Martin S. Laird

Artist | film-maker | animator

Tag: St Magnus Cathedral

  • St Magnus International Festival 2025

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    It was my great pleasure to act as official photographer for the 2025 St Magnus International Festival. Here you can see a selection of my favourite pictures from the 18 performances I attended. Performances took places throughout Orkney, but the primary concert venue was of course the magnificent setting of St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall.…

    Written by

    Martin Laird
    Sandstone columns in St Magnus Cathedral illuminated by sunlight through stained glass. Dark blue and purple lit Cathedral with bright streaks of colour.

  • Orcadian Stories – Norman Rushbrook: The Men In Black

    Orcadian Stories – Norman Rushbrook: The Men In Black Norman Rushbrook was lighting manager of the St. Magnus Festival from its inception. In this short film, called The Men In Black after the unobtrusive clothes that stage crew wear, Norman tells some stories of his time with the Festival. This is the second of three…

    Written by

    Martin Laird
    Norman Rushbrook, portrait by Martin Laird of Norman wearing his St Magnus Festival stage crew uniform, taken in St. Magnus Cathedral. Black and white.

  • The New Adventures of St Magnus

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    The New Adventures of Saint Magnus in the 22nd Century Magnus Erlendsson was beatified as a Saint due to his pacifism in life, and death by martyrdom. During the Battle of Menai Straits, which was a Viking raid on Wales, Magnus had refused to fight, staying aboard ship to pray instead. He was eventually murdered…

    Written by

    Martin Laird
    The New Adventures of Saint Magnus in the 22nd Century. "I now appear in these degenerate days, when virtue's fled and vice triumphant sways." Words attributed to St. Magnus by an anonymous poet, 1773. In post-apocalyptic Orkney Saint Magnus roams the land slaying the cannibal humans.