Our Digitisation Assistants Hanneke and Joel report on their work digitising shinty’s sporting heritage and share some of their favourite images from the project.
The University Archives is working with the Camanachd Association to preserve and present the sports visual heritage. With the support of the broadcaster and academic Hugh Dan MacLennan we are digitising a large collection of photographs taken and collected by Donald Mackay, who documented the sport across several decades, both on and off the field. The collection comprises a wide range of photographic prints and slides relating to shinty, from team photos taken in the late-nineteenth century to recent games, awards ceremonies and events, and a fascinating image of the artisan skill of making shinty balls.
The photographs demonstrate the importance of shinty to Scottish national culture, its connection to industrial and artisanal heritage (and especially the whisky industry!), cultural and musical heritage, and education and schooling. They are also important artefacts in their own right, beautiful images using sticks and goals as internal frames and capturing the physicality and dynamic movement of the sport, including both images of sports injuries and the glee and passion of supporters.
The collection consists primarily of photographic prints. Many of these are accompanied with helpfully detailed annotations providing insight into specific players, teams and tournaments. Others are completely without context. We have enjoyed getting to know some of the more prominent and famous players – including David ‘Tarzan’ Ritchie, Ricky Ross (both Newtonmore) Davie Anderson, Neil Reid, and Kevin Thain (all Kingussie) – and spotting them in photos without any information on the reverse.
As well as the players, there are many amazing shots of the fans and spectators. We see that shinty was an event for all the family, with older and younger fans equally enthusiastic in their support. We have been particularly interested in the occasional photographs of women and girls shinty teams, and even occasional mixed gender matches. While women’s shinty was only formalized in the 1990s, there are photos in the collection of women teams playing as far back as the 1970s such as the Dalmally Ladies Shinty Team.
There are also around 600 slides in the collection. When digitising these items it’s incredibly satisfying going from squinting at the tiny frame of a slide to being able to examine a high-resolution image on a large screen. The colours in the slides really pop, making the shinty matches seem even more vivid than many of the prints. The project has given an insight into the difficulties of photographing live sport! Trying to work out whether our equipment needs refocusing to improve the sharpness of the image or whether it is simply a blurry shot has been a regular struggle. The slides also include some non-shinty-related images; one shot of a stag bleating, for which again we have no context, is particularly arresting and mysterious.
The digitised collection will create a new resource which will provide content for Sgeul na Camanachd – Shinty’s Story – the new National Shinty Exhibition opening in Bught Park Stadium, Inverness in September 2025.
Identifying and recognizing the same people across different fashion periods has been a fun challenge, particularly between the late 1980s and 1990s when sideburns, mullets, moustaches and wild hair made way for more clean-shaven looks. To help identification, we have shared photographs with various shinty groups on our Facebook page and received helpful identifications and information, including from the family members of players pictured! This will enable us to offer more comprehensive data about the photographs.
Want to know more or get involved? We are looking for knowledgeable volunteers to work through these images, identifying teams, players, important games and any other interesting information. Please contact us at archives@stir.ac.uk if you would be interested in sharing your expertise!
Dr. Hanneke Booij & Dr. Joel Casey
