Things Have Changed is a book collaboration between local writer Christina Harwood and freelance photographer Nigel Yates documenting and describing Dunedin’s changing times.The main character, and subject of Christina’s essay and several photographs, is 18th century Scottish rebel poet Robbie Burns, whose implacable statue seems to preside over the Octagon and all the events and protest rallies held there. The main event documented in the photographs is the unprecedented, co-ordinated world-wide lockdown of 2020 and the winds of change this seemed to liberate here and everywhere.
Dunedin sprawls o’er hills and glens sae wide,
Fog veiling crests where Celtic ghosts abide.
Their sangs rise up frae glens o’ auld renown,
Dun E‘ideann, Eidyn’s Fort, the name that won the crown.
Yet guile’s soft whisper stalks, sae sly and fell,
Tae cloud the truth and bind them in it’s spell.
Language is how we connect, tell our stories, and keep our roots alive. It’s a tool for sharing who we are, from the pub to the paddock. But it changes — always has, always will. New words creep in, old ones fade, shaped by time, trade, and power. And power’s the kicker: language gets twisted to control, to silence, to make some feel small while others play big. Scots, the voice of the Lowlands, full of ‘braw’ and ‘wee bairn’, sprang from Germanic roots and Scotland’s rugged heart. Gaelic, the Highland tongue, carried clan pride and defiance, sung by poet-warriors like Alexander Robertson of Struan, chief of Clan Donnachaidh, whose verses rallied Jacobite rebels. By the 1700s, after the Union with England and the crushing of the Jacobite uprisings, both Scots and Gaelic got hammered. English was pushed as the ‘proper’ way in schools and courts, branding Scots as rough and Gaelic as wild. By the 19th century, both were on the ropes, spoken only in homes or pubs. But Robbie Burns wasn’t having it. Though he was a well-educated fellow, fully capable of writing in posh, ‘proper’ English, he was also a farmer who said "F U." He chose to write poems like
Auld Lang Syne in full Scots, giving a massive middle finger to the posh English elites. His words weren’t just pretty — they were a stand for the common folk, their struggles, their loves, their grit. Down here in Dunedin, Robbie sits centre stage in the Octagon, and that Scottish fire lingers in our southern Kiwi drawl — words like ‘wee’ and ‘aye’ common in our slang, our rolling accent echoing the old country.
Language evolves, but it’s the enduring principles that anchor us — not flashy virtues to show off online — but the grit of grafting together, standing firm for what’s right, and calling bullshit when the need arises. These convictions hold strong against shallow power grabs or hollow rewards that tempt us astray. Scots and Gaels, with their love of spinning a good yarn, carried this resillience across oceans. In 1848, they fled crushing poverty, chasing promises of fertile lands and fresh starts. They carried their forefathers’ fire, as Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in
The Scot Abroad: ‘The mark of a Scot of all classes is that he remembers and cherishes the memory of his forefathers, good or bad’. Gaelic songs, Free Church faith and clan ties wove a thread of identity across oceans, forging a city from mud and hope. Dunedin’s hills cradle the shared grit of all who call it home, defying the tides of loss and power’s empty claims. Through centuries of shifting tongues, the root endures.
Things hae changed since pagans broke the clay,
Free folk branded wild by lairds’ cruel say.
Power’s guile would dim their hearts’ fierce flame,
Yet roots, like the ploughman’s, scorn the lairds false claim.
Tho’ hearts defy, guile’s venom aye does flare.
Things hae changed, yet nae shifts the auld snare.
In 1848, Scots and Gaels boarded ships set for Dunedin, leaving burned crofts and shattered lives, their Free Church faith and grit fueling a defiant fresh start. Led by Thomas Burns, steeped in the defiance of the ploughman poet, they endured four-month voyages on cramped, fever-plagued ships where one in ten perished, to forge a community where their voices mattered. Rejecting America’s pull, they sought New Zealand’s fertile promise to root their Presbytarian dream. But Dunedin was no Eden — it was a swampy slap in the face. A boggy, unforgiving swamp mocked vows of fertile fields, while colonial elites hoarded prime land, betraying pledges of fairness. English influence dulled their Gaelic spirit, yet from mud and stone, they raised spires, schools, and the University of Otago, etching faith and learning into the land. Power’s old trick — offering freedom while weaving betrayal — persisted, but the settlers’ stubborn resolve endured, unbowed by power’s chains.
