Màiri NicGumaraid
Mary Montgomery

Gaelic

Rugadh Màiri NicGumaraid ann an Airigh a’ Bhruthaich, Sgìre nan Loch ann an Eilean Leòdhais ann an 1955.  Tha dàimhean aig teaghlach a h-athar ri Canada is àiteachan eile ann an Ameireaga, le freumhan teaghlach a màthar ann an Leòdhas is na Hearadh.  Bha teaghlach NicGumaraid aithnichte san eilean airson an gnìomhachas ionadail a bh’ aca, far an robh reic gròsaireachd, clòtha is èisg aig cridhe gnothaich.

Nuair bha i òg, bha sgrìobhadh na phàirt chudromach de bheatha NicGumaraid – rud a bha an dà chuid cruthachail is spioradail is a chum ri a cuid ionnsachaidh.  ’S e rùrachadh bheachdan-smuain a tha fhathast aig cridhe a cuid sgrìobhaidh.  B’ i a b’ òige de thriùir chloinne agus chaidh i gun bhun-sgoil ann am Baile Ailein, mus deach i dhan Àrd-sgoil ann an Steòrnabhagh.

Dh’fhàg i an t-eilean gus foghlam oilthighe a leantainn ann an Obar Dheathain, agus, às dèidh dhi ceumnachadh le maighstireachd ann an 1976, thug i dioplòma iar-cheumnach ann an Foghlam Inbheach a-mach à Oilthigh Ghlaschu. Às dèidh sin, chuir i dà bhliadhna seachad ag ionnsachadh Lagha leis an Oilthigh Fhosgailte. Chuir NicGumaraid mòr-chuid den bheatha-obrach aice seachad aig a’ BhBC, ann an Roinn na Gàidhlig an tòiseach ann an Glaschu is an uairsin ann an Roinn an Fhoghlaim, Dùn Èideann.  B’ ann mar òraidiche Conaltraidh aig Colaiste a’ Chaisteil a dh’obair i anns na naochadan.

’S e sgrìobhadh fhèin a th’ air a bhith na prìomh dhreuchd eile aice. Tha i air trì leabhraichean bàrdachd a sgrìobhadh: Eadar Mi ’s a’ Bhreug foillsichte le Coiscèim, Baile Átha Cliath ann an 1988; Ruithmean ’s Neo-Rannan foillsichte mar an ceudna ann an 1997 agus Fo Stiùir A Faire  le Coiscéim a-rithist an 2012. A bharrachd air sin, dà nobhail: Am Baile Beag Annasach, do chloinn, air fhoillseachadh le Acair, Steòrnabhagh ann an 1990 agus Clann Iseabail, do dh’inbhich le Acair, cuideachd, ann an 1993.

B’ e Eadar mi ’s a’ Bhreug a dh’fhoillsich NicGumaraid ann an 1988 le Coiscéim. B’ ann anns a’ cho-chruinneachadh seo a nochd NicGumaraid, a-rèir Fhearghais MhicFhionnlaigh ann an Gairm, ‘grèim inntleachdach follaiseach […] ach […] aotramachd na giùlan, mar gum biodh i a’ gluasad air corra-biod,’ a’ mothachadh gun robh ‘tur-smachd aice air gach lide a sgrìobhas i.’

Chòrd farsaingeachd nan cuspairean ann an bàrdachd NicGumaraid ri MacFhionnlaigh, cuideachd: ‘raon-ùidh’ air a ‘roghnachadh a tha doirbh a chur an cèill’ far an robh i ‘a’ lèirisinn beàrn eadar saoghal agus tuigse; eadar ciall agus facal’. Na cuid sgrùdaidh mhìnich e gun do chleachd NicGumaraid seo gu math gus suidheachadh na Gàidhlig nan Gàidheal a chur an cèill ann an dòigh thionnsgalach far an robh i a’ glèidheadh cultar a bha, is dòcha, a’ dol à bith ga thiorcadh ‘dhan ath ghinealach’.

Tha trì co-chruinneachaidhean aig  NicGumaraid air fasain cho-aimsireil fèin-eadar-theangachadh don Bheurla, mu choinneamh na Gàidhlig, a sheachnadh, le foillseachadh eadar-theangachadh don Ghàidhlig Èireannaich le bàird is eadar-theangairean eile a’ nochdadh an àite sin.  B’ i NicGumaraid a’ chiad bhàrd a dh’fhoillsich a cuid bàrdachd san dòigh, rud a chaidh a mholadh le co-bhàrd Meg Bateman ann an Verse a mhìnich gun robh buannachd gu leòr ann an iomlaid eadar dà chànan agus an suidheachaidhean gu math coltach rin cèile. Aithnichte cuideachd mar sgrìobhadair roisg, bha Raghnall MacIlleDhuibh is luchd-breithneachaidh eile den bheachd gum b’ e Clann Iseabail aice bha am measg nan nobhailean Gàidhlig a b’ fheàrr den fhicheadamh linn.

