Author: languageinlyrics

Às A’ Chladach… | The Art of Being Unable to Not Give ’Er

By Cailín Laing (Colleen Lynk)

The North Shore of Cape Breton is a stretch of small communities located along the shoreline in Victoria County, running from St. Ann’s Bay to Wreck Cove. With the majority of the people who settled in the area coming from the isles of Lewis and Harris, the North Shore is home to many of its own unique traditions and a beautiful, distinct dialect of Gaelic. The North Shore is known for its high energy and often comedic songs, the local bards that would compose them, and the talented singers who kept them alive. The most well known were The North Shore Gaelic Singers, a group of men from the area who would often sing together, who famously performed on a stage that would later feature Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. They also made many appearances at local events and milling frolics, where I have heard that it was often a requirement to nail the tables to the floor to prevent them from jumping around with just how passionately the cloth would be beaten.

I can vividly recall the first time that I had the joy of experiencing a true North Shore song at the milling table. Though this experience took place quite far along into my Gaelic journey and was hardly the first time that I had sat in on a milling, it felt as though I was sitting at the table and beating the cloth for the very first time. It was as if I had no control over my hands as the cloth moved, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of wonder and amazement. This is a feeling that has stayed with me to this day. Perhaps the love for these songs is something I inherited, as my great grandmother Margaret MacLean was born and raised in Goose Cove by a family proud of their Gaelic and of their strong Harris roots. Perhaps it was simply the catchy tune and the undeniable pull of the rhythm. Regardless, the heart, the liveliness, and the spirit of the North Shore radiated through the song as it was sung and inspired a phrase that still follows me to this day: he was just so unable to not give ‘er, you know?

The song that had initially sparked my interest in the songs of the North Shore is one that many others are also likely quite fond of: An t-Each Ruadh aig Roland Steele. This humorous song was composed by Hector Carmichael of Munro’s Point and Garrett MacDonald of Meadows Road. Utilizing the power of exaggeration, the song discusses the state of Roland Steele’s horse, specifically who is responsible for the poor craftsmanship of his shoes, while also commenting on the general condition of the horse who appears to have not been properly cared for during the winter – though Roland himself claims differently.

Nuair a ràinig e an stòir,
Bha ’n t-each na lon a falluis aig’,
‘S ann thuirt Bessie às an stòr
‘Lord, how that horse was travelling’

Gur e Hector bha gu cruideadh,
Sid a mhill na casan aig’,
G’an cuir air le tairnean bàta
Gur h-ann a b’fheàrr a dh’fhannadh iad

Sid far an robh am beathach lively,
Falbh a dhriveadh sgoilearan,
Nuair a ràinig e an Cobh,
Cha mhòr bhitheadh ann air tòiseach air.

When he raced up to the store,
The horse was in a pool of sweat,
Said Bessie in the store,
‘Lord, how that horse was travelling’

It was Hector that used to shoe him,
He’s the one who spoiled his feet,
For he shod the horse with boat nails,
So that they’d last a longer time.

And he was a lively horse once,
Driving children to the school,
When he came into the Cove,
There’s none would be ahead of him.

Listen to a recording from Music of Cape Breton, Volume 1 / The North Shore Singers
Also on An Drochaid Eadarainn as an audio file and video.

An t-Each Geal, also known as An Oidhche Bha Luadh Ann, is another North Shore song that I fell in love with recently during my stay at The Gaelic College for An Cùrsa Bogaidh 2019, where instructor Emily MacDonald played a recording of a version sung by Malcolm Angus MacLeod of Skir Dhu that can be found on An Drochaid Eadarainn. Composed by Norman ‘Lazuras’ MacDonald of the North Shore, this song describes a night where some young men in the community had borrowed a white horse from their neighbour to pull their sleigh and take them to the local milling frolic. The song also touches on how the milling frolics often served as a place for young people to meet and court, with the different versions calling out some of these matches by name.

’S an oidhche bha luadh ann
A rinn na balaich gluasad;
Gun n’ chum iad chun an tuath i,
Mo thruaigh mar a dh’éirich.

