Highland Place-Names in the Carmichael Watson Collection

For this issue, we would like to welcome as guest blogger Dr Jake King of Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba, who as part of his work has been busy researching place-name evidence in the Carmichael Watson Collection.

The aim of Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba is to find the correct authoritative Gaelic forms of place-names.  As a researcher, part of my work is finding out what Gaelic forms were recorded by past scholars. Over the last few years I have been editing the unpublished notebooks of the Rev. Charles M. Robertson (MS selection at the National Library of Scotland) and to a lesser extent the notebooks of Prof. William J. Watson in the Carmichael Watson Collection. Throughout Robertson’s notes he made reference to his ‘cuttings books’, and I had previously been unable to discover the whereabouts of these, presuming them lost. After recent correspondence with Dòmhnall Uilleam however, we have discovered this collection, which also includes those of Watson and Alexander Macbain (the foremost place-name scholar of the generation prior to Watson). These people were the best Gaelic scholars of their day, and these newspaper cuttings contain many fascinating bits of information ranging from snippets to whole article series.  Here are some highlights:

I found the snippet pictured here loose, undated and unreferenced between two pages of Robertson’s place-names press cuttings book. The context puts it at some time in 1918. It is the published minutes of the executive Council of An Comunn Gaidhealach:

The meeting also agreed to proceed with the publication of a school map of Scotland for the Highland schools showing the place names in Gaelic. The Rev. Charles M. Robertson, Kilmachomaig U. F. Church Islay, is to provide the ‘copy’ for the publishers, and an application for a grant is to be made to the Carnegie Trust.

If anyone knows of any such Gaelic map was ever printed please get in touch!

About a century ago, William J. Watson set up a Mòd entry for papers on place-names,  hoping that this would encourage place-name research. The Gaelic writer Henry Whyte (1852–1913), a native of Easdale, entered this competition under his pen-name ‘Fionn’. His first paper on the place-names of Muckairn from the Oban Times in 1907 is known to Gaelic scholars and toponymists, but this collection contains a hitherto unknown sequel, on his native parish of Kilbrandon and Kilchattan. The value of the discovery of a survey of an entire Highland parish by a reliable native Gaelic speaker cannot be overestimated.

One of the problems I have had in editing the notebooks of Robertson is how to date them. They are not internally dated, and although some references give a terminus ante quem, I was not previously able to narrow the date ranges with much accuracy. CW538 and 539 has changed all that. These are two boxes of old newspapers stored in old envelopes. The content of the newspapers are in themselves interesting, but the addresses and date stamps on the recycled envelopes inadvertently give a fairly detailed account of Robertson’s residences over his life and as such help me to gain some context about the notebooks. By way of example, I can now surmise that the Sutherland notebooks were gathered while he lived in Kinbrace from 1899–1900, or that his Skye Gaelic article and place-names notebooks were researched while he was minister at Ardvasar in Sleat 1904–5.

Carmichael in Kintyre - 2: Rev. Donald John MacDonald of Killean

In the last blog we investigated Alexander Carmichael’s apparently one-off visit to the Island of Gigha on 9 June 1887, during his journey back from Islay to Edinburgh. He seems to have spent the night on the mainland, perhaps at the inn in Tayinloan, just north of Killean. His brief notes are as follows:

Left Kil[l]ean Kintire at 8am
10 June 1887. Rev. Don[ald] Macdon
ald (Nunton) not at home
his mother & sister here. Met
Miss Colville & her brother at
Manse – Mu[a]sdale

Carmichael travelled south to the manse at Muasdale to pay a visit to the local minister, the Rev. Donald John MacDonald (1855–1930) of Killean and Kilchenzie. Carmichael didn’t meet him that day, but it looks as if he did a few years later. The Rev. MacDonald is the subject of today’s blog.

Alexander Carmichael must have known the young MacDonald when he was a schoolboy in Uist: the minister’s father was Norman MacDonald, an important island tacksman, farming both Baile nan Cailleach or Nunton in Benbecula and Bhàlaigh in North Uist, while his mother Jessie – at the manse when Carmichael visited – was the daughter of the Rev. Roderick Maclean (1772–1854) of South Uist. Jessie MacDonald née Maclean (1822–1924) would die a centenarian in New South Wales. The ‘Miss Colville’ who was visiting the manse along with her brother was probably none other than Margaret Colvill (1859–1936), the daughter of Robert Colvill, Belgrove House, Campbeltown, proprietor of the Albyn Distillery there. Two years later, on 12 June 1889, she and the Rev. D. J. MacDonald would marry.