O chionn ghoirid, tha i air sgrìobhadh fhoillseachadh san iris ionadail ann an Leòdhas, Back In The Day, far an do nochd a cuid roisg is artaigilean thar ghrunnan bhliadhnaichean is tha i air a dhol an sàs ann an diofar phròiseactan sgriobt don na meadhanan.  ’S tric a tha NicGumaraid air a cuid bàrdachd fhoillseachadh ann an irisean o chionn nan ochdadan, a’ toirt a-steach Gairm, Chapman agus, o chionn ghoirid, Poblachd nam Bàrd.  Tha a cuid obrach air nochdadh gu minig ann an duanairean leithid An Aghaidh na Sìorraidheachd, deasaichte le Crìsdean MacIlleBhàin; An Tuil, deasaichte le MacIlleDhuibh; agus An Ubhal as Àirde deasaichte le Wilson MacLeòid is Mìcheal Newton.

Anns an leabhar fo dheireadh, mhothaich MacLeòid is Newton gum bu tric a bha NicGumaraid an sàs ann an Cuairt nam Bàrd no Turas na bhFilí, cuairt bhliadhnail aig bàird Ghàidhealach ann an Èirinn agus Alba. Anns na h-ochdadan is naochadan, b’ e cruthachadh dhàimhean cultarail eadar Alba is Èirinn a bha am measg feartan na h-obrach aice, tro a cuid sgrìobhaidh is foillseachaidh. Bu shamhail sin aig an àm san obair le eadar-theangairean is companaidhean foillseachaidh Èireannach. An-seo, is i a’ measgadh cànain Ghàidhealach na h-Alba is na h-Èireann le iomraidhean air òrain, mhothaich an luchd-breithneachaidh seo gun do chuir NicGumaraid an cèill faireachdainnean ìocaranachd chultarail an coimeas ri Èirinn, far a bheil inbhe nas fhollaisiche den chànan Èireannach ann am beatha nàiseanta a’ toirt tuilleadh misneachd air luchd na dùthcha:

Is iadsan ‘Laochra Fáil
Atá faoi gheall ag Éirinn’
Is sinne sluagh na dàil
A tha ro mhall ag èirigh

Tha am meas a sheallas NicGumaraid ri ceòl fo phrosbaig MhicIlleBhàin anns an ro-ràdh do An Aghaidh na Sìorraidheachd, a thug a-steach saothair NicGumaraid, làmh ri bàird nan seachdadan is nan ochdadan. An-seo, bha e den bheachd gun robh a’ bhàrdachd aice cha mhòr toillteil sanasach, le ceòl is ruitheam na cluais. Airson MhicIlleBhàin, bha leughadh bàrdachd NicGumaraid mar far-chluas, aig amannan. B’ ann anns a’ phòsadh sin eadar ruitheam is dlùth-eòlas a fhuair NicGumaraid fuasgladh an cuid beachdan air coimhearsnachd na Gàidhlig is an dàn a’ chànain a chumail ro leughadairean.

Anns ‘Na Gàidheil Ùra – Eile’, chnuasaich NicGumaraid atharrachaidhean gan toirt air coluadar na Gàidhlig fhèin, èirigh sluaigh an sàs ann an ionnsachadh na Gàidhlig is rud a rinn fìor iomsgaradh an coimeas crìonadh a’ chànain ann an coimhearsnachdan dùthchail nan eilean:

’S math dh’fhaodt’ nach eil sinn
a’ tuigsinn
ciamar gun luaidh airson carson
tha dol agaibh
air rud no dhà
no trì
no ceithir

ionnsachadh.

Mhothaich MacIlleBhàin, anns an dàn seo is dàin eile, gun do sheall bàrdachd NicGumaraid subhailc dì-chreideamh is fèin-cheasnachadh. Na cuid bàrdachd, bidh NicGumaraid a’ sìor aithneachadh buannachdan a togail le Gàidhlig mar chiad chànan, aoibhneas dà-chànanachais, ged a bhios i a’ sìor dhiùltadh riochd a’ Ghàidheil àbhaisteach a chumail uimpe, fo shochair is i an dàimh an traidisein nach d’fhuair daoine eile.

