A Weekend in Appin

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to give a paper to the Appin Historical Society on behalf of the Carmichael Watson Project. The drive up was rather eventful, with a caravan crash (luckily, nobody was hurt) a few seconds ahead of us at the Brander Pass necessitating a lengthy detour via Rannoch Moor and Glencoe. Nevertheless, we arrived at Port Appin Hall only five minutes late!

The subject of the paper was the lore and traditions of Appin which Alexander Carmichael gathered in the district during three days of intensive collecting in the late summer of 1883. Most of the paper was devoted to the wonderful material he scribbled down from the recitation of Donald MacColl (c. 1793–1886), ‘Domhnall Brocair’, the foxhunter then living at Fasnacloich up in Glen Creran. In his younger days Donald had met both Sir Walter Scott and Duncan Bàn Macintyre, Donnchadh Bàn nan Òran. He reminisced about both these literary giants to Carmichael, as well as about his own experiences during over fifty years of gamekeeping. Other stories Carmichael recorded relate to the Battle of Culloden, at which Donald’s paternal grandfather had been badly wounded and was lucky to escape with his life; to Colin Campbell of Glenure and the notorious Appin Murder; to the local hero Domhnall nan Òrd, the ‘Donald the Hammerer’ whose picaresque adventures so fascinated the youthful Walter Scott; and especially to the local MacColl burial ground Cladh Churalain, perched half-way up Beinn Churalain on the north side of Loch Creran. The ninety-year old Domhnall Brocair, clearly hale and hearty despite his great age, took Carmichael on a visit to the graveyard and its associated healing springs. One story he told particularly caught Carmichael’s imagination: the burning in the late eighteenth century of what appear to have been wooden images of saints Columba, Moluag, and the local holy man Curalan by three ‘scamps’ – sons of the gentry of the district, who all suffered divine retribution as a result.

The great thing about researching a paper on very local subjects is that you have to read the relevant manuscripts extremely closely. The field notebook in which Donald MacColl’s lore was recorded – CW120 – is horrendously difficult to read and leaps seemingly at random from subject to subject. Here I’d like to pay tribute to the transcribing abilities of our erstwhile colleague Dr Andrew Wiseman and the tireless and patient cataloguing of Kirsty Stewart.

The great thing about giving a paper on very local subjects is the feedback – and also corrections! – I always receive from people much more knowledgeable about the area than I am myself. I’d like to thank all those who attended, from Appin and further afield (including Lismore, Ardchattan, Oban, Taynuilt, Morvern, and the Isle of Luing) who kindly took the trouble to chat to me, to enlighten me, and to put me right! Especial thanks to Ronald and Sylvia Laing of the Appin Historical Society for their generous hospitality, and also for showing me two photographs of yet another ‘Carmichael informant’ – Janet MacColl the dairymaid, whom Carmichael met when hiking to Cladh Churalain with Domhnall Brocair:

‘Mòran taing a Chrìosdaidh chneasda’ said [supra: old] Seonaid Nic Colla, Glasdruim, when I helped her up the bank. [CW120/90; see also CW120/178]

Ronnie also told me the intriguing fact that the photographer Erskine Beveridge was taking landscape photographs in Lismore and Appin at exactly the same time as Carmichael was collecting lore there – surely they must at least have met?

Saturday morning was spent rambling in Carmichael’s footsteps up through scrub birch, old oak, and bracken to reach (thanks, GPS!) the graveyard of Cladh Churalain. Despite a couple of soakings, we had wonderful views and thoroughly recommend this fascinating site to our readers.

Images: Cladh Churalain

Dòmhnall Brocair and Donnchadh Bàn

While Alexander Carmichael was collecting in and around Appin between the years 1883 and 1887, he recorded much local lore from a retired foxhunter nicknamed Dòmhnall Brocair, Donald MacColl (c. 1793–1886) from Glen Creran. This man remembered meeting and conversing with the great poet Donnchadh Bàn nan Òran, Duncan Ban Macintyre (1724–1812) and his wife Màiri Bhàn Òg, Mary Macintyre (c. 1750–1824) while the couple were touring round the Highlands looking for subscriptions in order to finance a new edition of the poet’s book which first made its way into print in 1768:

Do[mh]n[a]ll Brocair said
Don[nchadh] Bàn nan oran
in Glasdruim & Mairi
Bhan Og. He was ab[ou]t
5-10in[ches] & well made
& good looking. She was
fine handsome woman
Going ab[ou]t for sub[scriptions]
for 2d ed[ition] of his songs.
Donald was speaking to
Don[nchadh] Ban.

Donnchadh Bàn is remembered as a congenial, convivial and friendly character as well as, of course, being an outstanding poet and versifier. Anyone who had the temerity to raise his ire, however, would be mercilessy drubbed by his ready wit. He will be forever remembered for Moladh Beinn Dòbhrain (‘In Praise of Ben Dorain’). After spending around twenty years as a forester/gamekeeper in this part of Argyllshire, he removed himself (and family) to Edinburgh in 1767, where he took up his duties in the city guard. He produced nothing of any great note after this apart from his swan-song Cead Deireannach nam Beann (‘Last Leave-taking of the Bens’). He eventually retired from the city guard in 1806 and, apart from the occasional jaunts to the Highlands, was to remain in the Scottish capital until his death in 1812. A monument marks his grave in Greyfriars Churchyard and a further memorial to his memory was raised in his homeland on Ceann-chaorach, Dalmally, lying to the east of Loch Awe in 1859. MacColl probably misspoke when he mentioned the second edition: he was not even born by then as the book was printed for the second time in 1790. However, the third edition appeared in 1804 and so MacColl would have been aged about eleven when he spoke to Donnchadh Bàn, who was by then eighty years of age.

References:
CW120, fos. 49v–50r
Angus MacLeod (ed.), Òrain Dhonnchaidh Bhàin: The Songs of Duncan Ban Macintyre (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1952)

Image: Donald MacColl, foxhunter, 1866, Crown Copyright 2007 The National Archives of Scotland, GD1/1208/1/49