shows a positive relative change of 3.2% from 1998 to 2020, for example.  They are indisputably the future of Orkney...but this assumes Orkney's youth can be encouraged to stay and raise families.  Here, it is not suggested that draconian measures similar to the 1351 Statue of Labourers be enacted to restrict migratory labor movement.  But if wise, Orkney Council should take heed and implement programs sufficient and substantial enough to encourage retention of its native youth.  They, more than any other, will ultimately determine the future of Orkney...far more so than ever would berthing all the industrial scale tourist cities upon the seas.     

 

 

 

 

What was and what remains

Regarding our sojourns to historic and prehistoric sites in Scotland over Easter, we are often asked what it is we find so fascinating among the ruins, the "distant shrines" as the medieval poet Chaucer put it. The short answer is we are intrigued by the story these ruins tell of humankind.  But it is more than that.  

Saddell Abbey, Argyll establishment marker, 1154 A.D. 

First, going to Scotland is something of an Al Capone reasoning.  Capone robbed banks because that's where the money was.  

The same logic applies to travels in Scotland.  For ancient ruins are everywhere to be found there, so we go.  Plus, not insignificant fringe benefits are the stunning vistas of ocean, sky and land.  A physical trinity of sorts; all engaging, a testament to divine creation itself...and to patience really as God waits for humankind to arrive at the knowledge of truth. 

The wealth of ancient "civil" sites in Scotland ranges from prehistoric Neolithic cairns (built with surprising sophistication by the first farming communities in Britain) to the subsequent Iron Age brochs (built to defend their harvest stores from invaders).  With the understanding that time is never idle, these ruins are in turn replaced by more advanced medieval walls and towers, also now ruinous, as former places of refuge against evermore new marauding threats. 

Ruins can also include entire crofting communities (i.e. farms inhabited by families over many generations) that now lay emptied and in ruin caused by the infamous forced eviction under Fuadach nan Gàidheal (Highland Clearances)--itself a different sort marauding but banditry nonetheless.  Insatiable lairds manipulating the vestiges of a feudal system of tenantry, by the letter of the law without its heart, excused their greed and soul-killing cruelty against neighbors and kinsmen.  Sadly, it is a story is as old as Cain and Abel.

Saddell Abbey ruin, Argyll 2019

But there is another part, a counterpoint to all that.  

Omnipresent church ruins--from Dark Ages hermit cells to medieval chapel foundations to modern aged Victorian gray stone parish churches now relegated or "repurposed" as art galleries, museums or thrift stores--are found throughout Scotland as well.  These remain, despite their oft ruinous state, a testament to humankind's longing to establish a better condition, a desire to bring about the evolution of human behavior through a transformational process called love. 

So, when we go sojourning to Scotland at Easter, it is this we are after.  A resurrection of living wisdom and understanding, which is to say enlightenment.  Our just completed excursion to Scotland's Orkney Islands in 2022 this year, to borrow from the hymnal, is another chapter in the old, old story.  

To close the 2019 chapter, these photos of Saddell Abbey in Scotland's Argyll (on Kintyre Peninsula) serve the purpose as well as any. 

Saddell Abbey, formerly a Cistercian monastery, is considered to have been founded by Somerled, the Gaelic-Norse Lord of Argyll, in 1154 A.D.  Somerled, whom Clan Donald herald as their progenitor, did not survive to see Saddell's completion.  He was killed at the Battle of Renfrew (1164 A.D.) in a disastrous fight against the Scots during the reign of Malcolm IV.  It was a time of great violence, this founding of dynasties...whether Donald or Stuart. 

Saddell Abbey ruin, Kintyre 2019

Saddell Abbey is said to have been competed in 1207 A.D. by Ragnall, Somerled's younger son.  That said, debate exists on the date of Ragnall's death and whether or not Saddell Abbey's completion should be credited to Ragnall or whether that credit belongs to Ragnall's son Domnall (Donald)...the grandson of Somerled.  

Regardless, our 2022 sojourn marks a departure from Argyll and its thalassocracy (i.e. a maritime based kingdom) of hybrid Gaelic-Norse "Lords of the Isles".  In 2022, we centered in Orkney in what was the realm of the Vikings, and in what remains a sea-inspired landscape of sublime beauty today.  

Nature is "purposive".  To borrow a philosophical synthesis from Emmanuel Kant, apprehending nature's form stimulates the harmonious "free play" of our understanding and imagination.  Such is Orkney.

Palmers for a pilgrimage

Troubled times, these.  But not so troubled as what humankind has never endured similar.  

Though it may do little to relieve our immediate burdens, merely knowing that our forbears survived far worse travails than those testing our mettle today can at least encourage the Sherpas among us in our respective individual schleps. 

February 18, 2022--a gash of sunset over "The W"

Being of good faith, as Scripture styles it, is often difficult.  What with wars and rumors of wars.  With pestilences.  And lest we forget winter...Inland Empire winter which seemingly goes on and on and...on.  That is enough to jade the most saintly among us into despair.  

Yet our experienced shivering here in Idaho is how we get to "good cheer".  What do I mean?  Well life's experiences in Idaho just above 46° North Latitude indicate that, despite how irascible winter may be in a particular year, it "don't last forever".  Weather wise, we're getting into the short rows.    Spring is just around the corner.  Nature's own resurrection will soon be in evidence throughout Idaho.  

By way of proof, yesterday (Sunday, February 20th), Darla spotted the first intrepid robin of the season here on "The W".  It flitted about in the willow next to our farmhouse, doubtless seeking the enjoyment of the long-wave solar radiation coming off the house for its warmth.  That's not unusual for this time of year.  Robins often arrive here before snow melts, and usually in front of a brutal cold snap which has begun.  How they make it is a mystery.  

