Ùrachadh performers, from the left: Rhona Sutherland, Catriona MacLeod, James Graham (2007 Mod gold medallist), Donald William Stewart (producer), James Ross and Carol-Anne Mackay.

Am Bratach No. 193
November 2007
editor@bratach.co.uk

Ùrachadh bound for Glasgow

Five singers and musicians from Caithness and Sutherland who toured the Highlands in the summer, bringing the music and Gaelic songs of Assynt and the Reay Country to a wider audience, have now been booked to present Ùrachadh at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow. They will appear at the Tron Theatre on January 25, 2008.

Ùrachadh, the title of the multimedia show, which visited ten venues from Stornoway to Skerray in August, means “renewal”.

The tour began in the Caithness village of Dunbeath, birthplace of Neil Gunn, on August 7, where local people crammed into the former school, now home of the Dunbeath Preservation Trust, to hear the singers and musicians, aged from twenty-five to thirty-three, sing and play, show some old and new photographs and play rare archive recordings.

After the final curtain call, Nan Bethune, chairwoman of the trust, made the following, remarkable speech:

“This school, of which we are so proud was built after the 1885 Education Act and was the death of Gaelic in Dunbeath.

“In the audience tonight there are at least two men whose families were evicted from Sutherland almost 200 years ago and who came to Dunbeath. [Patrick] Seller ‘got rid of the trash to Caithness’ where thirty years later Sinclair of Freswick said of his Dunbeath tenants ‘will no one shave the lice off my head’. Their grandparents spoke Gaelic into the twentieth century but did not pass it on; such was the drive for ‘getting on’ — in school at the church and at home. To better yourself it was perceived that you must speak English and despise Gaelic.

“However Dunbeath and Gaelic has had a long complex and fascinating history. I believe that Gaelic came with the Earl of Ross who with ‘his’ men held Dunbeath in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries after the Scandinavian Earldom ended.
“But I’m getting too serious — even politically incorrect for Caithness!

“Did you see the slide of the 1630 illustration of the Mackay mercenaries? They came back here and the Mackay and the Sinclair in Dunbeath raided, raped pillaged and burned each others lands until both were summoned to Edinburgh for justice. Mackay went but Sinclair refused. Anyway, we say Mackay slunk away to Durness.

“I hope the Mackay’s March was never played in Dunbeath until tonight.

“This is their [the artistes’] first performance. Our spines tingled, our toes tapped, our thoughts roamed over the landscapes and we recognised our own kin and shared inheritance. You reminded us of what we have lost and may have forgotten to value.

“We shall never forget your youth, your skill, your talents and your performance tonight. It has been a privilege to hear what you had to say. Lastly, perhaps, in an idle moment, you might write us a tune — ‘Dunbeath’s Lament for the Gaelic.’
“We wish you all the best for the other lucky venues. Thank you, the boiler room boys and girl and each and every one of you.”

Ùrachadh is a project of Taigh na Gàidhlig Mhealanais, the Melness Gaelic group. Secretary Catriona MacLeod, who is also one of the artistes, said: “Ùrachadh is a tribute to the music, language and the people from here, and an invitation to play at one of the largest Celtic music festivals in the world recognises this and we’re privileged to be part of it.”