Bha Roderick Watson den bheachd gun do leig gainnead is cruinneachd stoidhle NicGumaraid leis an rannaigheachd shocaireach aice feum a dhèanamh de loidhnichean goirid is faclan fa leth, far an robh mac-talla ri chluinntinn tric anns an aon chomhardadh no co-fhuaimneachd, far an robh i a’ treòrachadh slighe a cuid smuaintean air daoine is àiteachan mun cuairt oirre:

O uinneag chòir, innis a’ bhreug
’s an latha bhuainn
às amharc dhuinn
an fhìrinn bhuam
’s gun mi teann co-dhiù dhan fheallaidheachd.

Tha na feartan seo rim faicinn ann an dàin leithid ‘O Uinneag Chòir’, a thug MacIlleBhàin a-steach dhan duanaire, cuideachd, far an robh NicGumaraid a’ tilleadh dhan uinneig chòir aice, gus beachdachadh air na clàran-tìre caochlaideachd roimhpe, is i a’ diùltadh ghnàthan-theagasg stèidhte. A-rèir Watson, mhothaich e dàimh a bha uaireannan làn ìoranais is uairean eile feargach ri cultar na Gàidhlig fo bhagairt crìonaidh air an dàrna làimh, is atmhorachd maoth-inntinneil, air an làimh eile’.

B’ e an co-chruinneachadh as ùire aig NicGumaraid ‘Fo Stiùir a Fàire’, a chaidh fhoillseachadh le Coiscéim ann an 2016, a thug air an neach-breithneachaidh Seán de Fréine NicGumaraid a thoirt a-steach am measg nam bàrd as fheàrr ann an Alba, a’ moladh a stoidhle neo-cham. A’ sgrìobhadh ann an Verse agus a’ leughadh a cuid dàin cosgais sòisealta, dàin gaoil is làimhseachadh na Gàidhlig, mhothaich Meg Bateman inntinn a bha Albannach fa seach le bàrdachd làn dùrachd mhoralta is smuaintean anailiseach agus, gu seachd àraid, neo-stràicealachd a’ bhàird fhìn.

English

Mary Montgomery was born in Arivruaich, Lochs on the Isle of Lewis in1955.  She has paternal family connections to Canada and other parts of the Americas, with her maternal family firmly rooted in Lewis and Harris.  Montgomery’s family was known on their island for their local business activity centred around the sale of groceries, tweed and fish.

As a young person, writing was part of Montgomery’s experience – something which was both creative and spiritual and added to her learning. The exploring of ideas has remained at the heart of her poetic writing. The youngest of three children, Mary attended primary school in village of Balallan, then secondary school in Stornoway.

Leaving the island to embark on a university education in Aberdeen, where she graduated Master of Arts in 1976, she later received a post-graduate diploma in Adult Education from the University of Glasgow. Afterwards, she completed a two-year period studying Law with the Open University. Montgomery’s main career was in broadcasting.  She worked with the BBC, firstly in its Gaelic Department in Glasgow, then later in Education Department, Edinburgh. In the nineties she was lecturer in Communications at Lews Castle College.

Writing has been her other main occupation.  She has written three poetry books : Eadar Mi ’s a’ Bhreug published Coiscéim, Dublin in 1988; Ruithmean ’s Neo-Rannan published by the same in 1997 and Fo Stiùir A Faire again by Coiscéim in 2012. Alongside this, two Gaelic novels : Am Baile Beag Annasach, for children, published Acair, Stornoway 1990 and Clann Iseabail, for adults, also with Acair in 1993.

Montgomery published Eadar mi ’s a’ Bhreug in 1988 with Coiscéim. It was in this collection that Montgomery demonstrated, according to Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh in Gairm, ‘an obvious intellectual fixation’ but also ‘a lightness in her approach, as if walking on tip-toes’, noticing that she had ‘complete control of every syllable that she writes.’

The variety of subjects covered by Montgomery was something MacFhionnlaigh also appreciated: ‘an expanse of subject matter which is often difficult to express’, where she ‘envisioned the void between the world and understanding; between meaning and vocabulary’. In this analysis he goes on to detail how Montgomery used this particularly well to express the contemporary experience of Gaels and their language in innovative ways, where she captured a culture that was, perhaps, declining, preserving it for ‘a coming generation’.

Three of Montgomery’s poetry collections have bucked the contemporary trend of self-translation into English, presented verso-recto, instead preferring to publish with translations into Irish contributed by fellow poet-translators. The first to publish this way, Montgomery was praised by fellow poet Meg Bateman in Verse who noted that ‘there is much to be gained in an exchange between two languages which exist in comparable’. As a celebrated writer of prose, her novel Clann Iseabail (1993) was described by Ronald Black and others as one of the best Gaelic novels of the twentieth-century.