Even though Alexander Carmichael and the Rev. Donald John MacDonald didn’t meet in Kintyre, there seems no doubt that they came across each other a few years later. On 30 January 1891, both men were present at the first annual gathering of the Clan Macdonald Society, held at St Andrew (Berkeley) Hall in Glasgow. ‘The attendance’, reported the Scotsman, ‘was far in excess of the accommodation provided.’

It’s tempting to think that during the evening Carmichael may well have badgered the minister into carrying out his own researches into west Kintyre. The following year MacDonald gave a lecture on the history of his parish, subsequently published in the Campbeltown Courier, then as a stand-alone booklet. The Annals of the Church and Parish of Killean remains a basic, if brief, text for the history of Killean and Kilchenzie. Its success must have encouraged the minister to broaden his investigations into archaeology and folklore: on 30 January 1895 he delivered a paper to the Gaelic Society of Inverness, printed the following year as ‘Jottings – Legendary, Antiquarian, and Topographical – from West Kintyre’, TGSI xx (1894–6), 54–65.

This was not the only paper MacDonald prepared for the Gaelic Society of Inverness. In February 1908 a brief and intriguing article on ‘West Kintyre Field Names’ was read to the society by Carmichael’s son-in-law William J. Watson. Doubtless the great place-name expert had a hand in the version which appeared in print three years later [TGSI, xxvii (1908–11), 31–40]. MacDonald was also the transcriber of portions of the now lost manuscript diaries of Rev Murdoch MacDonald (1696–1763) – these transcriptions are preserved in the National Library of Scotland as Acc.11529.

The Rev. MacDonald was not just a local antiquarian. We’ll end this blog by having a look at a heated intervention he made in an episode in the long struggle for Gaelic to be taught as a recognised subject in Highland schools.

On Saturday 6 March 1897 a sizeable deputation under the Marquis of Lorne, including 34 Highland-linked organisations (among them eight clan societies – changed days!) and five MPs, waited upon the Conservative Secretary for Scotland ‘at the Scotch Office’ in London ‘to urge upon him the necessity for more systematic teaching of Gaelic in Schools in the Highlands’. The deputation requested that a grant for Gaelic be distributed as for other school subjects, that encouragement and support be given to bilingual instruction in the Highlands, and that Gaelic-speaking inspectors be hired, thus putting the language ‘in the same position as had already been conceded to Welsh in Wales and to French in the Channel Islands.’ In his discouraging reply Lord Balfour alleged lack of demand from parents and School Boards, and lack of need, stating further:

It seems to me that the more you prove that the Gaelic language is the language of the scholars [i.e. schoolchildren] the less you need to teach it as in itself a subject of study. If, on the other hand, it is put to us that it will disappear unless it is taught, then my answer is that that goes far to prove that it will not be the natural tongue of the scholars, and that it would be beyond the function of a Government Department artificially to keep it up. [Glasgow Herald, 8 March 1897]

Balfour’s rather sleekit ministerial logic, and his bald statement that there was no Gaelic literature to teach children in the language apart from the Bible, provoked the irate Rev. MacDonald to dash off what the Celtic Monthly praised as a ‘scathing letter’:

Gaelic-speaking children should be instructed in Gaelic because it is their natural language. Suppose we vary the terms, and say ‘the more you prove that English is the language of the scholar the less you need to teach it as in itself an object of study.’ … [H]e would be a poor dialectician who would suffer himself to be put on either the one horn or the other of Lord Balfour’s dilemma. …

Did Lord Balfour never hear of Ossian’s poems, of ‘Caraid nan Gaidheal,’ of John Campbell of Islay’s West Highland tales, or of M’Kenzie’s ‘Beauties of Gaelic Poetry’?

MacDonald ended the letter by returning to his childhood in Benbecula:

I attended school in one of the islands of the Outer Hebrides, in which people read [English] fluently indeed, but what they did read might have been Greek for all they understood of it. Had they been taught to read their own language, and this made the medium of instruction, I am sure it would have been otherwise, and they would have profited immeasurably more than they did by their education. And instead of objecting to Gaelic being spoken in school or playground the conditions under which the children were taught were a source of constant complaint on the part of their parents. Highlanders value and even love the Saxon tongue. But that is no reason why they should neglect a language having associations, historical and mental, of so close a nature for them, or suffer it to sink into decay and become extinct. Let all interested persevere in their demands, and none can deny them. [Glasgow Herald, 11 March 1897]

After over 45 years in the pulpit, the Rev. Donald John MacDonald of Killean and Kilchenzie left his charge on 1 March 1926. He died at Muasdale on Saturday 27 December 1930.

