Church near Glasgow hosts filming for documentary

Cadder Church hosted an Australian production company who were in the UK filming a new documentary featuring Thomas Muir of Huntershill.

Those interviewed included Professor Gerard Carruthers (University of Glasgow), Professor Lindsay Farmer (University of Glasgow), Murray Armstrong (author of The Liberty Tree) and Jimmy Watson (Friends of Thomas Muir).

Thomas Muir, recognised as the father of Scottish democracy, was a former elder of Cadder Church, where a dispute with a local land owner over the right to choose the next minster went all the way to the court of session.

Muir successfully secured the congregations right to choose its preferred minister. Muir's former family home, Huntershill House (category B listed building), is currently at the centre of a controversial planning application.

The project explores histories of reform, resistance and rebellion of convicts transported as political prisoners to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the impact their patterns of resistance had on the development of democracy, liberty, human and workers rights, the labour movement and de-colonisation in Australia, Britain and Ireland.

Thomas Muir and the Scottish Martyrs are a significant component of the Conviction Politics. The project builds on the book Death or Liberty: rebels and radicals transported to Australian 1798 -1868, that investigated the c 3,500 politics transported for sedition, revolution, protest.

In 2015 parts of the book were adapted as an ABC and Irish television documentary, and Conviction Politics goes much further, producing over 100 mini documentaries and related content such as music, animation and digital visualisations that are curated on an interactive digital hub, along with a traveling exhibition to premiere in Tasmania in 2024, after which it will travel to Sydney, Canberra, London, Dublin and hopefully Scotland.

You can read more about the project HERE.