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About gaelic.blog

The podcast from gaelic.blog. Scottish Gaelic audio with accompanying English language text. Bidh sinn a' suathadh ri iomadh rubha. www.gaelic.blog (https://www.gaelic.blog?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Iain F Macleod

Category

arts · history

Language

gd

Explicit

No

First episode

27 Apr 2024

Latest episode

9 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

7 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   9 Oct 2026

   Ep 7. Murdo MacFarlane - The Melbost Bàrd

   Audio in Gaelic, text is in English. The spirit of the poet is driven to poetry. Now, I don’t mean with that that he does it against his will. But, there’s something driving him to put his thoughts in the shape of poetry. That’s what I try and do. To give you something. Especially music. The Late Murdo MacFarlane (or Murchadh MacPhàrlain) is one of Gaeldom’s best loved poets, songwriters and activists. He was a character, striding around Stornoway, sometimes wearing two pairs of glasses and sometimes three. He was a man who loved life. And he was also a great writer of songs, many of which entered the canon of Gaelic songs and are known and sung widely today. The Poet Angus Peter Campbell said of him, that he was “fear a bha thall, ’s a chunnaic’. Hard to translate. A person who had been there and seen it for himself. A person who had experienced a lot. I directed a documentary for the BBC about Murdo, produced by Liza Mulholland and so this piece is informed by what contributors to the program told me about him, and Murdo’s quotes come from video interviews he did through his life. Thanks to Anna Mhoireach for singing extracts of his songs, which you can find below. Murdo’s Early Years He was born on the day of Queen Victoria’s funeral, the 15th of February, 1901. He knew Lewis before the enormous changes of the 20th century, the crofting way of life while it was whole, the fishing, and of course, the language. My father and mother couldn’t talk English, with a result that their Gaelic was richer of course. My mother, when she’d see a traveller coming down the brae, she’d close the door. For the simple reason that, well he’ll be talking to me in English, and I can’t talk English. So the best thing I can do is close the door. As part of the filming we went to Toronto to interview Màiri MacIvor about Murdo’s childhood. She had been raised with Murdo’s family from when she was seven years old. She was in a Care Home then. I’ll always remember it, when I spoke Gaelic to her, like a light went on. My strongest memory of him is, I’d watch him sitting with his back to the peatstack, and he’d be writing. He’d always be writing, I guess composing songs. I thought he wasn’t quite all there! Màiri said that other boys from the village would chase him, they were scared that he would write a song about them. Na làithean geala - the white days, as we say in Gaelic. And then, everything changed. The First World War He was of that generation that was too young to be in the First World War, but old enough to remember it. There was “nothing greater, that causes change, like war. I would say the war was the hardest blow.” He wrote a number of poems / songs about the First World War. Here is an extract from one of them called “1914". Here is Anna Mhoireach singing an extract (different verses to the text). 1914 (Extract) When young lads were togetherCooking potatoes in the embers“Stand up,” would be heard“So we can see if we’re tall enough yetfor the Militia”And so to Fort GeorgeTo the King’s Militia…“I will just be away from you for one season,”he said in the warmth of the peat-stack —I’ll be with you, my love,Before everyone returns from Fraserburgh;Maybe I’ll try my hand in the Clyde ShipyardsIf they need riggers.…The geese flew overThey had their youngThey returned south as alwaysWith their young at their sidesBut my love will not returnExcept in dreamsO Militia of my heart. There were two Gaelic war poets, echoes of which you can find in Murdo’s work. Murchadh Moireach, who wrote lines like “Stop a moment, slender bullet.” And also, Iain Rothach from Aignis, who was killed in WW1. Rothach was the first Gaelic bard to use a contemporary style. “Chan fhada gu Madainn - Not long till Morning” is a powerful poem of Murdo’s. I heard about a man… now it isn’t the same now, but at that time… sleeping when you were on watch, at war time. The law asked for your life if you were to fall asleep on watch. And that’s what happened to this man. NOT LONG TILL MORNING / CHAN FHADA GU MADAINN (Extract) Not long till morningNot long, not longNot long till the greying of the dayTill they put their guns to their shoulders, to hit mewith a fast, lead bullet and bring me to the ground. It was a terrible time in Lewis, so many lost to the war. And then the Iolaire Disaster happened. The Iolaire Disaster 201 men lost their lives on New Year’s Eve 1918 when HMY Iolaire ran aground on the Beasts of Holm at the mouth of Stornoway Harbour. She was bringing servicemen home from the Great War. Just a rope’s length from shore. The morning the Iolaire was lost, Murdo was working in the smokehouse. The boss told them there had been a great loss, that a boat had struck the rocks at Holm. Murchadh went to there to see what had happened. He was interviewed years later about his experience. The first victim was a sailor with his back to this wall here, drowned of course. It would seem that the cruel sea and the cemetery were competing as to which of them would claim his body. The captain was there, with two lifebelts on him. Drowned of course. The man after me said, when he saw the two lifebelts on him, “Cha do shàbhail sin thu” - that didn’t save you. The breakers were racing ashore. And you could see drowned sailors on the crest of the waves. They were like war horses, racing, galloping from the field of battle, with their riders dead in their saddles. Here is an extract from one of Murdo’s poems about that night. LAST NIGHT THE IOLAIRE WAS LOST / RAOIR REUBADH AN IOLAIRE (Extract) Last night the Iolaire was destroyedHer young drowned under her wingFrom Harris the mourningas far as Ness of the fair-haired men.As you didn’t give them alive to usI ask the sea, give them to us drowned.So we can turn our gazefrom your hungry mouth. If you want to read more on this subject, here is a podcast episode / article called “Writing about the Iolaire (https://www.gaelic.blog/p/sgriobhadh-mun-iolaire)”. Emigrating to Canada He was in his twenties after the First World War, when the liners left Lewis for America. He left on one of them to go to America, it’s thought on the Marloch, in 1924 - the same ship my grandfather left on. He stayed in North America for a number of years. He went to Manitoba first as he had a married sister in Winnipeg. He worked as a labourer on farms. Sometimes they weren’t treated well on the farms. They weren’t prepared either for the cold at all. He then worked for the CPR railway compay. But the pay was double in the States at the time, compared to Canada. And so he went across at Niagara, with only four dollars in his pocket - four dollars “between myself and the poor house. But there wasn’t even a poor house there.” On crossing the border, he stood on the street and met a man from his village of Melbost. That night they went out and got lost. Eventually, Murdo found what he thought was his house. He went in, and there was a bowl of porridge on the table. He started eating it and it was a while before he realised he was in the wrong house. Murdo said that he saw so many from the