References:

CW89/101

Celtic Monthly, 3 (1897), 130.

Glasgow Herald, 8 and 11 March 1897.

Rev. Donald John MacDonald, The Annals of the Church and Parish of Killean (Campbeltown, 1892).

_____. ‘Jottings – Legendary, Antiquarian, and Topographical – from West Kintyre’, TGSI xx (1894–6), 54–65.

_____. ‘West Kintyre Field Names’, TGSI, xxvii (1908–11), 31–40.

Scotsman, 31 January 1891, 9.

Images:
Where the Rev. Donald John MacDonald preached for over 45 years: Killean Church at Cleit, Kintyre. Image copyright J M Briscoe, licensed for reuse under Creative Commons.

Columba of the Graves and Tombs

As may be remembered Alexander Carmichael’s printed output after the publication of the first two volumes of Carmina Gadelica was almost solely restricted to the Celtic Review. This journal, founded in 1904, and lasting until just before the outbreak of the First World War, was edited by Carmichael’s daughter, Ella, under the consulting editorship of Prof. Donald MacKinnon, the first incumbent of the Chair of Celtic at the University of Edinburgh. The year of MacKinnon’s death also saw the Celtic Review fold thus it would seem the impetus to continue publication was lost through this. Responding to a query from J. M. Mackinlay, Alexander Carmichael gave the following reply in the Celtic Review:

Calum-cille nam feart ’s nan tuam. Columba of the graves and tombs. (Carmina Gadelica, vol. i. p. 249 [recte 246].)

In the Celtic Review of April Mr. J. M. Mackinlay asks the meaning of this phrase. Like many other passages in the work, this was translated tentatively. I am under the impression that the phrase refers to the many churches, with burying-grounds attached, named after St. Columba.

Feart is a grave, a graveyard; tuam is a tomb, a place of tombs, a chambered place of burial.

Tung is also applied to a chambered place of burial, and sometimes to an underground house. ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL.

The context for the query was the last verse from Beannachadh Buana or ‘Reaping Blessing’, collected by Carmichael from Angus MacDonald, a crofter from Gearrynamoine, South Uist:

Air sgath Mhicheil mhil nam feachd,
Mhoire chneas-ghil leac nam buadh,
Bhride mhin-ghil ciabh nan cleachd,
Chaluim-chille nam feart ’s nan tuam,
Chaluim-chille nam feart ’s nan tuam.

Translated by Carmichael thus:

For the sake of Michael head of hosts,
Of Mary fair-skinned branch of grace,
Of Bride smooth-white of ringleted locks,
Of Columba of the graves and tombs,
Columba of the graves and tombs.

Not content with just one query, J. M. Mackinlay also merited a response from Alexander Carmichael’s son-in-law, William John Watson, soon-to-be Rector of Edinburgh Royal High School and afterwards the second holder of the Chair of Celtic Languages, Literature, History and Antiquities at the University of Edinburgh. It can be seen that Watson was not shy in flexing his onomastic muscles, and his scientific method of enquiry can be easily discerned:

In last number Mr. J. M. Mackinlay queries whether Maolrithe (Carmina Gadelica, i. 285) is ‘to be identified with St. Maolrise, otherwise St. Finlagan, who is believed to have given name to Knock Mulreesh in Islay, near which is his chapel Cill Fheileagan.’

Maolrithe is none other than Maelruba, the genitive being used as nominative. The pronunciation is seen in Amulree, Maelruba’s ford.

Mr. Mackinlay also asks if Maolruain is a diminutive of St. Maelrubha. It is not. Maolruain is an independent name, occurring twice in the Martyrology of O’Gorman. The latter part of the compound is found with extension in the Irish word ruanad, a champion, whence the very common Irish name Maol-ruanaidh.

Whatever ‘St. Maolrise’ may be, Finlagan is a place-name, meaning ‘little white hollow,’ well known in connection with the Lords of the Isles. W. J. W.