She has most recently published in Lewis’s local Back In The Day, where her regular prose articles appeared for several years, and has involved herself in various media script-writing projects. Montgomery has been regularly published in periodicals since the eighties, including Gairm, Chapman and, latterly, The Poets’ Republic. She has also been much anthologised, with her work appearing in notable volumes such as An Aghaidh na Sìorraidheachd, edited by Christopher Whyte; An Tuil, edited by Black; and An Ubhal as Àirde editedby Wilson McLeod and Michael Newton.

In the latter volume, McLeod and Newton noted Montgomery’s regular participation in Cuairt nam Bàrd or Turas na bhFilí, an annual tour of Scottish Gaelic poets in Ireland and Irish Gaelic poets in Scotland. In the eighties and nineties, building cultural links between Scotland and Ireland was just one aspect of Montgomery’s work, through her writing and publishing. This was exemplified by her then preference for working with Irish translators and Irish publishing houses. Here, in the blending of the Scottish and Irish Gaelic languages and references to song,  these critics noted that Montgomery ‘expresses a certain sense of Scottish Gaels’ cultural inferiority in relation to Ireland, where the more prominent role of the Irish language in national life gives rise to a greater degree of self-confidence’:

Is iadsan ‘Laochra Fáil
Atá faoi gheall ag Éirinn’
Is sinne sluagh na dàil
A tha ro mhall ag èirigh

They’re  ‘The mighty warriors of Fate / Who’re under oath to Ireland’ / While we’re the people who procrastinate / And are too slow in rising (trans. Mary Montgomery)

Montgomery’s affinity with music was also something noted by Christopher Whyte in his introduction to An Aghaidh na Sìorraidheachd, which anthologised Montgomery alongside poets of the seventies and eighties. Here, he described her poetry as ‘wilfully, almost tantalisingly allusive’ with an ‘extremely musical ear and a delicate sense of rhythm’. For Whyte, reading her poems felt ‘at times like eavesdropping.’ It is in this marriage between rhythm and intimacy that Montgomery allowed her perspectives on the Gaelic community and the future of the language to bloom.

In ‘Na Gàidheil Ùra – Eile’, Montgomery contemplated the changing face of Gaelic society itself, the rise in numbers of learners of the language, something which came in stark contrast, then as now, to the decline of the language in vernacular communities in the islands:

’S math dh’fhaodt’ nach eil sinn
a’ tuigsinn
ciamar gun luaidh airson carson
tha dol agaibh
air rud no dhà
no trì
no ceithir

ionnsachadh.

Perhaps we don’t / understand / how / never mind why / you are managing / to learn / a thing or two / or three / or four. (trans. Mary Montgomery)

Whyte noted in this poem and others, that Montgomery’s verse demonstrated ‘the virtues of scepticism and self-questioning’. In her poetry, Montgomery consistently recognises the blessings a of a first-language Gaelic upbringing, the joys of bilingualism, whilst also, refusing ‘to pose as the conventional Gael, privileged because in touch with a tradition denied to others.’

Roderick Watson considered that the brevity and succinctness of Montgomery’s style allowed  ‘her relaxed verse’ to make use of ‘short lines and single words, often echoing the same rhyme or assonance as she traces the course of her thoughts in response to the people and places around her’:

O uinneag chòir, innis a’ bhreug
’s an latha bhuainn
às amharc dhuinn
an fhìrinn bhuam
’s gun mi teann co-dhiù dhan fheallaidheachd.

Oh kind window, lie / for the day is gone from us / out of our sight / take truth from me – / I’m not bound to its philosophy anyway. (trans. Mary Montgomery)

These features are to be seen in poems such as ‘O Uinneag Chòir’, also anthologised by Whyte, where Montgomery returns to her ‘kind window’, to philosophise the changing vistas before her, as she rejects established dogmas.

For Watson, in Montgomery’s work he perceived a ‘sometimes ironic, sometimes angry relationship with a Gaelic culture under constant threat from diminishment on the one hand, or a sentimental inflation on the other.’

Montgomery’s most recent collection ‘Fo Stiùir a Faire’, published by Coiscéim in 2012, inspired Irish critic Seán de Fréine to describe NicGumaraid as ‘one of Scotland’s great poets’ praising her ‘straightforward’ style. Writing in Verse and ‘reading her poems of social conscience, love, the treatment of Gaelic culture’, Meg Bateman sensed ‘a distinctly Scottish mind – in their moral seriousness and analytic thought, and particularly in the low profile kept by the poet herself’.