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Published by
Whittles Publishing Ltd.,
Dunbeath,
Caithness, KW6 6EG,
Scotland, UK
© 2017 John Murray/ Iain Moireach
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, recording or otherwise
without prior permission of the publishers.
ISBN 978-184995-363-4
Printed by Short Run Press Ltd., Exeter
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: Place, Place-naming and Stories
CHAPTER 2: Places, Mapping and Wayfinding
CHAPTER 3: Toponymy, Mnemonics and Topo-mnemonics
CHAPTER 7: Sorley MacLean - Somhairle Mac ‘ille Eathain, The Cuillin – An Cuilithionn and Hallaig
CHAPTER 8: Praise of Beinn Dobhrain / Moladh Beinn Dòbhrain and Hallaig compared
Conclusion: Staging the Gaelic Landscape
Index of Place-names cited in the Text
Many thanks to my wife for helping me along the way. Thanks to Jake King for telling me about an alternative version of the Glen Dochart topo-mnemonic; Neil MacGregor for stories about his own field research and insights into Sorley Maclean’s work; Magnus Course for ethnographic references; Robert Macfarlane for recommending Nan Shepherd’s writing; Ken Wardrop for drawing my attention to the song, Tha Sìor Chaoineadh am Beinn Dóbhrain; Finlay MacLeod for informing me about the older structures of pìobaireachd; Dairmid Gunn for information about his Uncle Neil’s knowledge of Gaelic and permission to use his work; Donald Smith of Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland, and the staff at Whittles Publishing, the Dunbeath Heritage Centre, the University of Edinburgh Library and the National Library of Scotland for help and encouragement. I am grateful to Meg Bateman, Ronald Black, Aonghas MacNeacail, Donald Meek, Pat Menzies and Wilson McLeod for permitting me to quote from their work. Carcanet, Canongate and Faber & Faber are to be thanked for giving copyright consent to use the work of Sorley MacLean, Robert Macfarlane, Nan Shepherd and T. S. Eliot respectively.
The writing of this book has been supported by research leave and funding from the University of Edinburgh.
All drawings and photographs are by the author.
… gach aon ghinealach a dh’fhalbh.
… every single generation gone.
(MacLean in Whyte and Dymock, 232-33)
In a sheltered corner, beneath a small cliff in upper Hallaig, behind the rickle of a ruined house, there is a heap of stones, carefully stacked, one upon another. A pile anyone would rake and gather from the tilth of their plot, as they made ready for spring, and thought about a new sowing. Nothing has been added for over one hundred and fifty years. Nothing has been taken away. The stones have stuck together since then. They were stacked with the same skill with which the low, windowless houses of Hallaig were built. In their constructed, chance contiguity, the stones stand, as mute as mourners witnessing the last rites, and the vacant place before them.
Spring and the anticipation of summer have gone, like morning dew in waxing sunlight. The stoney evidence of hope and expectation, building every season, is stranded, beached in perpetuity. Seeds, saved from the last, remembered, precious harvest, will never be sown. The last broadcast, catching light, as its sunny yellowness cascades through the air, to settle softly in malleable soil, will never be cast. The folk have gone. Their seed has gone. Stones in their soft green coat of time, remain. Moss thickens.
To write is to carve a new territory through the terrain of the imagination … To read is to travel through the terrain with the author as a guide.
