The Dean’s
List
Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland are two very different
places.
Ireland is, well, all those Irish things, and the Highlands
are Outlander, whiskey, mountains and so forth. Each country has its own
readily recognizable identity in the Euro Mosaic, and most observers would note
only a few points of similarity. There is rain, of course, a brogue, and, um, red hair?
The problem is that these identities are simply nineteenth and twentieth century, plus
contemporary branding, and have nothing
to do with reality. Ireland and the Highlands were a single culture area until,
say, the 16th century when both were integrated into different
expanding states, England and (Lowland) Scotland. That extended process did
change each one in notable ways that brought them a long ways along the road to
Today and Totally Almost Different
Only…Who cares?
I think this sort of thing certainly does matter to those
interested in the places, but also to those who would in general prefer reality to be based on, well, reality, and
not thrown together using whatever happened to be lying around handy, or constructed
according to other principles, often by people motivated by a desire for profit
or efficiency,
I want to look here at Ione tiny facet of the question.
There is some good music involved and not too many more of my opinions.
Irish Literature is known because a number of specific
manuscripts written in response to specific needs in specific places and times
survived into the late 19th century. One of these manuscripts is
from the Highlands, specifically Fortingall
(Perthshire), about ten miles north of a long-term boundary between Highlands
and Lowlands.
It is all poetry and is thought to have mostly been written by
James MacGregor (The Dean of Lismore) and people associated with him between 1512
and 1542: written from the recitation of filí and bards as they passed through.
It has lost an unknown number of front and back pages, but there are 312 pages left.
It’s no surprise then that there are many poems concerning more or less the local area (plus Argyll to the west, and
the area of the Lords of the Isles) but a lot of the poems are Irish.
Not just in Irish but written about people or places
in Ireland whether by Irish or Highland authors. It is quite possible that
Irish poets traveling in the Highlands recited them in Fortingall, or Highland
poets who had travelled in Ireland did. Irish and Highland poets traveled.
There’s hint of an explanation for the presence of some
poems. For example, the several poems concerning the O’Connor and Mac Diarmaid
lordships in north Roscommon might be there because there was also a small Mac
Diarmaid family in Perthshire, and a Perthshire poet went to visit the old
country or at least looked out for poems about it. Most of the Irish poems have
no particular excuse for being there, though. I suspect some of them were just considered good poems
that a civilized person needed to be familiar with. Others maybe just got
remembered when James MacGregor happened to be there with pen and paper.
(Don’t think long poems can’t travel accurately in people’s minds. Several of the
poems in the Irish O’Reilly bardic duanaire were only written down from the
recitation of an old man who had heard them recited many years before.
Eighteenth-century Munster Irish poets regularly sent their long poems to other
poets, not on paper, but memorized by messengers, then recited. Storyteller
Seán O Conail had accurately a long extract from an Irish book he heard read
once years before.)
There is a great poem to a harp that was in the house of the
lord of Cenal Fiachrach in Westmeath in the 14th century, (It’s
printed from the only other known copy -- known to me at least – in Bergin’s
Irish Bardic Poetry.) There are two of the great poems attributed to Queen
Gormfhlaith in the 10th century (Printed from again the only other
source by Bergin.) There are poems from
the famous 13th century Muireadhach Ớ Dálaigh of Sligo, Palestine,
Scotland etc), and several from Gearóid Mac Gearailt, famous poet/lord of
Limerick/North Clare in the 14th century.
More importantly, the work of the many Highland poets is
indistinguishable from that of the Irish poets. Both use the same register of
learned Irish. Both draw on the same body of practice, imagery, learned legend and history in their work. The Highland poets clearly know the full “Irish”
literature. They “know” Ireland.
Scotland was about to begin its individual journey toward
the kilt, and Ireland toward the pint of stout, but at this point, both were
simply parts of the same cultural area, or, if you like, nation.
(You can find more information on this manuscript, The Book
of the Dean of Lismore, in the National Library of Scotland section on the
Irish Script on Screen site.)
(It survived, by the way, because a 17th century
Dean appropriated it and took it with him home to East Inverness-shire, where a
descendent of his, a parish priest in the 18th century was the
friend of a friend of a very early manuscript collector.)
The manuscript provides an interesting picture of a little
world that has vanished utterly. There all kinds of poems about all kinds of
things, including love poems, bardic poems, an elaborate, urgent call to do
something about all the damn wolves up in the hills, religious poems and what
used to be called ribald or scurrilous poetry. Somebody appeared to have had a
bad experience with a woman or women and has recorded everything he could find
about how deceitful and untrustworthy they are.
