Watershed for Gaelic language and culture

DONNIE MUNRO is best known as a singer, both as a solo artist and as the former lead singer with Runrig.

Among his other roles is development work for Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic College on Skye, and general advocacy and promotion of the Gaelic language and culture. As the Mod prepares to celebrate its centenary in Oban, Donnie reflects on a crucial time for the language.

FOR THE FIRST time in over a century, despite the headline figure of decline in the number of Gaelic speakers in the recent census, the rate of decline is showing signs of slowing. It is undoubtedly a significant trend and one that should give encouragement to the Scottish Executive to recognise the modest success of its own policies and move quickly to extend the range of provision currently available.

This needs to be undertaken as a matter of the utmost urgency and in a strategic and comprehensive manner, ensuring that access to language learning and cultural heritage opportunities can be accessed nationally, wherever there is demand.

Undoubtedly, as never before, the future of the language will depend very largely on the learning community. Put quite simply, we must grow the critical mass of users of the language if its future is to be assured.

The place of the language in contemporary society and the changing nature of the cultural backdrop in which it finds itself, means that to some extent the language is not being nurtured by what many would perceive to be its informing tradition, essentially agrarian and rooted in the land, and may be left to flounder in a cultural vacuum, unless a clear strategic holistic approach is taken.

As the life of our communities change, as new work patterns emerge, new types of employment opportunity are created. In common with many other world communities, as the social fragmentation and dispersal of the extended family units continue, so the pressures and influences on language change and increase.

The informing and sustaining cultural influence of the arts in education has probably therefore never before been so critically important to supporting the language itself, if a sense of the language being rooted in material culture of the Gael is to be strengthened and maintained.

Music is for many the first window into the Gaelic world and it is through that window that many become engaged in the desire to explore, understand and celebrate that cultural heritage which perhaps has been denied them by as little as one generational remove or, more particularly, by the institutionalised neglect which pushed the language to the very edge of extinction, removing it from the consciousness of our Nation.

As the global village becomes an ever-increasing reality, far from seeking to build global uniformity, it has become clear throughout international society that what we most have to offer each other is in fact our cultural diversity. It is what creates interest in the world, it is what adds colour to our identity and it is what strengthens the rich tapestry of international culture.

I feel immensely privileged to have been  a part of what many now perceive to have been something of a renaissance in the language and culture over the last 25 years and, through my work with my former colleagues in Runrig, particularly the brilliant song- writing team of brothers Calum and Rory Macdonald, to have been able to be a part of the building blocks that may have contributed to enhanced self confidence in young Gaels.

Throughout the intervening years, there has been a real burgeoning of interest in the language and in particular the Gaelic Arts, and much excellent work has been achieved through the growth of the hugely influential Feisean Movement which has stimulated interest in the communities and importantly, has fed opportunity at all levels to young children across a range of musical, linguistic and cultural activity.

Perhaps the most significant achievement of the Feisean Movement has been its success in actually growing and retaining expertise within the communities and not simply parachuting experts in from outside for a few weeks in the year. The impact on instrumental music has been profound, with more children than at any time in my living memory now engaged in performance, and to the highest standards.

Unfortunately, there still seems to be a weakness in the area of new writing and perhaps, due to the resurgence of interest in the more traditional forms, there appears currently to be very few young musicians working through the medium of Gaelic in new song writing and contemporary or cutting edge performance.

My own working life as a musician and particularly my work through the medium of the Gaelic language with contemporary writing was one of the most sustaining influences on my linguistic and cultural identity. I feel sure that music and the arts will be increasingly of the utmost significance to the future strength of the language in giving its contemporary exponents a sense of the cultural root.

Allied to increased educational opportunity, economic growth within the culture and linguistic sector, a strengthened dedicated broadcasting service and the resultant employment opportunities, it will be the catalyst to continued confidence in the language as a national asset belonging not only to the Gaels but to all of Scotland  and to the Greater Gaidhealtachd of Scotland, Ireland and Nova Scotia.

I have further been fortunate to have been able to work strategically, through the inspirational National Centre for the Gaelic language and Culture, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, which for three decades has now been at the cutting edge of the regeneration of the language and culture. Its influence has been quite disproportionate to either its relative smallness or its geographical location.

As a key institution within the network provision of the UHI Millennium Institute, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig stands as a national provider for the language, the culture and the arts, and its recent prestigious ‘Queens Anniversary Award’ for excellence and innovation in the field of higher education once more re-affirms that minority language and culture need not be seen either as peripheral, parochial or in any way inferior to ‘mainstream’ provision.

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, in its innovative drive and its determination to provide excellence, sets down a marker for the journey of the Gael, determined to ensure that the language and the culture which has informed and sustained us for the greater part of the last millennium, is confidently imprinted on the threshold of the new.
© Donnie Munro, 2003