About Cait McCullagh

Cait McCullagh

Archaeologist and Museums Specialist – Training; Services and Consultancy

I have lived and worked in the Highlands and Islands for most of the last 22 years, working in the voluntary and community and cultural sector throughout. As well as working as a field archaeologist, researching, surveying and excavating sites at locations on Skye; in Wester and Easter Ross; Caithness; Sutherland; Inverness-shire and Moray, I also work as a consultant and deliverer of services to museums throughout the region and bring to this work my experience as a Museum Development Officer and Curator in Argyle. Here I carried particular responsibility for the development of the Heritage Centre on the Isle of Lismore. 

I have a particular interest in developing and supporting inclusive learning and outreach activities that enable wider access and research of collections. To this area I bring my experience of 14 years living and working with adults with learning disabilities and of my role, in the early 1990s, as a Cross Community Coordinator in West Belfast. My work in this area includes research and interpretation of Traveller Heritage within the collections of the Highlands Museum Service, undertaken with young representatives of the Traveller Communities in Inverness-shire and Ross-shire and sponsored by Save the Children.

Additionally, I have worked with the Highlands and Islands Museum Forum, as Development Officer and, less known to my heritage sector colleagues, I have also worked as a Broadcaster and presented a live radio show for three hours each Saturday evening on Moray Firth Radio in the early part of this decade.

I am currently a member of the North of Scotland Archaeological Society and a leader of the Ross and Cromarty Young Archaeologists’ Club

I work with organisations across the sector and provide consultancy, services and training in the areas of:

• Forward Planning Processes;
• Collections Development and Research – particularly involving local communities in collecting both tangible and intangible heritage: collections ceilidhs;
• Recruiting and Engaging Volunteers
• Friends and Fundraising;
• Developing Loans Boxes;
• Press and Public Relations;
• Connecting the Archaeological Landscape; Built Heritage and Museums Collections – dynamic interpretation and events;

My training and consultancy work offers a balance of prepared input and responsive opportunities; enabling participants to learn from and experience new concepts and practices and also to share from their own experiences and consider real situations from their working environment.

During my undergraduate studies for the BA degree of Cultural Studies (Highlands and Islands) I undertook extensive research into traditions, customs and practices associated with Health, Healing and Wholeness as suggested in the material culture, archaeology and the literary and oral traditions and knowledge in the Highlands and Islands. My Postgraduate research for the degree of Master of Studies in Archaeology (Oxon), with Distinction, considered the impact of and reception to Christianity in Northern Pictland; exploring the commissioning, creation, locations and imagery of the Cross-slabs carved in our region in the 8^th and 9^th Centuries.

Contact Cait at cait.mccullagh@gmail.com