Interested to see in the current Clan Gunn Society UK ‘Herald’ that the society now has only 308 members. In the first year of this Clan Gunn Society’s existence, 1962, there were about 276 members. The highpoint in 1976 was about 476 members. So the Society today has fewer members than when it was established if one considers the growth in the UK population, and has shrunk by nearly a half since its membership highpoint in the mid 1970s. It’s hardly the mark of a thriving society – perhaps the taste for dressing up and believing in fantasy history has had its day? Of the 308 members now, only 12% have a Scottish address (which would include, I suspect, members of Mr Iain Gunn of Banniskirk’s family) which sums up the irrelevance of the Clan Gunn Society in modern Scotland.
See http://clangunn.weebly.com/clan-gunn-society-uk-membership-list-analysis-1962-1995.html for more Clan Gunn Society UK membership analysis… I also note the same magazine gives credence to the ridiculous, fictional Sir James Gunn Westford Knight, so fantasy history obviously continues to be believed in the society. Supporting this ‘Clan Gunn Westford Knight’ story is up there with believing man did not land on the moon, that the world is flat and that Elvis Presley is alive… See http://www.alastairhamilton.com/sinclair.htm for the total academic rejection of the sole source of this absurd story. See http://clangunn.weebly.com/on-a-gunn-helping-discover-north-america---sir-james-gunn-of-clyth-crowner-of-caithness-and-the-westford-knight-myth.html for historic and archaeological reasons why the Westford Knight story cannot be true.
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This seems to be the case with all of the US based Scottish societies. This was an invention of an earlier age that seems to have little or not relevance to a broad audience. I think they were started in an earlier time, under a different set of social conditions that no longer exist.
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