References:
Carmichael, Alexander and Watson, William J. [W.J.W.], ‘Replies’, The Celtic Review, vol. 4, no. 13 (July, 1907), p. 96.
Carmina Gadelica, i, p. 246.
Image: St Columba, Calum Cille

A Son of Ross-shire: Professor W. J. Watson

A figure sometimes overshadowed in the Carmichael Watson Project, but whose name certainly shouldn’t be forgotten, is William John (Ross) Watson (1865–1948). On his second marriage to Ella Carmichael (1870–1928), W. J. Watson became Alexander Carmichael’s son-in-law. Born at Milton in the parish of Kilmuir Easter in Easter Ross to Hugh Watson (1829–1893), a blacksmith, and Maria Buckle Ross (1829–1891), the precocious young Watson would grind himself out a brilliant academic career and would establish his name as the foremost Scottish onomastician of his generation. In an idle moment W. J. Watson jotted down some all too brief details about his birth and early childhood:

My mother’s people belonged to the Milntown of
New Tarbat, parish of Kilmuir Easter, where they
had some houses forming a small street. My
father belonged to Upper Kindeace, in the same parish
― a blacksmith, as his father was before him. The
smithy, now in ruins, stood by the roadside
above the brae from Tullich. The house, close by,
commands a magnificent view of the Cromarty
Firth & the Sutors & to the east the parish of Nigg
Through the Sutors we views the south opposite side of
the Moray Firth; altogether a view hard to
equal.
Milntown, where I
was born on February 17, 1865, is an old-
fashioned village, on record, in 1749 as “Myltoun
of Melthat with its two mills.” In my boyhood
I often visited our relations there, I enjoyed
their kindly company. There was (& is) a
village green, where a bonfire blazed on
New Year’s Day, Old Style. The village was
largely self contained – shops, public house, meal
mill, meeting house, shoemaker…

Educated initially by an uncle, James Watson, in Strathconon then later in Boath, Alness, he entered the Grammar School of Old Aberdeen in October 1880. From there he graduated with First Class Honours in Classics in 1886, and afterwards acted as assistant to Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, Professor of Latin at Aberdeen University. In the same year Watson entered Merton College, Oxford University, and graduated with First Class Honours in Classical Moderations in 1889, and again, in 1891, he achieved First Class Honours in Litterae Humaniores. During this period he was also an active athlete and gained a double blue in Throwing the Hammer and Stone. While at Oxford he came under the influence of the famous Celtic scholar Sir John Rhys. In 1894, after a short period in Glasgow, and at the early age of twenty-nine, Watson became the Rector of Inverness Royal Academy. At this time he became an active member of the Gaelic Society of Inverness and began to contribute articles to their Transactions. His main interest at this time was in onomastics, especially with regard to Gaelic place-names, as evinced by his early but still unsurpassed study of the Place-Names of Ross and Cromarty (1904). Some two years later Watson married – as his second wife – Elizabeth (Ella) Carmichael; his first wife Isabella Christina née Munro had died aged 33 on 25 September 1902. With Ella he had two sons: Alexander or Alec Carmichael Watson, born 14 December 1908, who died aged only 15 on 3 September 1923; and James Francis, later James Carmichael, Watson, born on 12 March 1910. By the time of James' birth W. J. Watson was the Rector of the Edinburgh Royal High School, a position which he held from 1909 to 1914. On the death of Professor Donald MacKinnon, the holder since its inception in 1882 of the Chair of Celtic Languages, Literature, History and Antiquities at the University of Edinburgh, Watson succeeded him and occupied this prestigious post until his own retirement in 1938. He was then succeeded by his son James Carmichael Watson, who, despite having grounds to forego military service, joined the Royal Navy in World War II and was subsequently posted missing in action, presumed dead, in 1942. Some six years later, in 1948, W. J. Watson himself passed away on 9 March aged eighty-three. He had suffered a great deal during his life: the death of his two wives and – perhaps the most grievous blows of them all – the death of both of his sons by his second marriage. W. J. Watson is chiefly remembered today for The Celtic Place-names of Scotland (1926), a work thirty years in the making and one which still stands the test of time, the primary scholarly reference to this fascinating subject area.

References:

CW25B, fos. 109r-109v

Nicolaisen, W. F. H., ‘In Praise of W. J. Watson (1865–1948): Celtic Place-Name Scholar’, Scottish Language, vol. 14/15 (1995/96), pp. 15–30 [reprinted in William J. Watson, Scottish Place-name Papers (London: Steve Savage, 2002).

Image:

Professor W. J. Watson