James Irvine Robertson is an author, broadcaster, historian, humourous columnist & contributor to a wide variety of newspapers and magazines in the UK, US and Australia

After working in advertising he became a pig and dairy farmer in South West England, contributed to agricultural journals and wrote a series of comic novels - the ‘Any Fool’ series. He returned to Scotland in 1991 since when he has concentrated on history.

The prime purpose of this website is to give access to family historians and other interested in the history of Highland Perthshire to the transcripts of his family papers. These have been used as the basis for 'The Lady of Kynachan' and other works listed in the bibliography.

His latest book Out of Atholl (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2008) tells the story of the people whose letters, journals and documents have been preserved in this archive. In essence it’s a family saga, a saga of real people who tell of their triumphs, their tribulations. The book ‘brings to life events covering the huge changes that were taking place in Atholl, an area that stretched from Dunkeld to Dalnacardoch and encompassed Lochs Tay Tummel and Rannoch, as all over the Highlands of Scotland, from the beginning of the 18th century until the end of the 19th. The varied voices of Irvine Robertson’s ancestors, who were predominantly small lairds, ministers, doctors, lawyers and farmers, concern themselves with each other’s births, romances, elopements, marriages, illness and death. In a society where people married within ‘a day’s ride’ and often to cousins, a complex intertwining of families and interests was created and a knowledge and concern for each other that is quite foreign to the family of the 21st century.’