Lineage, Embodied Memory, and Systemic Resilience
A Heritage Journey is a living inquiry into ancestry as more than history. Rooted in my paternal lineage—the McAdams—and their traditional associations with the MacGregors and the early royal lineages of Dál Riata, this journey explores how resilience, loss, and influence are transmitted across generations.
Rather than treating lineage as a record of the past, this work approaches it as embodied intelligence: adaptive patterns carried through bodies, nervous systems, landscapes, and systems of movement.
The journey traces three overlapping layers of connection:
- Maritime networks shaped by kinship, tides, and seasonal travel
- Early inland pathways that supported medieval consolidation of power
- Engineered roads, pioneered by John Loudon McAdam, that stabilised centuries of movement
At its heart, this project reflects on a recurring lineage pattern: periods of innovation and influence followed by disruption and reorganisation. Through land, routes, and historical figures, it asks how systems—rather than individuals alone—learn to adapt under pressure.
This is not a claim of historical certainty, but an act of relational listening: to place, to movement, and to the inherited ways resilience takes shape.
Itinerary
1. Perth → Scone → Argyll: Historic roads and monastic centres, reflecting consolidation and McAdamization. May 2024
2. Oban → Iona → Oban: Reflection at Iona Abbey on monastic and royal sanctity. May 2024
3. Fort William → Inverness (Great Glen): Strategic north-south inland axis, demonstrating royal mobility corridors.
4. Kintyre Mainland: Inland glens and valleys, tracing early land-based corridors.
5. Belfast / Antrim coast → Kintyre → Islay → Mull: Cross the Irish Sea and Island hopping, honouring Alpin’s maritime mobility.
Foundation Journeys
West Highland Way: Glasgow → Fort William: Followed long-used droving routes and moved through glens, passes, and loch shores on foot. People, not Kings walked this route.
The McAdam Route: Ayr → A77 corridor to Maybole → Lagwyne Castle (ruins): Paid attention to childhood places and road maintenance—potholes (or their absence), watched where gravel collected, saw which roads aged gracefully—in his story.