’S ann shuas aig àite Tharmaid
Siod far na thachair garbh riuth’;
Thuirt Beileag Mhór, “Gu dearbha
Tha ’n fhearg air a’ bhéist ud.”

’S ann an uair sin dheònaich ’ad
Gun dhéidheadh Aingidh còmhla riuth’;
’S ann aig Niall Beag bha spòrs orra,
’S na boys air na reins.

The night of the milling
Was when the boys got moving
And then they headed northward
A pity how it happened.

’Twas down at Norman’s farm that
They ran into trouble
Then Morag said, ‘Indeed now,
That beast is surely crazy.’

And ’twas then that they agreed
That Angus should accompany them,
And little Neil had lots of fun
With those who were driving.

[These lyrics are from the An Drochaid website]
Listen to an alternative version on Sruth nan Gàidheal.

Other lively tunes commonly sung around the North Shore that I believe are deserving of mentioning and that I find myself singing quite often are:

•  A Mhorag ‘s na ho ro Ghealaidh
• ‘Illean Àigh
• Ma Bhuannaich thu Nighean Ghrinn
• O a Hu a Nighean Dubh Nighean Donn

My hope is that this post might inspire others to explore and learn more about the wonderful world of North Shore Gaelic and the songs and traditions of the area. More information about the North Shore and these traditions can be found on the An Drochaid Eadarainn website, including more songs, music, proverbs, and stories. With Gael Stream now partially restored, many other audio recordings from the area are once more accessible online. For Apple Music and Spotify users, Cape Breton Music Volume One: Gaelic Tradition in Cape Breton is available for streaming. This album includes a variety of high quality audio recordings of the North Shore Gaelic Singers themselves. To learn more about the men of The North Shore Gaelic Singers and the milling traditions of the area, a lovely article was published in Cape Breton Magazine on December 12, 1978 and is available to view in full on their website. Cainnt mo Mhàthar, a website featuring audio and video recordings of interviews with native Gaelic speakers from throughout the province, also provides an opportunity to hear more examples of the North Shore dialect.

To keep the conversation going and the list of songs growing, I would love to hear from all of you: what is YOUR favourite North Shore Gaelic song? Or, if this post was your introduction to the North Shore, which of the songs featured did you enjoy the most?

It has been wonderful to be able to call in the energy and expertise of some additional members of the Language in Lyrics team recently. Working mostly on shorter-term projects, their input has been invaluable as we progress with song cataloguing, database management and developing plans to take the project further in the coming years… Here is an introduction to some of the team (the first of two posts).

Cailín Laing / Colleen Lynk: Project Assistant

Colleen is a Gaelic speaker living in Halifax, but with strong roots in Glace Bay and Victoria County. She has been participating in a wide range of classes and events around the province since 2017 and has had the opportunity to learn from various teachers. Recently, she has enjoyed teaching Gaelic Song during Mìos nan Gàidheal, acting in a Gaelic short film, and sitting on the board of her local Gaelic organization, Sgoil Ghàidhlig an Àrd-Bhaile.

Colleen’s passion for the Gaelic language and culture was born out of the admiration she holds for her late grandmother, Sadie Lynk of Glace Bay, originally a native speaker of Gaelic. She also fondly remembers growing up listening to her father, Kevin, sing with his guitar and tell stories in a way that was very reminiscent of what she now knows to be Gaelic tradition. She carries a strong desire to uncover the names and stories of the many passionate Gaels that came before her throughout her family’s history, a project that she has been working on since 2015.

Colleen joins the team this summer 2019 through the Young Canada Works programme and we are delighted to have her. She will be assisting us with entering and cleaning in the song database, as well as text digitization and social media content. She will also be writing a fortnightly blog exploring local history and the Nova Scotian song tradition, as well as her own relationship to her Gaelic roots and the learning process of working on the Language in Lyrics project.

Tealsaidh Nic a’ Phearsain / Chelsey MacPherson: Database Assistant

Chelsey MacPherson is a Gaelic speaker and student at St Francis Xavier University where she is working towards an Honours Degree in Celtic Studies.

As a child, she recalls listening to the Rankins from the backseat of her Grandmother’s car and later began learning Gaelic songs from Sìne MacKenna of Maxville, Ontario. After attending Féis an Eilein in Christmas Island, Cape Breton, she was inspired to pursue learning the language.

Her main area of research is the folklore and Gaelic of her home county of Glengarry, Ontario. This summer 2019 she was awarded a student research grant to comb the Gaelic newspaper Mac-Talla for references to Glengarry County. Alongside this research, Chelsey has completed the substantial and extremely useful task of ensuring that the songs from all 12 volumes of Mac-Talla are entered into the Language in Lyrics database. Taing mhòr a Thealsaidh!

Trueman MacMhathain / Trueman Matheson: Database Assistant

Trueman Matheson started learning Gaelic in 1991 and quickly fell in love with the language. He has served on several boards including the Gaelic Cultural Association – Comunn Gaidhlig an Ard-Bhaile (1992-97, President 1993-95), Comhairle na Gaidhlig 1998-2008 and the Gaelic Development Steering Committee 2002-2004.

In 1998 Trueman established Sìol Cultural Enterprises, a company which he would run for the next seventeen years. Initially Sìol distributed Gaelic materials from publishers such as Gairm Publications, Cànan, and Acair, as well as many other companies. Later, he got into publishing Gaelic books starting with a new edition of An t-Òranaiche (with CD) in 2002. By the time the business closed in 2015 Sìol Cultural Enterprises had published 20 books, many original or expanded editions of older works, as well as a CD and several other products.

Trueman has been assisting the Language in Lyrics project by entering songs into our database from several of the collections published under Sìol Cultural Enterprises. These include many songs composed in Nova Scotia, such as those by the ‘Keppoch Bàrd’ Alasdair Ailein Mhór, published in the book ‘O Cheapaich nan Craobh’.

Trueman currently lives in St. Andrews with his wife of 25 years, Laurinda (MacGillivray), whom he met while learning Gaelic, and who is co-editor of many of the books published under Sìol.

Aleen Leigh Stanton: Digital Heritage Specialist

Aleen Leigh Stanton is an historian, heritage conservationist, and Gaelic language learner living on Big Island, Pictou County. After completing her undergraduate studies at Acadia University, she traveled to the UK to earn an MA in Cultural Heritage Management from the University of York, where she specialized in music heritage.

Family stories about her ancestors who emigrated from Mull, Coll, and Perthshire and their ties to the land have deeply influenced her research interests. As a Research Associate with the Nova Scotia Museum, she is leading a cultural landscape and oral history study on Big Island about place attachment, ‘islandness,’ and the Scottish diaspora.

She is the co-author of “In the Round: The Circular Heritage of Country Music,” for the International Journal of Heritage Studies (Vol. 25, 2019) and “The Invisible Island: Immigration, Environment, and a New Europe on Big Island, Nova Scotia,” for Acadiensis (Winter/Spring 2019).

Aleen recently joined the Language in Lyrics team to assist us in sourcing and developing an online database platform. We will use this to collate the numerous spreadsheets we have been filling with song data, and share this with the wider community. Since it has been proving to be a challenging task, we are delighted to be benefiting from Aleen’s experience as we strive to come up with the most accessible and sustainable option.

Seòl-sìdhe Chlann Anndra | Little Effort, Big Results

By Colleen Lynk

Known simply as Clann Anndra in North Uist, the Laings of Uist were known for being clever people with strong memories. They were also renowned for being able to accomplish easily what may have been difficult for others. I have heard an old tale that this may have been due to an encounter with na sìthichean, the fairies, in which a Laing woman was able to earn back her freedom and was thus granted one wish: for her people to be forever twice as hardworking as any others on earth. Others attribute these talents to the first Laing to arrive in Uist in 1712, Maighstir Seon, a renowned schoolmaster and catechist. Either way, it is a reputation that has remained prevalent throughout history. These skills, coupled with an effortless talent for the art of sloinneadh (genealogy),  came together to create a rich history of storytelling and bàrdachd (poetry). This can be seen in more recent history through the works of Andrew Laing (1900-1969), Bàrd Hòrasairigh, a talented storyteller and composer of Gaelic song, and the Reverend Malcolm Laing (1888-1968), a writer of stories and bàrdachd in both Gaelic and English.

This history first made its way to Cape Breton in 1827 when, at the age of 19, Angus Laing (Aonghas mac Dhòmhnuill ’ic Iain ’ic Anndra ’ic Maighstir Seon) made the journey from Knockintorran, North Uist to Leitches Creek, Cape Breton (it is also at this time that the family name here in Nova Scotia became Lynk due to what is believed to have been a simple transcription error). Whether Angus himself brought with him the aptitude for storytelling and composing of Clann Anndra, I will never know. However, it is something that I often see in his descendants – namely in my own father, a great-great grandson of Angus. Though my father never did inherit Gaelic from his mother, Sadie Lynk (Sadie ni’n Dan Dhòmhnuill Aonghais), something that was sadly quite common within his generation, he certainly inherited the memory and talents of the Uist Laings.

As a child growing up, I was often fascinated with my father’s ability to recall the names of what seemed like an endless amount of people from his community in Glace Bay. He often had stories attached to these people, accompanied by which street they lived on, who they may have been connected to and how. These stories were not limited to his own experiences, as he also had numerous stories that he had heard from others and stored in his memory. He was and is what I consider to be a true seanchaidh (tradition bearer) in his own right.

Not only was I enthralled by his stories, I often thought quite longingly of the guitar case sitting quietly in my parents’ room. I knew that on special occasions it would make its way out into the living room. The ol’ acoustic that had been tucked away inside was held snug in the hands of my father as he gently strummed and sang familiar tunes. Though the communal aspect of this was something I held dear, however, I would hardly say that his guitar was necessary for a tune to take place. I often heard him singing as he did the dishes or as he sat, sometimes putting together fun little versions of the songs that he loved by changing the lyrics or adding the names of our cats or family members. This was something that seemed so effortless for him, and something that I still have the habit of doing myself.

In a way, though I have only recently obtained the language and the understanding to name this, I feel I have learned so much about the ways of Clann Anndra and about the traditions of the Gaels through my father. I began my own journey with Gaelic and with discovering the long and rich family history of my Gaelic speaking grandmother, Sadie, as way to honour her memory.

This has allowed for me to feel connected to her in such a meaningful way that I had always felt was missing, as I was born nearly a decade after her passing and never had the opportunity to connect with her in childhood. What I didn’t expect was that this journey would also gift me with a closer connection to my father. I have been blessed to re-experience the gift of his stories and songs over the last couple of years. They have been instrumental in my understanding of where I stand in my Gaelic identity.

I hope that I am able to carry what I have learned so far into my work here with Language in Lyrics. I also hope to come out of this experience with an even better understanding of these traditions and their profound significance to our culture, language, and our people. I feel both immense passion and burning excitement as I continue to discover the history and recordings of the many, many songs that have endured within our Gaelic communities. I also feel purpose in doing my part to preserve them. I will do my best to maintain my family’s legacy both in the context of this project and beyond, and I look forward to sharing more of my thoughts and discoveries through this blog.

Tuilleadh fiosrachaidh / Further information:

Andrew Laing (1900-1969), or Anndra mac Alasdair ’ic Anndra ’ic Raghnaill ’ic Iain ’ic Anndra ’ic Mgr Seon, was born in Baile Mòr, Paibil, North Uist. Known as Bàrd Hòrasairigh, the songs he composed, such as ‘An t-Eilean Beag Lurach mu Thuath’, are still sung in the communities of North Uist. Naomi Harvey, Ceòlas researcher during the European Oral Song Tradition (EOST) project in 2013-14, has adeptly collected Andrew’s songs and set them within their community context. The book ‘An t-Eilean Beag Lurach mu Thuath: Òrain Anndra Laing’ is available from the Gaelic Books Council and Ceòlas.

The online archive Tobar an Dualchais also contains 42 recordings of Andrew Laing, including songs, stories and toasts.

The Reverend Malcolm Laing’s book, ‘Tha Cuimhn’ Agam: Gaelic and English Writings’ is available on Amazon.ca

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Colleen will be publishing a fortnightly blog every second Thursday from June to August 2019 – keep an eye out for future instalments!

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It’s always nice to put faces to names, and know the people behind a project, so here’s a wee intro to the team behind Language in Lyrics:

Dr. Heather Sparling: project director

Heather is the Canada Research Chair in Musical Traditions and an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at Cape Breton University, where she teaches a range of music and culture courses. She has expertise in Cape Breton Gaelic song and is the author of Reeling Roosters and Dancing Ducks: Celtic Mouth Music (CBU Press, 2014). She is the editor of MUSICultures, the premier Canadian ethnomusicology and popular music journal. Her research interests include the role of music in language and cultural revitalization; exhibiting music; memory and forgetting; disaster songs of Atlantic Canada; and Cape Breton vernacular dance.

Heather is a Gaelic speaker and is actively involved with both local and international Gaelic organizations. She first discovered Gaelic when she lived in Edinburgh, Scotland, and she subsequently studied the language in Toronto, Cape Breton, and at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. She has taught Gaelic in both Toronto and Sydney. She is a passionate advocate for Gaelic linguistic and cultural development and is excited about the role the Language in Lyrics project will play in contributing to Gaelic language growth and recognition within Canada.

Màiri Britton: project manager

Màiri is a Gaelic-speaker, teacher and musician based in Antigonish. Originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, she moved to Nova Scotia in 2016 to take up the post of Gaelic language instructor at St. Francis Xavier University. She currently teaches at St. FX as well as running a number of local community classes and workshop programmes in the province.

Màiri’s interest in the Gaelic language was sparked at the age of five through the Fèis movement, and it was her love of Gaelic songs and singing which inspired her to learn the language to fluency as a teenager. She went on to gain a First Class undergraduate MA (Honours) and a postgraduate MSc, both in Celtic Studies, from the University of Edinburgh.

A talented singer, step dancer and harpist, Màiri performs regularly as a solo artist and with the four-piece Gaelic trad group Fàrsan. She loves getting together with others to learn, share and sing songs, and she is delighted to be involved in facilitating greater access to Gaelic songs and singing through the Language in Lyrics Project.

Mary Jane Lamond: Nova Scotia corpus assistant

Mary Jane is an internationally-renowned Gaelic singer with an extensive knowledge of the Nova Scotia Gaelic song repertoire. She has recorded six albums and worked in a number of different roles and projects focused on promoting and sharing the Gaelic language and culture of Nova Scotia.

It was through visiting her grandparents in Nova Scotia that Mary Jane fell in love with Gaelic tradition and song. While enrolled in St. Francis Xavier University’s Celtic Studies programme, she released her first album, and its reception launched a career of international touring and award-winning further recordings. Alongside numerous Juno awards and ECMA nominations, Mary Jane received the prestigious Portia White Prize in 2010 in recognition of her efforts to preserve Gaelic culture through song.

Having worked on cataloguing the Cape Breton Gaelic Folklore Collection while a student at St Francis Xavier University, and on the song content for the website An Drochaid Eadarainn, Mary Jane is in the perfect position to facilitate the cataloguing aims of the Language in Lyrics project. She brings invaluable knowledge of the Nova Scotia Gaelic community and its song corpus and looks forward to promoting further community involvement and enjoyment in Gaelic songs through this unique project.

Fàilte oirbh! Welcome!

We are delighted to be launching the Language in Lyrics project this month: a three-year partnership project with the aim of creating a comprehensive database of Nova Scotia Gaelic songs, and a lyrics-based corpus of  Nova Scotia Gaelic.

Find out more details about the project here!

We will be introducing the project through a number of presentations during the month of May – Gaelic Awareness Month. The first of these will take place on May 11th, at the Highland Village Museum. Thigibh ann! Come join us! Details below:

(Photo credit: ‘Highland Village Day, Iona’ / 1963 / Abbass Studios Ltd. / item no. B-3879.3. Used with kind permission of the Beaton Institute)