Juniper Titmouse

Far less common would be the visit by Juniper titmouse at this time of year.  Or rather, that is what I took them to be.  They were gray and tufted birds, in any case.  Last week a skittish flock of about 30 of them visited our pine which stands near the southeast corner of the house above two old landscape junipers.  So right habitat; but somewhat wrong time of year.   

While they are found in Idaho, Juniper titmouse at this latitude are north of where they typically are found.  Unfortunately, it was impossible to put a camera on the jittery bunch.  So lacking an image in evidence, I must here offer a purloined image in lieu. 

Bottom line, spring beckons even now.  Nature stirs its natural migrations.  As it does our sojourn too.  This year we put caution to the wind, sort of like the early birds mentioned here on our homestead.  We plan to take up our Easter sojourn in Scotland.  Notwithstanding viral variants, and rumors of viral variants.  

Our footsteps follow "palmers" before us--which is to say, Christian pilgrims.  Indeed, our reason for going on pilgrimage is likely similar to those palmers from centuries past.  In Canterbury Tales (written c. 1387-1400 A.D., but never completed), Geoffrey Chaucer described the desire to go on pilgrimage like this:  "When in April the sweet showers fall, that pierce March's drought to the root"..."then folk long to go on pilgrimage."

Chaucer noted that pilgrims usually were bound "to distant shrines well known in distant lands."  So too are we, 650 years later.  In Chaucer's time, pilgrims in England especially went to Canterbury, “The holy blessed martyr there to seek who helped them when they lay so ill and weak.”  In other words they made an homage doubtless under contracted promises in fervent prayers made to, and evidently answered by, that saint.

Chaucer, Langley Collection, Westminster

What Chaucer referred to in Canterbury Tales (ill and weak) was the "fourth pestilence" of bubonic plague in Britain.  Exact dates are difficult to determine, but it is generally believed that the fourth pestilence in England began in 1374.  By 1378, the pestilence reached York, and was particularly fatal to children. By 1382, plague had reached Ireland taking an especially heavy toll.  So, these were contemporary events leading up to Chaucer's Tales.

Today, we only have an inkling of those troubled times, ourselves having just endured the Covid pandemic.  At best, our understanding is diluted.  It is not possible for us to grasp the severity of the medieval plague, a pandemic that later would be called the Black Death.  

Even with modern medicine, the Covid pandemic is said to have claimed 5.89 million lives worldwide in just over three years.  In the United States 934,000 lives have been lost, attributed to the disease.  These are horrible figures, no getting around it.  But those casualties pale in comparison to the Black Death's.  In five years (1347 to 1352 A.D.), an estimated 25 to 30 million Europeans died in that bubonic pandemic.  By many accounts this is a low estimate.  The death toll was so extraordinary that Petrarch, the Renaissance poet from Florence, felt compelled to address future generations.  He was sure they would not believe them.  ‘O happy posterity, who will not experience such abysmal woe and will look upon our testimony as a fable.’

Bubonic victims often were buried at night in deep trenches, pitched into mass graves.  As a contemporary Florentine historian wrote: "In the morning when a large number of bodies were found in the pit, they took some earth and shoveled it down on top of them; and later others were placed on top of them and then another layer of earth, just as one makes lasagna with layers of pasta and cheese."  A main course of death.

On average, it is assumed that not less than 35% to 40% of Europe's population died in this so-called "first" Black Death pandemic (c. 1347 A.D.).  Many localities saw death tolls reach as high as 60% to 80% of their population.  One town, Kilkenny in Ireland, was wiped out...100%.

And Black Death returned again and again throughout the 1300s and 1400s and even well beyond. The "Great Plague of London" lasted from 1665 to 1666...it was the last widespread outbreak of the plague in Britain, during what the BBC has called the "400-year Second Pandemic".  400 years.  On the continent of Europe, the last major plague occurred in Marseilles in 1720. 

Michel Serre, “Scène de la peste de 1720 à la Tourette.”

The last large scale global plague pandemic occurred in China in 1894. The bubonic pestilence--a bacterium Yersinia pestis--is said to have originated in China.  It is endemic there.  And before communist Chinese chauvinists get bent out of shape by my implying this should be called the "China Plague," it should be noted that paleo-anthropologists speculate bubonic plague was present in Europe as far back as 3000 BC...in the Neolithic Age, well before any written records.  

The Plague of Justinian (541-549 A.D.) is generally considered the first major outbreak of plague.  Better said, it was the first recorded pandemic.  But plague has apparently been with humankind for thousands of years.  Perhaps forever.  Nor has bubonic plague been eradicated today.  Each year between 1,000 and 3,000 lives are lost to plague worldwide, including some in the Western United States.

With that as an historic comparable, Covid virus today is well behind the record of those lasagna layers of death in medieval time.  That does not mean that precautions against Covid should be ignored.  To the contrary.  These two  pandemics are similar in many social respects.  

Modern malcontent over measures to control the spread of this contagion (which so far has only encompassed about three years) cannot be seen as credible; not when compared to decades upon decades over centuries of bubonic pandemics.  Preventative social behavior is important.  Had the medieval population only washed their clothes and bedding, and kept their habitations clean of waste and debris to control rodents which bore the disease, they could have spared many tens of million of lives. 

In a reductio ad absurdum therefore, current refusals to mask or vaccinate today are akin to an equally malcontent medieval person saying:  "I refuse to wash my clothes as a preventative measure against the plague, because I have a right to carry fleas, and the right to cover my body [or temple] with whatever filthy clothes I deem fit."  

The problem with such a mentality is that fleas do jump.  They also bite.  And as for rights, it's not always just about you. 

[The martyr mentioned in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, incidentally, was St. Augustine who died May 26, 604, and is considered the Apostle of the English.]