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8 - The Gaelic Tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2013

By
Peter Mackay
Edited by
Gerard Carruthers  and
Liam McIlvanney
Gerard Carruthers
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
Liam McIlvanney
Affiliation:
University of Otago, New Zealand
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Summary

The introduction to Alexander MacDonald’s 1751 Aiseirigh na Seann Chànain Albannaich [The Resurrection of the Old Scottish Language], the first secular publication in vernacular Scottish Gaelic, engages in celebration, advertisement and rapprochement. Coming only five years after the Battle of Culloden, the introduction carefully makes the case (in English) for Gaelic literature to be understood both in terms of classical and historical precedents, and as a part of the fabric of Scottish cultural life. MacDonald presents his collection of poems as entertainment for those who can read Gaelic, and a possible encouragement for those who cannot to learn; this may happen, he argues, if readers can be brought to see that Gaelic

might possibly contain in its bosom the charms of poetry and rhetoric, those two great sources of pleasure and persuasion, to which all other languages have owed their gradual advancement, and, in these improving times, their last polish and refinement.

MacDonald also proposes a future anthology, a

collection of poems of the same sort, in all kinds of poetry that have been in use amongst the most cultivated nations, from those of the earliest composition to modern times; their antiquity either proved by historical accounts, or ascertained by the best tradition; with a translation into ENGLISH verse, and critical observations on the nature of such writings, to render the work useful to those who do not understand the GALIC [sic] language.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Scottish Literature , pp. 117 - 131
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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References

MacDonald, Alexander [Alastair Mac-Dhonuill], Aiseirigh na Seann Chànain Albannaich (Edinburgh, 1751)Google Scholar
Ferguson, Mary and Matheson, Ann, Scottish Gaelic Union Catalogue: A List of Books Printed in Scottish Gaelic from 1567 to 1973 (Edinburgh: National Library of Scotland, 1984)Google Scholar
Cheape, Hugh, ‘Gaelic Genesis’, Scottish Book Collector, 7:9 (2004), 15–23Google Scholar
Michael Gardiner’s discussion of Cairns Craig and Alasdair MacIntyre in Gardiner, The Cultural Roots of British Devolution (Edinburgh University Press, 2004), p. 80
Meek, Donald E., ‘The Sublime Gael: The Impact of MacPherson’s Ossian on Literary Creativity and Cultural Perception in Gaelic Scotland’, in Howard Gaskill (ed.), The Reception of Ossian in Europe (London: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004), pp. 40–66Google Scholar
Anthologies of note include Ronald MacDonald’s Comh-Chruinneachidh Òrannaigh Gàidhealach (1776)
John Brown’s Rannaibh Nuadh do’n t’Sean Éididh Eachdoil Ghàelich (1786)
John MacKenzie’s Sàr Obair nam Bard Gaelach (1841)
Archibald Sinclair’s An t-Oranaiche (1879)
Henry Whyte’s Celtic Lyre (1898)
Smart, J. S., James Macpherson: An Episode in Literature (London: D. Nutt, 1905), p. 75Google Scholar
Simpson, , ‘Place of MacPherson’s Ossian’, p. 113; the argument is most fully developed in Fiona Stafford’s seminal The Sublime Savage (Edinburgh University Press, 1988)Google Scholar
MacDonald, John, Ewen MacLachlan’s Gaelic Verse (Inverness: Carruthers, 1987), p. ixGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Sidney G. and Thomas Clark’s The Iliad of Homer (New York: David McKay, 1888)Google Scholar
Dwelly, Edward, Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2008)Google Scholar
Meek, Donald (ed.), Tuath is Tighearna (Edinburgh: Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1995)Google Scholar
Whyte, Christopher, ‘William Livingston’s “Na Lochlannaich an Ìle”’, all in J. Derrick McClure, John M. Kirk and Margaret Storrie (eds.), A Land that Lies Westward: Language and Culture in Islay and Argyll (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2009), pp. 123–48; 173–96; 149–72Google Scholar
Cox, Richard (ed.), Ri Linn nan Linntean: Taghadh de Rosg Gàidhlig (Ceann Drochaid: Clann Tuirc, 2005)
Mackay, Peter, ‘John Munro – Clach air a’ Chàrn’, Zed20, 23 (Spring 2008), 24–6Google Scholar
MacLean, Sorley, ‘An Cuilithionn’ [Introduction and Part i], Chapman, 50–1 (10:1–2) (Summer 1987), 158
Hay, George Campbell, Collected Poems and Songs of George Campbell Hay, ed. Michel Byrne, 2 vols. (Edinburgh University Press, 2000), vol. i, pp. 105–77Google Scholar
Klevenhaus, Mìcheal and NicDhòmhnaill, Joan (eds.), Der Schädel von Damien Hirst / An claigeann aig Damien Hirst [The Skull of Damien Hirst] (Llandysul: Gomer Press, 2009)Google Scholar
Black, Ronald (ed.), An Lasair: Anthology of 18th Century Scottish Gaelic Verse (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2001)
An Tuil: Anthology of 20th Century Scottish Gaelic Verse (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1999)
MacLachlan, Christopher (ed.), Crossing the Highland Line (Glasgow: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 2009)
Meek, Donald (ed.), Caran an t-Saoghal: An Anthology of Nineteenth-Century Gaelic Verse (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2003)
Thomson, Derick (ed.), Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair: Selected Poems (Edinburgh: Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1996)

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