The eighth International Conference on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster was held at the Columba Centre (Ionad Chaluim Chille Ìle), Isle of Islay in July 2006. Although papers from the entire field of Scottish and Ulster language study were included, a special focus was on the areas of Islay, Jura and coastal mainland Argyll. The languages, place-names, culture, history, literature and culture of this distinctive area of Scotland were examined in papers which are revised and edited for this publication by Derrick McClure, John Kirk and Margaret Storrie, presenting a fascinating collection of new studies by leading scholars.
Earra-Ghaidheil, ‘the coast of the Gael’, was where the Gaelic language was first established in Scotland, and the collection begins with an account of the Gaelic of South Argyll by scholar and researcher, George Jones. Concentrating on Jura Gaelic and its differences from Islay Gaelic, Jones provides a detailed linguistic examination and calls for further research to be done while native speakers remain alive, for sadly Jura Gaelic appears to be in terminal decline.
The theme of place-names is continued in papers by Peter Drummond of Glasgow University and Paul Tempan, researcher in the Northern Ireland Place-name Project. They present complementary studies of place-names, the first concentrating on mountain names in Islay and Jura and the second extending the discussion in time and space by tracing ancient Indo-European roots of the word structures, and examining instances of it in Ireland.
Relationships between place-names and history is well illustrated by these papers; but the contribution by Kay Muhr shows how place-names can link to specific historical events. Clan feuds and battles, attested in both scholarly history and local tradition, receive commemoration in names on the map of Ulster, and Muhr’s account of the stories behind those names makes fascinating reading and illustrates the close cultural links uniting islands on either side of the North Channel.
Angus Macmillan’s paper gives a detailed historical study of the gradual emergence of Argyll as a politically-defined territory. The turbulent history of the region and its part in the emergence of the Scottish kingdom under the House of Canmore is illuminated, in a re-assessment of some familiar historical assumptions.
Next, Kenneth MacTaggart uses Robert Bruce’s voyage from Kintyre to Rathlin in 1306 with a MacPhedran as his steersman as the starting point of a lively account of the MacPhedran family’s connection with the Argyll to Ulster ferry. Other traditions relating to the family history are related, and MacTaggart’s paper draws on literature, archaeology, toponymy and historiography for a miscellany of information on the MacPhedran contribution to the history of Argyll.
Brian Lambkin, in the last of the historical articles, investigates a more modern link, this time a tragic one, between Ulster and Islay; the wreck of the emigrant ship ‘Exmouth of Newcastle’ on Islay’s shore in 1847. Lambkin’s article includes contemporary accounts of the wreck but also shows how it survived in memory, quoting the words of the great-grandson of a man who had been on the ship immediately before it sailed. Also quoted is Sara McCaffrey of Donegal, who took part in the ‘Exmouth’ commemoration in Islay in 2000, and who was believed to be the last living link to the 1847 disaster.
As the current Editor of the Ileach worked closely with author, the late Joe Wiggins, on collating Joe’s memorabilia for the first draft of the ‘Exmouth’ shipwreck booklet, and former ‘Ileach’ editor Dorothy Carmichael did the final edit before publication, it was of interest to read that the scholars’ remarks about the booklet and commemoration in 2000 were very positive. ‘This remains an important reminder that the way such events are remembered may make for better or worse community relations in the present. The memory of Ulster emigration still tends to be set in terms of two separate Protestant and Catholic stories of tbe eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Rather than two separate stories, the window offered by the wreck of the Exmouth shows Catholic and Protestant family stories of emigration from Ulster entangled in history.’
Three papers on major literary figures with Argyll heritage or connections follow. William Livingston (Uilleam MacDhunleibhe) of Islay was one of the great Gaelic poets; Donald Meek argues a case for rating him the very greatest bard of the nineteenth century. Meek claims that Islay was then the very hub of the brilliant poetic and intellectual culture of the Gaidhealtachd, and Livingston emerges as a man of learning and passion, intensely aware of the wealth and antiquity of Gaelic cultural tradition and the social forces which were fundamentally changing the Gaelic world.
Christopher Whyte focuses more measuredly on Livingston’s battle-poem ‘Na Lochlannaich an lle’ (‘The Danes on Islay’), giving detailed analysis of the poet’s technique and use of literary and historical sources, demonstrating the skill and subtlety of Livingston’s writing. Readers may be enticed to further explorations of Gaelic poetry.
Twentieth-century poet George Campbell Hay is discussed by J. Derrick McClure. Though Hay is perhaps best known as a Gaelic poet, his work in Scots is an integral part of the Scots Renaissance. McClure argues that George Campbell Hay’s Scots poetry derives its individuality and distinction from the influence of rhythms and poetic structures of his native Tarbert Gaelic. Hay’s forging links between the Lowland and the Highland sides of Scotland’s culture runs deeper than the well-known fact that he wrote in all three of Scotland’s languages.
Finally, Christopher Small concentrates on another of the twentieth century’s key literary figures. Although not a Scot, George Orwell is associated with Jura through his residence there. Small’s account of Orwell’s last years, during which his novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ was written, notes how Orwell’s appreciation of Scotland was radically altered by his first-hand experience of the country.
These contributing authors make an important contributions to our knowledge and understanding of aspects of Islay and Argyll’s language, place-names, culture, history and literature. The collection is a valuable addition to the literature on the area, and will be of interest to islanders and people of Argyll wishing to delve ‘that bit deeper’ into the history of the area. This book is a tribute to this ‘land that lies westward’; one of the most beautiful, distinctive and fascinating parts of Scotland.
Edited by J. Derrick McClure, John. M. Kirk and Margaret Storrie John Donald/Birlinn Ltd., Edinburgh 2009. 244pp. Pbk. £25. This book can be ordered online at Amazon for £ 23.75
Amazon Product description: “This book is a fascinating collection of new studies by leading scholars on central aspects of the languages, literatures, place-names, culture and history of the Isles of Islay and Jura and along the western seaboard of Argyll. It includes major re-assessments of the nineteenth-century Islay poet William Livingston, and an analysis of the Scots found in the poems of Tarbert poet George Campbell Hay. It describes the Gaelic of Jura and Islay as well as the patterns of place-names. In view of the proximity of these regions to Ulster, there are several fresh accounts of historical, cultural and genealogical exchange and crossover. The book ends with a new appreciation of Orwell’s time on Jura.”