Stables Restaurant, Armadale, Isle of Skye, 5 May 2009

The MacArthurs (photo - Terry Williams)

IT WAS standing room only in the Stables Restaurant last Monday evening when folklorist and singer, Margaret Bennett, brought home three generations of Newfoundland Gaels. Their forebears, cleared from Canna, Moidart and Glengarry around 1820, settled in the Codroy Valley, where Margaret had met and recorded Allan MacArthur in the late 1960s.

Allan was born in 1884 and died in 1971. He never saw Scotland, but as one of Gaeldom’s great tradition bearers he passed down the old stories, songs and way of life to his family.

Margaret transported us to Allan MacArthur’s fireside, unfolding his story through anecdotes, history, a snatch of conversation here, a few verses of song there. His mother had songs from Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, songs for milling the cloth, a song for every cow she milked – all from the old way of life that lingered well into the 20th century.

And now 11 of Allan’s descendants, aged 18 to 83, had come home to Scotland, with their fiddles, their button accordians, their guitars and their mandolins.

This was a remarkable group of natural musicians, brought up on regular Saturday night ceilidhs in the MacArthur kitchen. Fiddles and guitars passed from hand to hand, step dancers took to the floor in mid-tune, one song led to another, the audience found themselves joining in.

There were Scottish favourites, country-style music, new tunes and songs composed within the family. Couples waltzed to Over the Ocean Waves on button accordian; a wild Strathspey on fiddle accompanied a spectacular display of set dancing; the guitar gave us Tipsy Jig and MacArthur’s Kitchen Party. Allan’s grand-daughter made The Salt Water Joys, about never wanting to leave Newfoundland; his great-grandaughter sang one of her own haunting compositions.

There was Uamh an Oir – for the caves in Canna – unaccompanied, unamplified, in Margaret’s own clear voice. And there was Oran nam Mogaisean (the Moccasin Song), written by Allan’s brother, Murdoch and sung by Margaret and Martin, his 83 year old son.

“All year I’ve been wondering what this ‘homecoming’ was all about,” someone remarked. “Now I know.”

The event was a collaboration between SEALL and Clan Donald.

© Terry Williams, 2009

Links

• SEAL
• Clan Donald