Reading the Gaelic Landscape. John Murray

Figure 1: Gaelic-speaking Parishes in 1806

      The speech previously confined to the Lowlands of Scotland now became known as Scots. The use of the word ‘Irish’ by Major is significant, as it shows that a Lowland writer perceived Gaelic as a foreign language. By doing this, he removed it from mainstream Scottish identity. Lowland values and lifestyle were now central. Calling Gaelic Irish also distanced the Highlands from the Reformation and allowed an anti-Catholic focus to be directed at some Highlanders. In the mid-18th century, Dr Johnson referred to Gaelic as Erse, meaning Irish.

      In 1609, the Privy Council of Scotland passed laws, which became known as The Statutes of Iona. These were intended to establish the rule of central government in the Highlands (Cathcart 2009). Amongst other things, they required Highland chiefs to send their eldest sons to English-speaking, Protestant schools in the Lowlands. At a court convened on Iona, some Highland chiefs signed the documents. A secondary consequence of the Statutes of Iona was the fragmentation of traditional Gaelic culture and tradition (ibid). Nine chiefs were signatories:

      ‘Angus Macdonald of Dunivaig in Islay, Hector Maclean of Duart in Mull, Donald Gorm Macdonald of Sleat in Skye, Rory Macleod of Harris, Rory MacKinnon of Strathordaill in Skye, Lauchlan MacLean of Coll, Donald Macdonald of Ylanterim (Eilean Tioram) in Moydart (Captain of Clanranald), Lauchlan Maclean of Lochbuy in Mull, and Gillespie MacQuharrie of Ulva.’

      The other MacDonald clans of Clanranald, Keppoch, Glengarry and Glencoe did not sign and continued to adhere to the Catholic faith.Two clauses of the Statutes relate to bardic tradition and education.

      The chiefs not to entertain wandering bards, or other vagabonds of the sort ‘pretending libertie to baird and flattir,’ and all such ‘vagaboundis, bairdis (poets), juglouris (jugglers), or suche lyke’ to be apprehended, put in the stocks, and expelled the Islands.

      (Why juggling presented any threat, apart from obvious physical ones, is unknown?)

      Every gentleman or yeoman in the Islands possessing ‘thriescore kye (cows),’ and having children, to send at least his eldest son, or, failing sons, his eldest daughter, to some school in the Lowlands, there to be kept and brought up ‘quhill they may be found able sufficientlie to speik, reid, and wryte Inglische!’

      Seven years later, in its continuing drive to promote education in English, the Scottish Privy Council stated amongst its objectives in passing the Act for the Settling of Parochial Schools:

      that the vulgar Inglische toung be universallie plantit, and the Irische language, whilk is one of the chief and principall causis of the continewance of barbaritie and incivilitie amongis the inhabitants of the Ilis and Heylandis, may be abolisheit and removeit …

      In 1709, spelling had improved, but the education policy of the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SSPCK) continued in the same vein. (In fairness to the Society, the policy was later reversed.)

      Nothing can be more effectual for reducing these Countries to order and making them usefull to the Commonwealth, than teaching them their duty to God, their King and Countrey, and rooting out their Irish language, and this has been the care of the Society so far as it could, for all the Schollars are taught in English.

      Not surprisingly, distancing the Gàidhealtachd from Lowland life provided a seedbed for political action, culminating in the Jacobite risings of 1689, 1715, 1719 and 1745. The last ended ignominiously at the Battle of Culloden and prompted the 1747 Act of Proscription, which banned bagpipes and the wearing of Highland dress. It marked the end of the clan system.

      Clan chiefs soon came to see people on their land as tenants rather than a source of manpower for private armies. Their priority turned to earning as much as possible from their estates. New economics led to the introduction of large-scale sheep farming run by Lowlanders and the consequent clearance of small-scale agricultural tenants from the hinterland and their forced resettlement on the coast, or emigration. For place-names scholars, such narratives can help explain why the fertile and distinctive landscapes of Strathnaver and Kildonan in Sutherland and Loch Tayside and Glen Quaich in Breadalbane show a marked absence of mapped names, whilst coastal areas in Assynt often display a more diverse toponymy.

