Fair-haired Duncan of the Songs

duncan ban mcintyre memorial greyfriars gaelic side by Gary Thomson, under a Creative Commons licence

There has been a number of high profile bicentenaries celebrated this year: Dickens, Browning and Lear. 2012 marks another bicentenary, not of a birth but of a death – Donnchadh Bàn Macintyre, one of the great Gaelic poets of the eighteenth century.  His work is rooted in the rich oral tradition of his time, his songs inextricably bound up with music.

He was born in 1724 in the small settlement of Druim Liaghart, just north of Glenorchy. Parallel to his day job as a gamekeeper for the Campbells of Breadalbane, Donnchadh Bàn soon developed a reputation as a poet. In 1767, Donnchadh Bàn migrated to Edinburgh with his family and joined the Town Guard.  Apart from regular trips to the Highlands and a spell in the Breadalbane Fencibles in the 1790s, the poet remained in the city until his death. Three editions of his poetry were published in his lifetime, in 1768, 1790, and 1804, a remarkable achievement for a man who did not have any formal education and was not literate in his native language.

It is Donnchadh Bàn’s polished and intricate poetry in celebration of nature, and his favourite haunts, that stands out in his work.  In ‘Moladh Beinn Dòbhrain’ (‘The Praise of Beinn Dòbhrain’), the poet includes an acutely observed and affectionate vignette of a hind:

    Eilid chaol-eangach,
    ’S a laoighean ga leantainn,
    Le ’n gasgana geala,
Ri bealach a’ dìreadh,
Ri fraigh Choire Chruiteir,
A’ chuideachda phìceach.
    ’N uair a shìneas i h-eangan
    ’S a thèid i ’na deannaibh,
    Cha saltradh air thalamh
Ach barra nan ìngnean:
Cò b’ urrainn ga leantainn
A dh’fhearaibh na rìoghachd?

[A slender-footed hind,
With her calf following her,
With their white tails,
Ascending a pass,
Along the edge of Coire Chruiteir
Goes the spike-headed company.
When she stretches her limbs
And builds up her speed
Nothing would tread on the ground
Except the tips of her hooves:
Who could follow her
Among the men of the kingdom?[

We can share Donnchadh Bàn’s view as he watches the hind and her calf moving along a hill pass, and then breaking into a run.  The note of admiration in the last couplet suggests that Donnchadh Bàn never tired of watching the deer in his care.

In ‘Òran Coire a’ Cheathaich’ (‘The Song of the Misty Corrie’), the plant-life of the corrie is described in detail:

’S ann mu’n Ruadh Aisridh dh’fhàs na cuairteagan,
     Cluthmhor cuaicheanach cuannar àrd;
A h-uile cluaineag ’s am bàrr air luasgadh,
     S a’ ghaoth gan sguabadh a-nunn ’s a-nall;
Bun na cìoba is bàrr a’ mhìltich,
     A’ chuiseag dhìreach ’s an fhìteag cham;
Muran brìoghmhor ’s an grunnasg lìonmhor,
     Mu’n chuilidh dhìomhair am bì na suinn.

[It’s round Ruadh Aisridh that the tussocks grew,
Sheltered, curled, handsome, tall;
Every green patch with its crop of herbs waving,
As the wind sweeps them to and fro;
The root of deer’s hair grass and the tip of arrow-grass,
The straight ragwort and the curved foxtail-grass,
The sappy bent grass and the copious groundsel,
Around the secret hollow where the heroic stags dwell.]

What might look like little more than a list of adjectives and plant names is turned into an evocative picture of the richness of a flourishing patch of ground by an elaborate system of vowel rhyme and alliteration.  It is for such skill in marrying sound to a vivid image that the poet was known to his contemporaries as Donnchadh Bàn nan Òran, Fair-haired Duncan of the Songs.

In his lifetime, Donnchadh Bàn was a witness – and sometimes a participant – in the events that convulsed the land. He fought for Hanoverian forces in the Jacobite Rising of 1745-6, and took part in the rout following the Battle of Falkirk.  His hopes of winning fame and glory for himself dashed, the poet composed a song on the battle that not only voices criticism of his commanding officers but also manages to slip in some cleverly veiled praise for the victorious Charles Edward Stuart and his supporters. In his song on the Disclothing Act, the Jacobite note is more pronounced as Donnchadh Bàn adds his voice to the chorus of condemnation of a punitive measure that targeted rebel and loyal Government supporter alike by prohibiting the wearing of tartan.

Later, he worked for the Duke of Argyll as a gamekeeper, and it is during this period he composed some of the greatest nature poetry in Gaelic tongue there has been. A memorial to Donnchadh Bàn stands in Edinburgh’s Grefriars kirk, where he was buried in 1812. On July 14, a conference marking Donnchadh Bàn’s bicentenary, The World(s) of Donnchadh Bàn, will be held at the University of Edinburgh, but we don’t have to wait until then to mark this special moment. The SPL holds volumes of his work, some of it translated by Hugh MacDiarmid and Iain Crichton Smith.

by Dr Anja Gunderloch

The World(s) of Donnchadh Bàn
A conference to commemorate the bicentenary of the death of Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir (1724-1812)
University of Edinburgh Saturday 14 July 2012 27 George Square, 9.a.m.-6 p.m.