It was not a static little world. James MacGregor was not
some ancient druid: he was a notary learned in law and administration and had
probably been educated at Edinburgh or Aberdeen Universities where he learned
standard written Lowland English which he and his collaborators used this to write
down what they heard. (This was not common practice: local contemporaries
used the “Irish” script in this period
and it was known into early 18th century in the Highlands.) The
bardic poems to MacGregor lords and their neighbors document what was still a
fairly peaceful world, but the next phase of Campbell world conquest was about
to happen, and the MacGregors, former Campbell allies, were right in the way.
The Campbells…Everybody knows the Campbells. They are an
example of a lordly family that decided the new emerging world of dog-eat-dog
and devil take the hindmost, and “The ones who has most stuff when he dies,
wins,” was great
The Highlands had been a traditional society where many social
practices were regarded as set and not to be changed around for the sake of
profit or power or for any other reason. Things only really started to change
in the late 15th century when the Lowland kings and Highland allies
(mostly Campbells) destroyed The Lords
of the Isles who had been basically the Kings of the Highlands. With no one
overseeing the Highland world anymore, ambitious ruthless people like the
Campbells finally had an opportunity to
go for it. They didn’t mind violence,
but the law, -- mostly the new Lowland
kings’ feudal law -- was their weapon of choice.
Say a kin group had
been in a place forever and had come to regard themselves as inseparable from the
place, so they were scarcely able to conceive of themselves separately from the
place. That did not mean the Campbells didn’t have the right to screw them out
of it and take the land and charge new tenants whatever rent they could get.
The Campbells might, say, instigate and encourage a feud
between the group in question and some
other group, then get the Lowland King -- very
ready to do whatever necessary to extend his own power and grab land and goods
-- to go after them: for the public good, of course. . The Campbells stayed well-versed in legal matters
and expert in garden-variety legal fraud of various sorts.
No matter how it happened, though, their neighbors’ land often
ended up somehow Campbell land. The clan
became more and more important.
They went after some MacGregor lands and thus the MacGregors who
were already there. The Campbells had sharp lawyers and influence and smarts.
The MacGregors mostly had swords, but
they were tough and knew the country, so the war got very nasty. The Campbells eventually got all MacGregors outlawed, with
the Lowland King’s permission to exterminate them.
The fighting and burning and finnagling went on for many
many years, and it’s probably a good thing the Book of the Dean of Lismore was
taken to a quieter area. Rob Roy was one player in the final stages of the
struggle, but there were other heroes and villeins before him. The whole thing
would be just another sad tale of violence and injustice, were it not for the
fact four great songs came out of it: songs that are still considered classics
in the 21st century in what remains of Scottish Gaelic society.
What makes a song great?
None of them would get many hits today, no matter what
platform was pushing them. Different cultures value different things.
The poet Sorley McLean spoke of songs “in which ineffable melodies rise like
exhalations from the rhythms and resonances of the words.” (Ris a' Bhruthaich: The Criticism and Prose Writings of Sorley MacLean, Ed. William Gillies, Acair Limited, 1985: p 106). These songs,
he said, are “primarily lyrical with the
story sometimes told fairly fully, sometimes only implied. All those poems are
direct and immediate…Generally they are passionate, but the emotional rage is
considerable: sometimes there is a mingling of emotions and frequently a
detached commentary on emotion. They
have an exquisite visual as well as auditory sensuousness…) (p. 76-77
MacLean commented somewhere else that he wasn’t sure someone
not raised in Gaelic in a Gaelic environment could really appreciate
traditional Gaelic songs, and he went on to explain that he meant that was is
required is an awareness of the word music, of the resonances of words and
images, and so on. I think that one result of a singer’s awareness of these
things is a characteristic musical pulse: a pulse that is maybe un-analyzable
and very difficult to learn or imitate, but unmistakable.
It is true that the words of many Highland songs are less
immediately impressive and strikingly lyrical than their Irish counterparts. Their
full impact comes when they are heard sung by someone singing out of the heart
of the tradition, and I think that even then, there is in the art that which is
not easily defined: something that cannot be reduced to its parts.
Kitty MacLeoid of Lewis
(1914 - 2000) was one such person. (Sorley thought so too: QQ) Here,
before we look at bare words, she sings three verses of #4.
https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/80821?l=en
Here is a link that will take you to a recording of her on
the Tobar a’ Dualchais website. It will remove you from this page too, but I’ll
still be here when you get back.
Here is a quote from an obituary so you don’t have to there:
Mrs MacLeod took her baby daughter back to the Isle of
Lewis. Two years later, her husband turned up in a military hospital in
Alexandria, unable to speak his own name. He was brought back to Britain, and
his faculties were restored after his daughter visited his bedside.
The family settled in Lewis, where music was an important
part of their lives, in what was then a largely monolingual society.