island wherever he went, to Cleveland, to Chicago, that there were Lewis societies in all these places. One of his most famous songs is from that time - “’S fhada leam an Oidhche Gheamhraidh - I Hate the Long Winter Night.” Here is recording of Anna Mhoireach singing a verse and a chorus. I HATE THE LONG WINTER NIGHT / ‘S FHADA LEAM AN OIDHCHE GHEAMHRAIDH (Extract) Faili, faili, faili hò roA long time since I left Lewis.I hate the long winter nightNothing but bare prairie around meNo sound of waves coming to shoreWhen the sun goes downMy heart turns to homesicknessRemembering how far away I amFrom where I used to ceilidh on people Màiri MacIvor said “There was homesickness in him. I heard that the homesickness was so bad, that it was that which made him go home.” There was a worldwide slump in employment across the world at that time, so he decided while he had the fare, to go home. At least, he said, he “wouldn’t be hungry at home”. On reaching home, he became heavily involved in developing the trade union movement on the island. And then, the Second World War broke out. The Second World War 1942, and I was… I knew the history of the Gael in the Army. When he joined the army he said in his poem “An Deis Odhar - The Uniform”: THE UNIFORM (Extract) They gave me a haversackAnd one wasn’t enoughA small one for my waistAnd on my back a large oneA belt around my shoulder they putfull of slender bullets to mainand break the heart of a mother, somewhere with grief. He had a deep hatred of war, it involved the ruination of all involved, he said, and he questioned the idea of having enemies. A good number of poems were written from the point of view of women, or touched on the experience of woman in war and difficult times. It was the plight of mankind that was always behind his work. A humanist, compassion would often move him. KNO - KEEP NATO OUT Politicians have failed us, man. Look at the state.. and… Margaret Thatcher has been over in the oil-rich countries hollering in the streets “who’ll buy my guns, who’ll buy my bombs.” Our weapons are more hellish than the others. You’ll get a good bargain if you buy ours. Now, isn’t that stark naked hypocrisy for a leader of a Government who says “peace, peace, peace”. Now, how can we have peace. Not only are we arming outselves but we’re arming every Tom, Dick and Harry that buys our wares. So. There’ll be no chances,” he says. “there’ll be no survivors.” All will be obliterated. He spoke often of the “duties of the bard”. He said this wasn’t just to sing songs. Murdo said that “It is also the duty of the bard to bring before people problems of the day”. In 1979 he became very involved in the Keep NATO Out campaign - KNO. This was a commuity reaction to NATO’s intention for Stornoway airport, to create a NATO base costing more than £40 million at the time. Eleven of Murdo’s neighbouring crofts were taken for the expansion. Murdo said: We have the survival of our language and survival of our culture. A dual nature problem is facing us. How in the wide world could I be pro-NATO with that? Angus Cormack, who was instrumental in the KNO campaign said: He could see that taking away the land from the people was taking away their culture as well, because the two are so closely linked…He came to us with poetry. And it was another weapon altogether for us to use. And it was a wonderful weapon for us to use. THEY DROPPED THE BOMB LAST NIGHT / LEAG IAD AM BOM AN-RAOIR (Extract) Ba bà my childba bàDon’t wake till morningTill the break of dayAnd I will climb out of the dark placeWithout joyAnd I will look at the horizonDid the bomb fall last night, my loveWere the people, the animals, the crops destroyedDid they let the bomb fall last night…Sleep and never wake up. It was this campaign that made him move towards voting for the SNP: My politics were to the left. But somewhere.. I’m veering towards the SNP now…. It’s because.. our only hope is that Scotland can have at least 95% of our own administration. NA h-ÒGANAICH / THE YOUNG ONES It was in the seventies that young bands started to use his songs, such as Na h-Òganaich - Margaret MacLeod, Donnie MacLeod, and Noel Eadie. He would send tapes to them of his songs. Na h-Òganaich began winning competitions and at the Pan Celtic Festival in Killarney they won with one of Murdo’s songs - “Mi le m’ uilinn - With my Elbow on my Knee.” Here’s the story of what gave Murdo the idea for the song. Murdo had a neighbour who had been at sea, who told Murdo that when ships would leave the Clyde, women would sing a song to their men as the ship went out of sight. Here is Anna Mhoireach singing an extract of the song. WITH MY ELBOW ON MY KNEE / MI LE M’ UILINN (Extract) I sit with my elbow on my kneea sad song comes to meI cried when the sailswent to the thin, high mastswith my love at its height I see my loved one stillWalking on the thin spars, under sail He said “I’ll return, my loveYellow when the barley has grown.” Silk from China for my dresshe promised and a wedding veil Transport him safely home, north windMy love I cried when the sailswent to the thin, high mastswith my love at its height When bands started using his songs it gave him a new lease of life. He started doing lighter things like pop songs. He began travelling more and getting recognition. And in 1974 he took part in the Poet’s Tour of Ireland (Cùirt Filìochta agus Ceoil) performing at different venues. The musician Finlay MacNeil was on the tour with him and he said that it had an enormous effect on Murdo. Experiencing Ireland made him cry at times, he would say - “I feel like I have come home.” Murdo was always the last one to bed and the first one up, Finlay said. Apparently his house was like a student flat at the time, full of posters and books. Other bands like Capercaillie were inspired by his songs, and he would correspond with many musicians sending them tapes he recorded. Murdo aimed to “snatch something from the past and throw it into the future so that generations of the future shall know what we had to do to survive.” Part of what he wanted to pass on to the future was his love of the language. He always spoke passionately about Gaelic. To think that the language you’re composing in, the language your fathers, your ancestors, that it’s disappearing. It’s a really soul-searing thought, to think of it. He was afraid that people would lose the language and that it would die. He believed it was the work of the bard to “keep an edge on the language.” Murdo wrote the anthemic “Cànan nan Gàidheal - The Language of the Gaels”. There is a powerful interview he did in his later years, where he is talking about the pressure on the language, seeing it change. He turns his attention on the film crew, saying: How I envy you people here, who are not faced with my problem. Just imagine if you were going home tonight, and you were saying to yourself, the language I’m speaking will be dead in another sixty years. Just imagine yourselves in my position. And you see, it’s so discouraging. But still we sing, and still we make songs, in spite of everything. Almost sixty years Murdo’s songs are still sung. A special man. As Dr Finlay described him “Depth, and light, and a unique, searching mind in action.” Here is a link to a trailer for the BBC Documentary Murdo MacFarlane - The Melbost Bard. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00zpl5m) Thanks to Anna Mhoireach for her singing. Thanks to Angus Campbell and Liza Mulholland for the photographs. Get full access to gaelic.blog at www.gaelic.blog/subscribe (https://www.gaelic.blog/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   10 Jul 2026

