Professor Charlie Peevers

The project, on the history of disarmament and peace campaigning from the early 20th century until the present, has been made possible through Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding sourced by Professor Charlie Peevers, professor of international law at Glasgow University.

As part of the project, Professor Peevers is looking at the long history of peace campaigning work in the Outer Hebrides including in relation to the NATO base expansion at Stornoway airport in the 1970s.

The project funding will enable the cataloguing of the Keep Nato Out archive collection which was deposited with Tasglann nan Eilean in summer 2024 by Councillor Angus McCormack, former chairman of the KNO campaign. As well as benefiting Professor Peevers’ research, a legacy of the project is that it will enable other researchers to make full use of the contents in future.

The funding will also enable conservation measures to be carried out, and digitisation of the most significant items from the collection.

Another outcome of the funding will be the creation of a small exhibition at Tasglann nan Eilean in 2026. Drawing on the KNO archive collection held by Tasglann nan Eilean, material held by the community and artefacts from Museum nan Eilean’s collection, the exhibition will tell the story of the campaign. As well as tangible items, it will also include links to oral history recordings which Professor Peevers has been collecting from some of those involved in Keep Nato Out and other related disarmament campaigns.

Professor Peevers said: “The KNO archive is a powerful illustration of how collective actions can bring communities together to ensure a greater voice over policy-making and development, decisions that have the potential to radically impact island life.

“It is also a testament to the global connectedness of the Hebrides demonstrating how many local concerns – about participatory politics, economic development, and legacies of dispossession and exploitation – are shared with peoples from across the world.”

Mr McCormack, who deposited the archive collection, said: “It is excellent news that funding has become available for this work to be undertaken on the Keep Nato Out archive. I’m delighted that the archive is not only going to be used by Professor Peevers for this important research project, but also that the cataloguing and exhibition work will make it accessible to future researchers.”

Seonaid McDonald, archivist at Tasglann nan Eilean, said: “We are very grateful to Angus McCormack for depositing the collection here, and greatly appreciate the opportunity to work on such an interesting project in collaboration with Professor Charlie Peevers. The funding being provided by the AHRC and collaboration with the University of Glasgow will enable us to fully catalogue and preserve an important local archive - work which would otherwise not have been possible at this juncture.”