Soundyngs doesn’t speak Gaelic. There it is; and sorry, the failing memory and current work pressures means that it won’t happen soon. But where a book reaches a hand across the language divide, I grasp it gratefully. This is one such book, not newly out, indeed celebrated in 2025 a full 20 years out in the world, now in its 4th edition. There is probably some sly political reason why it hasn’t received wider academic review coverage, although it’s been welcomed by those interested in Gaelic culture and its music. It’s a rich and useful book, and I’m now happy to have added it to my shelf.
The author is a singer (both classical and traditional), broadcaster, writer, publisher, and has contributed over a lifetime of work to Gaelic language education, as national education officer for Comann na Gaidhlig (1986-1991), as a lecturer in Gaelic at the University of Strathclyde Faculty of Education (1996-2000), and tutor in Gaelic song at the University of Stirling Heritage of Scotland Summer Schools. She draws on her experience teaching Gaelic song repertoire in this book, which crowns a lifetime of advocacy for the place of Gaelic in Scotland national culture.
More than simply a collector, Lorne Gillies provides a rich introductory section on the wider contexts of the 151 (one more than the book of Psalms) songs she has gathered in, with detailed notes attached to each song providing specific historical context, folklore, notable singers, autobiographical remembrances, and suggested recordings.
The original Gaelic is given alongside line-by-line English translation. Standard notation gives us the shape of the melody, although as Lorne Gillies acknowledges in her preface, the transcription only reflects the first couple of verses at most (p.xviii) as words ultimately determine how melodies are realised. Ornaments – grace notes and more – which singers might add in performance are also not shown, lying outside of what can be sensibly represented in standard notation: different singers, in different places, may sing these variably.
Just as earlier Gaelic song collectors such as Frances Tolmie ordered their collections, so Lorne Gillies has sorted her treasures so users can enter through various windows that shine lights on aspects of Gaelic traditions and ways of life. The anthology has 5 sections: Songs of the Sea; Songs of Clan and Conflict; Songs of Land and Longing; Songs of Love; and Songs of Courtship and Conviviality. This last is the shortest section (14 songs) and holds songs that may chat generally about love, inter alia, but less romantically about ‘A’ specific love. This categorisation is literary in inspiration (as the author acknowledges, p.xx), rather than reproducing the anthropological functionality of, for example, Tolmie’s early 20th century collection. Tolmie’s ‘songs of occupation’, or work songs, for example, do not figure as such in Lorne Gillies’s anthology. This means that functional notes – whether a song might have been danced to, for example – are distributed throughout all sections. As might be expected, the first section, on the sea, is particularly strong in laments for those lost in that dangerous element, a theme continued strongly in the section on conflict. While work songs don’t have their own subsection, the preface gives space to discuss the importance of these across all sections (pp.xxiv-xxv), alongside the terminology and instruments associated with this repertoire (clarsach, fiddle and bagpipes pp.xxv-xxvii), and modes (pp.xxvii-xxvii). Singers may find the pragmatic advice on rhythm and phrasing (pp.xxix-xxxii) particularly useful.
Within sections, the author has attempted to arrange material chronologically (p.xxi) insofar as this can be known; this means that the accompanying contextual notes unfold as a developing history alongside each broad theme. Lorne Campbell also takes time to take stock of the gendered history of song transmission. Before the 18th century, clans had what amounted to a professional, learned class of male musicians and poets who created and curated repertoire. This gradually collapsed, giving way to an oral culture that owed more to female singers, such as Mary MacLeod in the 17th century. And, as well as the author herself, women as well as men feature strongly in the transmission and survival stories of these songs.
The preface to the 4th edition takes stock of contemporary Scotland’s embrace of Gaelic music culture, compared with the author’s childhood when it was relatively marginalised (even Mod adjudicators were as likely to be Irish or Welsh as actually Gaelic speaking Scots). The RCS academic programme development, the curriculum developed by the UHI (Sabhal Mòr Ostaig campus in Skye) and the National Piping Centre, Gaelic music training at Plockton, and the ‘fèisean’ (festival) movement which provides a performance context in parallel to the older, competitive Mòds, as well as many local initiatives, all testify to the place of Gaelic music in contemporary Scottish culture. The author also remembers all those – including her high school rector, John Maclean, to whom this edition is dedicated – who encouraged the learning and transmission of Gaelic songs. This addition is recent history, but completes the curation of the longer tradition which, thanks to this author and other Gaelic speakers like her, is now mainstream rather than marginal to Scotland’s national life.
Ultimately what this book represents – for those who might want to sing these songs – is an educational journey in learning this material. The author may no longer be able to teach in person, but the book does its best to continue her work as an educator.
Further Reading
- Anne Lorne Gillies. Songs of Gaelic Scotland (Edinburgh: Origin/Birlinn, first published 2005, 4th editions 2019) https://birlinn.co.uk/product/songs-of-gaelic-scotland/