   Ep 6. The Origins of Gaelic Psalm Singing

   Audio is in Gaelic, Text is in English. When the band Radiohead did a tour in 2025, a recording of Gaelic psalm singing was part of the pre-show playlist. Other musicians like Craig Armstrong and Martyn Bennett have also explored it in their music. It moves and fascinates people. How did this style of singing begin? And how does it work musically? Musician Calum Martin has a particular interest in Gaelic psalm singing, its origins and how it has evolved. In our conversation, he talks about how the “long tunes” in the Scottish Psalter were Gaelicised and adapted and how he believes it evolved in the Gaelic speaking community. He also touches on similarities with singing in the Coptic Ethiopian Church (another style of heterophonic music). This is where two or more performers play or sing the same melody simultaneously, but each person adds their own slight variations. Here is a link to a YouTube video of music of the Egyptian Coptic Church (https://youtu.be/LQjupBuhN1I?si=4L2xPQPuBeGy_Ihx). Calum also talks of the time he collaborated with singers from Alabama, and the theory popularised by Musicologist and Yale University Professor Willie Ruff (https://news.yale.edu/2007/04/09/conference-and-concert-line-singing-yale), that Gaelic psalmody influenced African America church music. What started Ruff down this path was his friend, the musician Dizzy Gillespie, saying that some African American congregations in the Deep South sang hymns in Gaelic. I link to a Vimeo documentary about the subject called “A Conjoining of Ancient Song” below. It’s fascinating and moving. There’s also some footage of a Muscogee (Creek) congregation lining-out, which Ruff argued was brought into their culture in a similar way. It should be noted that this theory is disputed, with other academics such as Terry Miller arguing that the practice of 'lining out' in both Hebridean and African-American traditions is a vestige of an older English practice (https://www.jstor.org/stable/27808678) that has long since disappeared in England. Michael Newton’s writing on the socio-linguistic profile of Cape Fear Gaeldom (https://gaelicmichael.substack.com/i/167903093/a-socio-linguistic-profile-of-cape-fear-gaeldom) is really worth reading if you are interested in this area. Michael writes : In another account from 1829, the town of Fayetteville was said to be such a strong bastion of Gaelic speech that even public servants needed to be able to speak the language (and presumably read and write it); “The number of these Highlanders and their descendants, who still retain almost exclusively their native language, is so considerable, that a clerk who understands Gaelic, forms a necessary part of the Post-office establishment.” Calum’s parents were living in Glasgow when he was born, and the family returned home when he was four years old, to Calanais on the Isle of Lewis. It was at that young age that he went to church with his grandfather and heard this particular form of worship. His grandfather was a precentor in the congregation at Calanais. As the psalms are sung unaccompanied, a precentor stands at the front of the congregation, they give the starting pitch and lead the congregation in vocal harmony. The word “precentor” is from the Latin and means “the one who sings before.” Here is a short example of Gaelic psalm singing which Calum recorded, so you can hear this particular style of unaccompanied singing - Psalm 133, recorded in Stornoway. Here are edited extracts of Calum’s answers, translated from Gaelic. CALUM MARTIN ON GAELIC PSALM SINGING My grandfather was taking me to the Gaelic services, and at that time, it is little wonder it was soaking into me, because at the age of four I could not yet read Gaelic. This was before I went to school… I was hearing the psalms, and it was little wonder it was just entered into my mind. …I asked my grandfather — do you remember a different way from how we do it now? — and he said, No, not on this island; the way we do it today is the way they always did it. But something happened, I would say, around Nineteen Hundred. As for what kind of style this was, what was different about it from English — because the remarkable thing is, all the tunes we have in Gaelic are taken from the English ones. Every single one of them is in the Psalter. When the Gaelic psalms were first composed, they used what were called the long tunes, and there were only six of them. They were sung in a way where those who oversaw the music in the church wanted to keep things regularised. Before that, it was what they called “lining out”, and that still happens in America in certain places, though they use hymns rather than psalms. Well, at first there were only six of them — six tunes, as I said, going back many years, hundreds of years. It came out of those six tunes. Only two or three of them are used today. Wait now — “Stilt,” that one isn’t used anymore. Well, that was a tune from that time. “French” — that one is still used. “Old London” — yes, well, that one is gone, not used anymore. It’s “New London” now. The psalms are composed in what is called ballad metre — now, we are all familiar with that today — eight six eight six — ‘The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want, He makes me down to lie, in pastures green He leadeth me, the quiet waters by.’ That is common metre, and that is what is used today. And the melodies we have in the psalms come from the soprano line. So today, in the churches, four-part harmony — SATB, soprano, alto, tenor, bass — all those settings are in the church in what they would call the Scottish Psalter (https://digital.nls.uk/scotlandspages/timeline/1659.html). And there are many other things to think about — well, how did the congregations start using it? At that time, in the villages, there was family worship, morning and evening, in every home. Even people who were not Christians at all would have it, and that is where we learned. You know, people ask — where did you learn? Well, there would be a singing school — I remember the singing school… when I was a teenager, where we would learn the tunes at school. We didn’t have television then. So that is where all the lads would go on a Friday evening to learn the tunes. But it was in the family worship that most people learned. The English-speaking churches would do it as a choir. What Gaelic singing is, is an old style, old tradition — Seann Nòs — that was brought into the church. It’s a tradition that we were able to bring into the church — that is what happened. The grace notes - everything - has been incorporated. Many people ask - why is it that Catholics don’t do it? Well, the reason they don’t is that it was never part of their tradition. They relied heavily on choirs, and their worship was in Latin. They didn’t have Gaelic (in church) until the seventies, though they do have a great interest in the seann nòs tradition. At that time, the people in the north had seann nòs in their very bones — so what happened? They…began adding a great many grace notes to everything. A grace note is something you add to the main note. If you were doing it in English: da, da, da, da — those are four notes, plain four notes. But think now about the first one — the grace notes circling around it. What it is: there’s the acciaccatura, the appoggiatura — those are the technical names. There’s music in the thing. Simply notes that people feel. So right now, in the psalms, there are what you might call signpost notes — that is what you have in Gaelic singing. But around those signpost notes, a great many grace notes are taking place….what the Gaels do - they add to it. They make it slow, slow, slow, and then they add the grace notes in. There is something within us that wants to do it in the seann nòs style. Someone started it. Now, was it a minister who began it? Who knows? But the thing is, Iain, this is going on throughout the world. Others will say, “Oh well, this is remarkably similar to the Ethiopian church, the Coptic Church.” People say, “Oh, perhaps Gaels went over there and they learnt from them.” But I would say — and this is very much my own view — that there is something called community singing going on in every place in the world. So the way they would do grace notes over in Ethiopia would be a little different from the way we do it. But the style would be similar. That’s the thing — that’s my own view. Two or three years ago now… I had a group for Gaelic psalm singing, and we went over to America and they came over to this island from Alabama, and they began to notice — this is the same way we sing, but they were doing it with hymns. So right now, it is in English they are doing it over there, because it has been more than — I believe — two hundred years since people were doing it in Gaelic over in America. Is this another subject altogether? We could go into it, and indeed — fifty thousand Gaels went over to America to the Cape Fear area in North Carolina. They had enslaved people - it was a terrible thing - and those enslaved people were being brought into the churches. But it was Gaelic that they were learning. They had the Gaelic, and they were learning the psalm singing style in the church, and after they were emancipated they left, and that tradition of theirs became blended together with other music. When a group from India came over, we were doing something together (for a concert). They did their own thing, we did our own thing, and then we played one tune together. And the interesting thing about the people from India is that the grace notes they do are a little different. Our grace notes are remarkably pentatonic — you know yourself, you have a sense of what it is when Gaelic people do their own grace notes. Say you’re starting to sing something, whatever you’re doing, doing it slow, slow, slow, until eventually it’s as slow as anything. You feel, when you’re singing the thing, that you want to add a little to it, you know, you just want to feel something — something like the blues guitarists, you know, the way they do it, things like that. That’s really what the grace notes are. But it’s particularly in Gaelic, tied into the old tradition, the singing we do as old-style, purely secular old-style, you know. For me, that’s one of the things that happened. It came about because of the simple way of worship we had in the church. There was nothing but the voices. There were no instruments or anything. You were then free, when you got a tune in your head, to add to it as you yourself felt, you know — and that’s what was wonderful about the Gaelic psalms. In a way, it shouldn’t work, because everyone is adding their own notes. You know, if you tried to do that with a piece of music it would make no sense, but when you do it in this remarkable way, it does. Another interesting thing about that — a famous man came over from Germany, known as Joseph Mainzer, and he went around all of Scotland notating things, and we have it written down in notation — “French as sung in Sutherland,” “French as sung in Skye.” (Here is a link to an online version of Mainzer’s book - The Gaelic Psalm Tunes of Ross-Shire on the Internet Archive site.) (https://archive.org/details/GaelicPsalmTunesOfRoss-shire/page/n7/mode/2up) So he was going around the churches, and when you think about it, Iain, it’s very interesting. Say people on this island were learning “French” — say in the Point area, or “French” over on the West Side. What was happening was that the congregations, after a while, were a little different from each other. Perhaps Point was doing it a little more slowly, or perhaps Harris was doing it a little differently, but they were just learning it. But you’d say to yourself, well, when they went to church, what happened? Well, they had learned it — someone