'Outlander': A map from Visit Scotland gives fans a guide to the real country

Wondering what's real and what's fiction on 'Outlander'? The tourism organization Visit Scotland has explanations for Gaelic phrases and where to find real buildings featured in the show, among other trivia.

|
Ed Miller/Sony Pictures Television/AP
'Outlander' stars Sam Heughan (l.) and Caitriona Balfe (r.).

“Outlander” fans: Are you struggling to keep all those Scottish locations straight in your mind or puzzling over the meaning of some of those Gaelic phrases?

Visit Scotland, the national tourism organization for the country, has you covered. Visit Scotland has created an interactive map that identifies historical locations that pop up in the show like the Palace of Holyroodhouse, which pops up later in the “Outlander” books. The map also provides links to information about Gaelic phrases and the history of other Scottish cultural norms like kilts and bagpipes. (TV show-only fans, beware – there are some spoilers for later books on the map.)

“Outlander,” which is based on the series of the same name by Diana Gabaldon, airs on Starz and centers on married World War II nurse Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe), who finds she has traveled back in time to eighteenth-century Scotland, where she meets warrior Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). “Game of Thrones” actor Tobias Menzies portrays Claire’s husband Frank Randall.

The show has already been renewed for a second season; the first will consist of 16 episodes, with eight airing this year and the rest appearing on TV sometime in 2015, according to E!.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to 'Outlander': A map from Visit Scotland gives fans a guide to the real country
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2014/0825/Outlander-A-map-from-Visit-Scotland-gives-fans-a-guide-to-the-real-country
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe