Shunpiking Online Vol 2 No 10 As A' Bhràighe: Beyond The Braes By PAUL MACDOUGALL*

The Gaelic Songs of Alan The Ridge MacDonald 1794-1868
By Ef_e Rankin
UCCB Press, 2004
212 pp.

IN 1816 at the age of twenty-two Allan MacDonald, his seven siblings, parents, and many other Gaels left the uplands, or Braes, of Lochaber in Scotland in five ships in search of a new life, free of the oppressive conditions and heartlessness of the landlord and tenant system that ruled life in Scotland. Lochaber was a "turbulent area, constantly engaged in mutually destructive clan warfare and . ravaged by conflict for centuries."

Arriving in Pictou was welcome relief for a people who had just lived through the Napoleonic Wars of Europe as well as decades of poverty and aristocratic control. From Pictou, Alan's father hired a shallop to ferry the family across the Norththumberland Strait to Cape Breton.

They settled on the South West Ridge in Mabou near other Scottish Catholics settlers and over time the family gained 'The Ridge' as their defining moniker

.

Some 150 years later Gaels were still emigrating and settling in Mabou. Gaelic scholar and teacher Effie Rankin arrived in Nova Scotia in 1972 after obtaining an M.A. in Celtic Studies. She helped start Gaelic language programs in Cape Breton schools and has taught at many levels throughout Canada and the US. She presently teaches third and fourth year courses in Gaelic at St. Francis Xavier University.

"I only became aware of Allan the Ridge when I came to Nova Scotia some 30 years ago," says Rankin from her office at St F.X. " He settled at first in Mabou and that is where I also made my home. At one time Mabou was very rich in Gaelic poets and poetry, and Allan's work particularly appealed to me," she says.

Rankin's book took years to complete and actually started out as a hobby, she explains. With encouragement by UCCB Press (now CBU Press) and the Celtic Studies department at St F.X. Rankin produced a wonderful, informative, scholarly work that will appeal to anyone interested in Scottish emigration, Gaelic language, Nova Scotia history and songs and poetry in general.

Over the years Allan the Ridge became famous throughout Cape Breton as a Bard well versed in the history and lore of Scotland and the great clans

. Allan became known as a poet and singer who followed the traditional Gaelic clan style of singing songs of praise, which is referred to today as panegyric singing or writing. He composed at least twenty-three songs that were transcribed into two manuscripts by his son, Alexander. Rankin's book includes all these songs, in both English and Gaelic, including notes to their origins, as well the airs or tunes to the songs, which were transcribed by Marianne Jewell.

Rankin's introduction to Allan's work is an interesting essay on the role of poetry in Scottish history as well as a concise overview of an emigrant family experience to Nova Scotia. Working within an oral tradition Allan and many Bards before him have kept alive the past victories, defeats, feuds and persecutions of their people, through elegiac tributes to dead heroes. Rankin's analysis of historical record keeping through song helps explain the long memories and desire for vengeance against oppressors that Gaels are known for.

Rankin says "modern Gaelic poetry can be quite different from that of earlier poets, since much of it is meant to be read, not sung, and can therefore be more introspective or philosophical.

"Some things don't change, though" she says "such as love songs, laments and humorous verse." One of Rankin's favorite songs is Catriona ni'n Dughaill (Catherine, Daughter of Dugald). "In this song Allan was mesmerized by Catriona's singing and I believe he was transported back to his own childhood and to the land which he once rejected in other songs."

Included in Rankin's book are five drinking songs, which paint a picture of an older Allan the Ridge who is remorseful for the hard life of drinking he led. From Today I am so Sick comes the lines, "I ought to abstain/never to drink another drop/the family circle must be maintained."

Rankin says, "the drinking verses of Allan in particular have remained popular today, but the laments and praise songs are rarely heard because the airs are extremely old, though singers such as Peter Jack MacLean of Christmas Island and Fr. Allan MacMillan of Judique have preserved a good number. Goiridh (Jeff) MacDonald is making a point of learning as many as possible and he creates modern songs based on traditional styles and subject matter, and like the old poets, sings them."

On the state of the Gaelic language in Nova Scotia Rankin is torn because there are success stories, in that people have become perfectly fluent in Gaelic, but ironically have left the province to find work elsewhere. With Beyond the Braes

Rankin is helping to preserve as much as she can about some of the people, such as Allan the Ridge, who have helped define, explain and entertain us for centuries

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*Contributing writer Paul MacDougall is a freelance writer, occasional Gaelic learner, and teacher at Cape Breton University.

Back to the Braes

The Gaelic songs of 19th-century poet, Allan the Ridge MacDonald, will be crossing the Atlantic to his Lochaber birthplace this autumn, when author and Gaelic scholar Effie Rankin takes the Ridge story and Allan's poems on a book tour of western Scotland.

Rankin is author of As a' Bhràighe - Beyond the Braes: The Gaelic Songs of Allan the Ridge MacDonald (1794-1868), published by Cape Breton University Press, which has received favourable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic since its release in December.

CBU Press's Mike Hunter says the book tour will include stops in Glasgow, Skye and Inverness, as well as the Gaelic showcase at Am Mòd Nàiseanta RÏoghail (The Royal National Mod) in Stornoway. Time will also be spent in the Lochaber area, where Allan the Ridge was born and from where some of the most widely-respected traditional Gaelic poetry has emanated.

Besides promoting this particular book, the trip is expected to foster future publications, solidifying the literary links between the Highlands and Islands and Nova Scotia.