would surely have said, “We’re going to learn “French”, and I believe people in the congregations who had a little musical knowledge — perhaps they held a singing school where they picked it up. Well, “Let’s come together, we’re going to learn this in family worship, and perhaps we’ll spend two or three weeks doing it as family worship. Then we’ll all come to church and start doing it.” So there would be a precentor, inevitably, who would know the tune. And then, after a while — as happens in many places — some of those who were singing had wonderful voices, and perhaps after two or three weeks, or maybe a month, those people would start, and the others would begin listening to them. The interesting thing about it is that it was so suitable for every type of person. It was going so slowly that you could be singing it and perhaps learning it at the same time. And there were those with a good ear — they would pick it up very quickly — and the thing was going so slowly that even if you sang a wrong note, you wouldn’t notice it in the sound where there were hundreds of people. But after a while, when you made a mistake, you’d say to yourself, “Oh, I must remember — next time we do this, that wasn’t the note I should have sung.” That’s the way I think, Iain, in my own mind, that it was learned. Now, all the ones we have today — most of them, apart from the three or four that were made when they were doing the long tunes that were written down, where Joseph Mainzer came over and sat and notated — I’ve been looking at those notations that were made. There’s no connection whatsoever. It’s so different from the way we do it today. Now, when you listen to that, and when you listen to “French” being sung in a congregation here on this island, you know it’s the same tune, but there are many differences between them, you know. So that was one thing. The next thing — we have a book from 1935, or I think it may be 1932, where they started using new ones like “Moravia.” And the interesting thing about that is — I remember it in my own lifetime — when “Moravia” was introduced to the church, some of the old men didn’t like it at all. “Oh, this is too jolly,” they’d say. Well, all of those tunes today are part of our heritage. Now, everyone thinks this started on this island? It did not. I’ve been speaking to people in the church asking where they think it began — because surely it had a beginning, where some minister or someone said, “We’re going to do this here in our own way. The people in the church in the south, if they want to keep going as they are, they can do that. But this is the way we’re going to start it here.” And we’re going to sing the first two lines — the precentor will stand up, he’ll deliver the tune after leading through the first line. The congregation says, “Ah, we know what tune that is,” and by the end of the second line the tune is, as they say, established. Then the third line is presented, the congregation does it, and that’s how it continues — four lines in each stanza, from each verse. I know that’s a long-winded explanation, Iain, but there are so many things connected to it that make it so special. And the one other thing I’d say — at the end of the day, people will ask, “Would it work in English?” It would, but it wouldn’t be right. For me — I have heard it — some churches were doing it, the Presbyterian church, Free Presbyterians for example. I know they would do it in English at times. On special occasions, I think. Someone might correct me on that. They would be singing this style in English, not in Gaelic. For me, it made no sense to me when I was saying to myself — most of the people who do it in English have Gaelic. Why are they not doing it in Gaelic? There’s no doubt it can be done in English, but for me my ears are saying — the thing is woven so deeply into our language, you know, just the style itself, as you might say. If people over in India, or Ethiopia, were singing in the congregation, in the community, they would have their own distinctive sound. And that, for me, is what I think makes it so different, and why people today have such a great interest in it. There isn’t a sound like it in the world when it’s done well. What’s so important to me, it’s so tied to our language and culture. Thanks to Calum for his time and his deep knowledge on the subject, it’s much appreciated. RESOURCES Here is a documentary on Vimeo - “A Conjoining of Ancient Song” by Willie Ruff and Gretchen Berland. You can hear an example of lining out of a hymn at 1 min 38s. At 17 min and 39 you can hear lining out by the Muskogee (Creek) people. Pròiseact Bàta nan Salm / The Psalm Boat Project (https://sacredsingingscotland.blogspot.com/p/about.html) - a blog by Dr Frances Wilkins, Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at The Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, which explores contemporary spiritual singing practices of people living in the West Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland. The Matheson Trust - Gaelic Psalm Chanting (With a Recording) (https://www.themathesontrust.org/library/gaelic-psalm-chanting) Michael Newton’s writing: A Socio-Linguistic Profile of Cape Fear Gaeldom (https://gaelicmichael.substack.com/i/167903093/a-socio-linguistic-profile-of-cape-fear-gaeldom) on his Substack The Virtual Gael. Terry Miller’s Academic Paper - A Myth in the Making: Willie Ruff, Black Gospel and an Imagined Gaelic Scottish Origin on JSTO (https://www.jstor.org/stable/27808678)R. Free Church of Scotland Psalm Singing Resources (https://freechurch.org/praise-resources/#psalms) - Includes Text of the 1650 Psalter. Here is a link to the Thom Yorke Radiohead’s 2025 Pre-show Mix - the Gaelic psalm is number 31 on the list. Thank you for reading. Get full access to gaelic.blog at www.gaelic.blog/subscribe (https://www.gaelic.blog/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   5 May 2026

