210th Anniversary of the Death of Robert Tannahill

That the Parliament commemorates the 210th anniversary of the death of Scottish poet, Robert Tannahill, who was born in Paisley in 1774 and died on 17 May 1810; understands that Tannahill was apprenticed to his father, a master silk weaver, at the age of 12 but that, as his apprenticeship ended, he was already showing literary talent as he had taught himself to read music and write poetry; acknowledges that Tannahill would often write about the countryside around Paisley and, more widely, in poems such as The Braes of Balquhidder and The Flower O' Leven Side, and his work appeared in a number of journals, including The Scots Magazine, before he published a collection of his work in 1807; recognises that Tannahill and some friends formed the Paisley Literacy and Convivial Association in 1803 and he became the first Secretary of the Paisley Burns Club, formed in 1805, which claims to be the oldest formally-constituted Burns Club in the world; notes that the legacy of Tannahill lives on not only in Scotland, where there is a statue of him beside Paisley Abbey, and he is one of the 16 writers and poets depicted on the lower sections of the Scott Monument on Princes Street in Edinburgh, but across the world, as the tune of Waltzing Matilda is based on the music that the Scottish composer, James Barr, composed in 1818 for Tannahill's 1806 poem, Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielee, and believes that this anniversary of his death should recognise the legacy of this important poet and his contribution to Scottish culture.