…For many years, she virtually turned her back on the
commercial music industry, which she believed to have been exploitative towards
both the music and the people who performed it. However, her much-broadcast,
early recordings on Parlophone from before the second World War, and the memory
of concert appearances in her heyday, ensured that she retained an enormous
amount of professional and public respect.”
I’m not saying, by the way, that the unanalyzable pulse
thing is not in Irish song too. It is, though slightly more regular. Here are
links to two examples, and, look, Ma: neither is even from Conamara.
(I'm working on it, trying to get the file to come here. Meanwhile, here's someone else
https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/80821?l=en
The four songs are:
1)
MacGriogair a Ruadh-Shruth (MacGregor of Roro)
2)
Saighdean Ghlinn Liobhann (Arrows of Glen Lyon)
3)
Clann Ghriogair air Fogradh (Clan Mac Gregor Proscribed)
4)
4) Cumha Ghriogair Mhic Ghriogair Ghlinn Sreith
(Lament for Gregor MacGregor of Glenstra 1570)
(Often known also as Griogail Chridhe)
I give the titles as in Bardachd Ghaidhlig: Gaelic Poetry
1550-1900, Watson, William J: An Cumann
Gidhealach, 1959. They are modern, but the songs themselves date from
1570 to the late 17th century.
From #4 ( attrributed to the executed Griorair MacGriogoir’s
wife)
Is trugh nach robh mi an riocht na h-uiseig, A pity I can’t take the lark's shape
Spionnadh Ghriogair ann mo láimh: and Griogair’s strength in my hand.
Is í an chlach a b’áirde anns a’ chaisteal The stone that’s highest in
their castle
A’ chlach a b’fhaisge do’n bhlár. Would be the stone closest to
the ground
Ged tha mnathan cháich aig baile Although all the other women are at
home
‘nan laighe a’s ‘nan cadal sámh, lying (in bed) and sleeping
soundly
Is ann bhios mise aig bhruaich mo leapa I am always there beside my
own bed
A’ bualadh mo dhá láimh. Stroking
my two hands together.
From #3
Is mi suidhe an so am ónar I
am here sitting all alone
Air cómhnard an rathaid, on
the height beside the road
Dh’fheuch am faic mi fear-fuadain watching to see if a refugee comes
Tighinn o Chruachan a’ cheathaich… out of the mists of Cruachan.
Gun seachnadh Righ nan Dúl sibh, May God of the elements guard you
O fhúdar caol neimhe: against
venomous fine gunpowder
O shradagan teine, against sparks of fire,
O pheileir ‘s o shaighid, against
bullet and arrow
O sgian na rinn caoile against
the narrow-edged knives
Is on fhaobhar geur claidhimh and against the sharp edge
of swords.
From #1
Ort a bheirinn-sa comhairl’ To
you I’d give advice
Nan gabhadh tu dhiom i: if
you’lll accept it from me
An uair théid thu ‘n taigh ósda When you go to the inn
Na -ól ann ach aoindeoch. Drink
only one there
Gabh do dhrama ‘nad sheasamh, Take your drink standing
A’s bí freasdlach mu d’ dhaonibh… And pay attention to your folk.
Déan do leaba ‘sna cragaibh. Make
your bed in the crags
A’s na dean cadal ach aotrom. And only sleep lightly
Ge h-ainneamh an fheórag. Though
the squirrel is rarely met with
Gheibhear seól air a faotainn: he can be taken with
snares.
Ge h-uasal an seabhag, though
the hawk is a noble bird,
Is tric a ghabhar le foil e. often
he’s caught through treachery
(You can find more information on this manuscript, The Book
of the Dean of Lismore, in the National Library of Scotland section on the
Irish Script on Screen site.)
(It survived, by the way, because a 17th century
Dean appropriated it and took it with him home to East Inverness-shire, where a
descendent of his, a parish priest in the 18th century was the
friend of a friend of a very early manuscript collector.)
Many of the more substantial poems by Highland poets are
printed and translated in Scottish Verse from the Book of the Dean of Lismore,
ed. Watson, Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1937 Ossianic poems are in Heroic Poetry from the Book of the Dean of Lismore, edited by Ross.
)If you’re interested in MacGregors, Campbells and so on,
Peter Lawrie’s Glen Discovery site has many articles making available a lot of
information in an intelligent way. Ronald Black minutely examines the
specifics of Campbell hegemony as laid out on the landscape and in time. See the bibliography of his publications.
I’ll end with a great piece of music and video accompanying
a translation of one of Sorley MacLean’s great poems, a cry from heart and
intellect together for what had already been lost in Raasay when he grew up.
Here is to all the age-old little Irish and Highland worlds that have
disappeared, most without documentation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeSrkZfpAjc#ddg-play
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