   Ep 5. The Art Extraordinary of Angus MacPhee

   Audio is in Gaelic, text is in English. Angus MacPhee was an artist, weaving objects out of grass, wool and beech leaves. His work is moving, intricate, connected to the place he came from. Horse collars. Pouches for sowing. Ropes. Born in Iochdar, South Uist, he was in the Lovat Scouts as a young man, stationed in the Faroe Islands, where mental illness became increasingly debilitating. He spent most of his life, about fifty years, in Craig Dunain Mental Hospital. He died in 1997 at the age of 81. As a young man in South Uist, he loved horses. He would make harnesses for horses out of marram grass when he was young. He always loved horses, people said. I still remember clearly when I found one of his pieces in the grounds of the hospital. We were filming a short documentary piece about him and were talking to people who knew him at Craig Dunain. It was covered by leaves and earth, they fell off it as soon as it was moved. The dust of leaves losing purchase and slipping to the ground, And then, a rope. About a metre, woven from grass. We started looking in earnest in the long grass then and the pieces started to appear. He used what he found to hand, grass, wool, beech leaves. It is a long time now, but they made a certain sound as they were unearthed. When he was a young man, he signed up and served in the Lovat Scouts. He was posted to the Faroe Islands, and it was there that his schizophrenia started to reveal itself. It led him to becoming silent, with some saying he didn’t speak for decades, except possibly to some close friends in the hospital in Gaelic. The art therapist Joyce Laing was central in bringing his work to light. She was researching artists in a medical setting with the playwright Tom McGrath when she met MacPhee. She framed art found in this setting as a neglected creative practice. Joyce Laing wrote a book about Angus called ‘Weaver of Grass.’ Laing defined Art Extraordinary as work that: ...possesses that powerful quality which impinges itself on the memory, for nothing quite like it will have been seen before. It is arresting. Laing wrote that every day, whatever the weather, Angus would make things out of grass. Once Angus had fashioned a length of plaited grass rope, usually about two metres long, he would commence on another and only when he had made sufficient of these to meet the needs of the garment in mind, would he begin to work on the actual garment. According to the nursing staff, he never possessed any form of implement to assist his creations, using only his fingers to weave and graft his lengths of rope into the shape of a coat, or trousers, or boots. (Laing, 2000). Laing said the number of items was "immense" – coats, jackets, trousers, gloves, boots, waders, hats, there was even a lost swallow-tailed coat. There were hats of such variety to make a milliner die for; caps with a peaked front in the style of a police hat; caps that had earflaps, fit for an arctic explorer and the unforgettable first time I met Angus when he was wearing a grass cap which had a smart peak to the front and fitted his head perfectly, while the crown had worn a little thin. (Laing, 2000) Some use the term ‘Outsider Art’ for art which was made by people who were self-taught, outside the mainstream art world. I prefer the term used in Scotland for this kind of art - ‘Art Extraordinary’. ‘Outsider Art’ was coined by Roger Cardinal as the English version of the term ‘Art Brut’ - which Jean Dubuffet wrote about in a manifesto-essay in 1949 called “L’Art brut préféré aux Arts Culturels”. Dubuffet collected, classified, and exhibited Art Brut—creating a new canon. This is from that essay: We mean by this works executed by people untouched by artistic culture, in whom imitation—unlike what occurs among intellectuals—plays little or no part, so that their authors derive everything (subjects, choice of materials, means of transposition, rhythms, ways of writing, etc.) from their own resources rather than from the clichés of classical art or fashionable art. The term is debated nowadays and the edges of meaning eroded from it. If an artist who is called as an outsider artist has an exhibition of their work in a gallery, what does the term mean? By the 1990s and 2000s, Cardinal himself said there were problems with the term. Other art critics such as Foster and Pollock discussed the notion of being ‘outside’ as a fiction. Foster said that there is no simple outside to culture, no position of purity from which to oppose it. (The Return of the Real, 1996) He says that it is a myth that people can create art completely free of cultural influence. The German artist Joseph Beuys used to say that everyone is an artist, that the impulse to make art is part of the human condition. The artist Will Maclean has also builds on objects with a tie to work, to the sea. In a conversation with Sandy Moffat, he said that “Often… the narrative reveals itself through the found object or the process of making” and that “The creative process is still the same whatever the media.” There are multiple examples in the material culture of an area like the Scottish Highlands which show how far cultural transmission of objects and techniques can reach. One example is Barvasware, from the Isle of Lewis. It is earthenware which was copied from mass-produced Staffordshire and Clyde pottery tableware from the late 19th century. So yes, no position of purity. I wrote a play called ‘I was a Beautiful Day’ at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh in 2005 which was initially inspired by Angus MacPhee’s story and finding his work in the grounds of the hospital. The main character in the play, however, made maps. I was always taken by Tim Robinson’s maps of the Aran Isles and Connemara in Ireland, walking the land and finding stories connected to places. I come from a place which similarly is rich in placenames and I thought that the character could be doing this, making a map of the island he came from but on a scale of one-to-one to be able to represent these stories. I’ve since found the term for this was creating ‘deep maps’, with levels of information and story. MacPhee’s work is a deep map. His world was physically confined to the grounds of the hospital. But nothing held back his imagination and the gift of his hands. Many thanks to Norman Macleod, Taigh Chearsabhagh, for his help sourcing photographs. There are two other main places to see Angus MacPhee’s work online - the collections of Am Baile (https://www.ambaile.org.uk/gd/) and Glasgow Life (https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/art-extraordinary/angus-macphee). MacPhee’s work has inspired many artists. The Mackenzie Sisters recorded a song ‘Fighe le Feur - Weaving with Grass’ (https://open.spotify.com/track/1vDjPsvBDuN657ajw3I0MO?si=6fbd8ce0e5c24e3d) (Spotify Link). Horse and Bamboo Theatre Company did a show about him. Singer Donnie Munro recorded a song on his album Fields of the Young (https://open.spotify.com/track/1lVfzcZ2LIsSgegHx6Pbal?si=35941372dda246cb) called “Weaver of Grass. (https://open.spotify.com/track/1lVfzcZ2LIsSgegHx6Pbal?si=35941372dda246cb)“ (Spotify link.) Poet Chrys Salt has written a number of poems about Angus MacPhee. (http://www.chryssalt.com/poems/afighe-le-feur-weaver-of-grass-i-m-angus-macphee/) Roger Hutcheson wrote a book about McPhee called - The Silent Weaver: The Extraordinary Life and Work of Angus MacPhee (Published by Birlinn in 2011.) OTHER WEAVINGS If you are interested in Angus’ art, you might also get a lot out of the work of these other artists: Ruth Asawa - She makes incredible spiral sculptures, woven out of wire. In Toluca, Mexico, she came across a wire basket in a market and learnt the technique. She was a farm worker, so knew wire, fencing, baling wire. Here is a video on the Museum of Modern Art Channel about Ruth Asawa’s life and work. (https://youtu.be/kOZC9X97-fQ?si=z-5Yjiqi_6sxOKP6) Nnena Kalu - Here is a video of artist Nnena Kalu creating work (https://bradford2025.co.uk/story/artist-in-profile-nnena-kalu/). It’s amazing to see how she so fluently works with materials, weaving and binding them together. She won the Turner Prize (2025). Here is a recording on Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o’ Riches about making a rope from heather - (Siomain-fraoich.) (https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/65268) FURTHER READING Bateman, M. and Purser, J. (2020) Window to the West: Culture and Environment in the Scottish Gàidhealtachd. Sleat: Clò Ostaig, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. A PDF of Window to the West is available on the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Website. (https://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Window-to-the-West.pdf) Foster, H. (1996) The Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Laing, J. (2000) Angus McPhee: Weaver of Grass. Lochmaddy: Taigh Chearsabhagh Trust. Maclean, W. and Moffat, S. (2011) ‘Will Maclean in conversation with Sandy Moffat’, in Will Maclean: Collected Works 1970–2010. London: The Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation. Get full access to gaelic.blog at www.gaelic.blog/subscribe (https://www.gaelic.blog/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

