Dr. Amanullah De Sondy on RTÉ’s ‘Today’ TV Programme celebrating Scotland’s National Poet, Robert Burns

23 Jan 2026

Dr. Amanullah De Sondy, Head of Department and Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Islam, brought a touch of tartan and religion to Cork’s RTÉ studios on Friday 23^rd January 2026, appearing live on RTÉ’s Today show for the ‘Friday’s Good News’ segment - just in time for Robert Burns Day.

Celebrated annually on or around 25 January, Burns Night honours Scotland’s national poet with a time-honoured Burns Supper featuring haggis, neeps, tatties and, naturally, whisky. Dating back to 1801, the evening is a lively blend of poetry, music, toasts and the inevitable communal singalong of Auld Lang Syne. 

On the show, Aman unpacked Burns’ famously complex and often contradictory relationship with religion. He explored how Burns paired a deeply personal belief in a loving God with a razor-sharp satirical disdain for the rigid Calvinism of the Church of Scotland. Poems such as Holy Willie’s Prayer take aim at the hypocrisy and ‘hellfire’ zeal of so-called ‘Auld Licht’ ministers, while Burns’ sympathy lay firmly with the more liberal ‘New Licht’ theology, which prized personal virtue over doctrinal fear. Yet for all his barbs at religious authority, Burns retained a reverence for sincere, humble faith, beautifully captured in The Cotter’s Saturday Night.

The poet’s own life, of course, was no model of Presbyterian restraint. Burns fathered 12 children with four different women and was once relegated to the church’s Sinners Pew - a public shaming that only inspired him to write The Fornicators Court. As Aman noted, this unapologetic philandering has only added to Burns’ enduring, mythic reputation.

The show also featured Ireland’s celebrated chef Kevin Dundon cooking a special haggis, while Aman had the honour of delivering the Address to a Haggis live on air. He was joined on the news panel by comedian Laura O’Mahony as they discussed everything from voice notes to airport antics - alongside hosts Dáithí Ó Sé and Maura Derrane.