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The space is dominated by a large triangle of wall (football at its base). On the left wall John Knox, and the strange story of unknown (to me) hero Thomas Muir. On the right Buchanan's own 'mixed marriage', pie charts of origin (Irish, Highland) and faith are applied to the Buchanan family. This seems to be a common motif in his work. I recall reading that he has painted the end of his house with his and his wifes family tree. Inside the triangle are two screens, one depicts the well known flutes and drums of the protestant marching bands, the other the less well known catholic marching band tradition. Each practices in an equally dreary hall, each one filled worn faces. My knowledge of sectarianism is scant. While feelings run high along the Ayrshire coast and into Glasgow, it peters out before you reach the Highlands, so my experiences are largely second hand and courtesy of the printed page. It is clear that Calvinism, Knox (and in the Highland case 'The Disruption' of 1843) played a key role in shaping the Scots sense of self, and others sense of us. Indeed one dour son of the Manse is set to become our Prime Minister, and in doing so he is trying to show us his lighter side. However, its all too easy for the Tories and the media to fall back on comfortable stereotypes. That aside, the tone that Knox ushered in can be read in the pages of Hogg's 'Confessions of a Justified Sinner', and that classic novel of Scots dualism 'Jekyll and Hyde'. The popular imagination casts the Protestants (the right footers) as joyless pedants, and the Catholics (the left footers) as all music and craic - North Uist vs South Uist. As Buchanan's exhibition shows, Its never as clear cut as that. Surely now, as Paisley meets McGuinness over the table, the Scots the root, and the its branching, strangeling grasp can be cut.
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