4. 

   22 Dec 2025

   Ep 4. The Ullapool Klondykers

   Audio is in Gaelic, text is in English. In the middle of the Cold War, a massive fleet of Russian ships would anchor every autumn and winter in the small west coast village of Ullapool. They were after mackerel. In 1985, at its height, 150,000 metric tonnes of mackerel was landed in Ullapool. I remember them, the big mother ships, as the Lewis ferry made its way through them. At the time you could get Pravda and caviar in the local shops. Locals liked when they would visit and they rubbed along well in the main, although supposedly there were both KGB and CID undercover officers in the village keeping an eye on who was coming and going. I was told a story that, one night in the pub, they were having a ceilidh and they put on the ship to shore radio so that the lads on the boats could hear the singing. And then some of the Russians joined in, singing their own songs. They decided to play a football match together. The two communities grew closer after that. Once, they had a raft full of classical musicians, who went around the bay playing to the ships. Some people wouldn’t get to land, you see, they just worked on the ships for months. This was the time that the biggest drugs bust in Britain also happened in the area, £100 million worth of cocaine. It’s a little bit Greek tragedy, a little bit Oor Wullie. I’ll tell you the story. The man behind it was Julian Chisholm. He was from Perthshire originally. Nobody knows where he is now. A North Sea Driver. He started off smuggling drugs, marijuana, using the Island of Gruinard as a base. I’ll tell you a little bit about Gruinard and why people avoided going there then. So the Government had an idea during the war that they would drop linseed cakes in the German countryside with anthrax in them. Mainly to kill animals and starve people. It was called ‘Operation Vegetarian’. They tested it on sheep on the island, letting off bombs and tracking the effects. But they didn’t carry through with it. But afterward, no-one could land on the island because it was infected with anthrax. In 1981 a group called Dark Harvest Commando demanded that the island be decontaminated. They left samples of infected soil from Gruinard at Porton Down and (sold which wasn't infected) at Blackpool, where the Conservative Party were having their conference. In 1986 the cleanup started, removing topsoil and spraying the island with formaldehyde. In 1990 it was declared clear of anthrax and sold back to the original owners for £500. The Piper Alpha disaster was in 1988. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Ullapool Klondyke came to an end in the late eighties or so, not just because of the changes to the Soviet Union. The mackerel went elsewhere, further north. Julian Chisholm had moved onto much more serious business by then, getting involved with the Colombian Cali Cartel. Chisholm’s plan, which he carried out, was to smuggle £100 million worth of cocaine into the UK. He did this, a squad of them landing the drugs in a small bay, Clashnessie near Ullapool. But the police had been tracking Chisholm for a long time, since he had been in Spain. They had enough information to know something like this was planned. The operation to catch Chisholm and the others working with him was called ‘Operation Klondyke’. And it almost worked for Chisholm. But. It was near Christmas, and so Chisholm’s crew left the drugs hidden for two weeks on the beach so they could have a Christmas holiday. And then when they met in a hotel in Bonar Bridge, the staff at the hotel noticed very strange patterns of comings and goings. For example, leaving to make the drive south (with the drugs) at three in the morning. But it wasn’t this that caught them out. They had hired a van in Forfar and it was bright orange. A Policeman saw the van and thought it…. that’s a bit strange. And that is how they caught them. If they’d only hired a white van they would probably have been ok. They were stopped in Newtonmore, maybe stopping off for a scone to break up the journey, and five members of the gang were jailed at the High Court in Glasgow. But not Chisholm. And nobody knows where he is, or whether he’s alive or dead. END. Get full access to gaelic.blog at www.gaelic.blog/subscribe (https://www.gaelic.blog/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

5. 