      On Loch Tayside, the farms of Morenish (NN597351), Kiltyrie (NN629367) and Cloichran (NN618343) were cleared by the Marquis of Breadalbane’s factor before the middle of the 19th century. These areas do not include many place-names. The few present are in English or anglicised. The edge of the loch, despite its many bays, points and confluences, and despite the site of the old settlement of Lawers at the water’s edge, is almost entirely devoid of names. It is as if the new sheep farming society had cut the link between water and hill. All had been foreseen by the Lady of Lawers in the mid 17th century.

      ‘The land will first be sifted, then riddled of its people. The jaw of the sheep will drive the plough from the ground. The homesteads on Loch Tay will be so far apart that a cock will not hear its neighbour crow.’

      (Robertson 2006 20)

      Toponymic emptiness can be seen in nearby Glen Quaich, cleared by the Marquis’s factor at the same time. There was nobody left to tell the mapmakers what to enter in their name books. Duncan MacGregor Crerar of Glen Quaich wrote from Ontario, Canada:

      ‘Evicted thus were Albyn’s sons of fame,

      Their lands are teeming now with sheep and game,

      How sad and lonesome this once happy glen,

      Where, Oh Glen Quaich, have gone thy gallant men?

      Doomed on whom falls the heartless factor’s frown,

      Oh God, arise and crush such tyrants down.’

      (Gillies 1938 212)

      Something peculiar also happened in Glen Quaich as the OS published new editions of the map for the area. On the first edition of its 6” to the mile sheet, Easter Turrerich burn, on the north side of Loch Freuchie is shown as Allt Cù an Teumaidh – Burn of the Biting Dog. Thereafter the transparency of that name is replaced by the mix of Scots and anglicised Gaelic in Easter Turrerich (NN863388). Turraraich may be onamatopoeic and means twittering, warbling or purling. Alltan na Turraraich is in Dundonnell.

      During the Clearances, though some communities, notably in Sutherland, were forcibly moved from the hinterland to the coast, the southern and north-eastern boundaries of the Gàidhealtachd roughly followed the geological boundary Highland Fault (figure 1). Place-names either side of the line are distinguished by their conformity or otherwise with Gaelic spelling and grammar.

      Easter Knockbae (NN837254) is northwest of Crieff. A little further north lies Cnoc Beithe – Birch Hillock (NN864268). Bae is a phonetic rendering of beithe, close enough to suggest some understanding of Gaelic amongst English or Scots speakers. Nearby lies Meall Tarsuinn – Rounded Transverse Hill (NN877297), with an outlying spur to its southwest called Mull Hill (NN883284). Mull is a rough attempt at the sound of meall. These instances suggest the existence of bilingual English and Gaelic communities living close to eachother either side of the Highland line. Similarly, in Reay Parish, in the north of Caithness, Cnoc Dachow (NC965645), whose meaning is obscure, lies close to The Knowes (NC965643). Knowe is a good translation of cnoc into Scots. Within 3 kilometres, correct Gaelic can be found at Cnoc na Mòine (NC940652) - the Knowe of Peat, and Cnoc an t-Samhraidh (NC977620), the Knowe of Summer. Near Lybster in the southeast of the county lies Airigh Hill (ND212381), where Gaelic is combined with English. Whilst 6 kilometres to the north lie Àirigh Bheag (ND213438) and Àirigh Mhòr (ND220442) - the small and the large sheilings. A line drawn between Reay and Lybster defines the northeast boundary of the Gàidhealtachd and can be traced by the distribution of the generic name for field - achadh.

      After the first period of its linguistic retreat, the area of Gàidhealtachd stabilised. Between the early 16th century and the third quarter of the 19th century, it remained reasonably