Under the Kilt

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 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, though, 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 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, several of them concern the relatively unimportant Mac Diarmaid lordship in north Roscommon and might have been included because there was also a small Mac Diarmaid family in Perthshire, and a Perthshire poet went to visit the old country and brought these poems back. 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 was there with pen and paper.

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 (Sligo), and several from Gearóid Mac Gearailt, famous poet/lord of Limerick/North Clare in the ? 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 and 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 Campbel 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 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 such songs “in which ineffable melodies rise like exhalations from the rhythms and resonances of the words.” (d106). They are, he said, “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…) (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 an awareness of the word music, 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-analysable and very difficult to learn or imitate.

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 (?? -?) was one such person. (Sorley thought so too) Here, before we look at bare words, she sings three verses of #4, or rather 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.

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 Griogair 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. Striking 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 ?? 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 the others around you

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, he is sometimes taken.t content

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