   4 Oct 2025

   Ep 3. Alexander Salamander - A short play in Gaelic.

   This short radio play is in Gaelic. (English translation below.) Advisory: Contains themes of family difficulty and adolescent risk-taking. Bho chionn trì bliadhnna deug nochd Alexander Salamander le BRAG! Bha e fortanach gun do shabhail a’ bhean-glùine e (’s i bha math air rugbaidh) bho bhith a’ landaigeadh air a cheann. Ged a bha iomadach tàlant aig Alexander Salamander, a bhith a’ hypnotaisigeadh chearcan nam measg, cha robh mòran dhaoine a’ cur meas air na tàlantan sin ach a charaid Joan. Nuair a tha Teacher Sur (droch dhuine!) a’ cur an càirdeas sin ann an cunnart, tha Alexander a’ cur roimhe na tàlantan aige a chleachdadh gus rudeigin a dhèanamh mu dheidhinn. Tha Alexander Salamander air a chluich le Iain MacRath agus air a sgrìobhadh le Iain Fionnlagh Macleòid. Fuaim le Rob MacNeacail. Air stiùireadh le Iain MacRath.Air a mhaoineachadh le Bòrd an Gàidhlig agus air a chlàradh aig Stiùideo Ostaig. Alexander Salamander arrived unexpectedly thirteen years ago, saved by the rugby playing midwife from landing on his head. In his younger days, his talent for hynoptising chickens came to the fore, but was not widely appreciated. The only saving grace of his time in school was his friendship with Joan. But when his nemesis, Teacher Sur, escalates their vendetta, Alexander decides to use his talents to get back at him, with unintended consequences. Alexander Salamander is played by Iain MacRae and is written by Iain Finlay Macleod. Sound by Rob MacNeacail.Direction by Iain MacRae.Alexander Salamander is funded by Bòrd na Gàidhlig and was recorded at Studio Ostaig. Get full access to gaelic.blog at www.gaelic.blog/subscribe (https://www.gaelic.blog/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

6. 

   5 Jul 2025

   Ep 2. Writing about the Iolaire - Sgrìobhadh mun Iolaire

   This podcast episode is in Scottish Gaelic. You can find an English text version here - Writing about the Iolaire. (https://www.iainfmacleod.com/iolaire/) SHOW NOTES Writing a short story about the Iolaire Disaster affected me in unexpected ways. Māori writer Tihini Grant, calls it ‘the deeply saddening burden’. This podcast episode looks at writing from Gaelic poets such as Murchadh MacPhàrlain and Ann Frater, and how they wrote about the Iolaire. And also the questions that a class of young people in Italy had about the Iolaire Disaster, after studying the work of different artists about it. Thank you for listening. Sgrìobh mi sgeulachd ghoirid mun Iolaire agus thug e buaidh orm. Bha mi airson coimhead air mar a bha sgrìobhadairean eile a’ làimhseachadh a’ chuspair. Bhruidhinn mi ri clas dhaoine òga san Ròimh mun Iolaire, agus bha na ceistean aca garbh inntinneach, an dèidh dhaibh coimhead air obair ealain sa Ghàidhlig a chaidh a dhèanamh mu dheidhinn. Tapadh leibh airson èisteachd. Get full access to gaelic.blog at www.gaelic.blog/subscribe (https://www.gaelic.blog/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

7. 

   27 Apr 2024

   Ep 1. On Meeting Scottish writer Alastair Reid - A' coinneachadh ri sgrìobhadair Alastair Reid.

   This podcast episode is in Scottish Gaelic. You can find an English text version here:“Sitting in Cafes, thinking of writers.” (https://www.iainfmacleod.com/on_sitting_in_cafes_thinking_of_writers/) This is on my website www.iainfmacleod.com (http://www.iainfmacleod.com) It is about the time I met Scottish writer Alastair Reid in New York with my uncle, Dr Finlay Macleod. Gaelic translation below. In 1999, I went to New York with my late uncle, Dr. Finlay Macleod, to make a documentary about the Scottish writer Alastair Reid. Alastair had learned Spanish and translated the poetry of writers such as Pablo Neruda and Jorge Luis Borges. Alastair had a big impact on my life with his unique way of thinking about his writing and his life. Here are a few thoughts about that trip. Thanks for listening. Ann an 1999 chaidh mi gu New York leis an uncail agam, Dr Finlay Macleod nach maireann, airson documentary a dhèanamh mu dheidhinn an sgrìobhadair Albannach, Alastair Reid. Bha Alastair air Spàinntis ionnsachadh, agus air eadar-theangachadh sgrìobhadairean leithid Pablo Neruda agus Jorge Luis Borges. Thug Alastair buaidh mhòr air mo bheatha leis an dòigh smaoineachaidh sònraichte aige mu dheidhinn a chuid sgrìobhaidh agus a chuid beatha. Seo smuain no dhà mu dheidhinn an turas sin. Taing airson èisteachd. Get full access to gaelic.blog at www.gaelic.blog/subscribe (https://www.gaelic.blog/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)