An Comunn Gàidhealach Publications > Gaidheal > Volume 43, October 1947--December 1948

92
AN GAIDHEAL.
DUNCAN BAN McINTYRE.
A Modern Interpretation.
By Robin Lorimer.
One of Scotland’s main problems in the cultural field
is that of renewing contact with rich literary and artistic
traditions of the past from which the majority of educated
Scotsmen have been isolated by their very education, per¬
meated as it has been for a century or more by English or
anglifying influences.
Of no part of the national inheritance is this more obviously
true than of the poetic tradition of the Highlands. Although
there is among us a growing realization that the songs and
poems of Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, Rob Donn, and
Donnchadh Ban—to name only three of the Gaelic poets—
are among the most valuable cultural possessions of the nation,
there yet remain serious obstacles, apart from the obvious
ones of language and the acknowledged difficulty of translating
Gaelic poetry adequately into Scots or English, that come
between the Scottish reading public and a proper appreciation
or full enjoyment of their excellence. It is partly with the
object of exposing these obstacles to view, and of suggesting
how best they may be overcome, that I am writing here.
I.
Donnchadh Ban nan Oran (Duncan McIntyre) entered this
life in 1724 and left it in 1812. Bom in the last age of Gaelic
civilization before it was penetrated by alien influences, he
came of age in 1745, and lived to see the old communities of his
people transformed and shattered by a foreign conquest. One
might expect such diverse social experience to be reflected in
his poems, but to George Calder, the editor of the standard
edition of his works, it does not seem to have occurred that
here was something for an editor to trace out, to examine, to
reveal.
This is a grave defect, the more so as in other respects
Calder’s is a learned and admirable book. Yet it need not
surprise us. Even learned writers on Scottish subjects have
frequently failed to interpret the object studied in the light
of its historical conditions as they existed outside the history
books. Calder’s silence in the case of Duncan McIntyre is
merely a particular instance of a general tendency, attributable
in the last analysis to a system of education based on the
principle that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,
the tacit but questionable assumption that for Scotland
“cultural progress” and “assimilation to English cultural
patterns ” are interchangeable expressions. It is only so long
as the historical testimony of authors like Duncan McIntyre
is wilfully ignored that it is possible for a Scotsman to counten¬
ance assumptions of this kind, and it is high time the whole
matter were brought into the light of calm, unprejudiced
attention.
The relevance of this essay to the general purpose just
mentioned will become clear as I go on. In what follows I
confine myself to the task of illustrating some aspects of Duncan
McIntyre’s poetry ignored, if not positively obscured, by
Calder’s treatment. In doing so it is not my object to contro¬
vert anything said by Calder; I have far too much respect
for him and owe him too much gratitude for that. I merely
hope to supplement his work at some points where it seems to
me deficient, and, if in this way I help at all to hasten the fusion
of Highland and Lowland literary traditions, I shall not have
wrought in vain.
II.
Eor the purpose of discussion it is convenient to disentangle
Duncan’s private life and experience from his experience of
society at large. This is a somewhat artificial method, and
within the space at my disposal any treatment of the subject
must necessarily be selective. Those who want something
fuller are advised to read Calder himself: the trouble about
Calder is not so much that he omits or misrepresents important
facts as that he often fails to make good use of them, simply
because he has not cleared his mind of assumptions that
prevent him from apprehending their significance.
Duncan McIntyre was born a crofter’s son at Druim-
liaghart, Glen Orchy, in 1724. In 1745 he served in the Whig
Army as substitute for a local tacksman, Fletcher of the
^Crannach, in Achallader. It is said that his own sympathies
An Ceitein, 1948.
lay on the other side, but I suspect that this story has been
exaggerated in order to reduce the disgrace incurred by him
when he lost the sword he had borrowed from Fletcher in the
rout of the Hanoverian troops at Falkirk. Such is the motive
of the satirical song (said to have been his first essay in poetical
composition) on the Broadsword of Clan Fletcher. The song
rebuts Fletcher’s reproof with the taunt that it was a poor
kind of a sword anyway, badly cared for by its proper owner ;
and it infuriated Fletcher. Whether it vindicated the poet’s
honour is another question; for it is well to consider that, as
a Glen Etive man remarked to me, the disgrace of losing his
sword in these circumstances was such as no Highlander could
ever quite live down. In my friend’s comment there is far more
critical insight than in those of critics who have made it the
ground for a thoroughly silly comparison between Duncan
McIntyre and Horace, and who knows but that it may enshrine
some waif of local traditions preserving the gossip excited in
Glen Orchy at the time by Duncan’s return without his
master’s sword ?
In the song referred to, Duncan speaks with what may be
interpreted as delicate sarcasm of the Whig Army, but it is
probable, as I shall show further on, that his sympathy with the
Jacobite cause was a later development, provoked by the mean
and ungenerous English policy enforced after the failure
of the rebellion against loyal and disloyal Highlanders
indiscriminately.
The contretemps with Fletcher seems to have attracted the
attention of the Earl of Breadalbane, who soon afterwards
made Duncan forester on Mam Lorn Forest at the head of
Glen Lochay. Some years later he became forester in Glen
Etive on the royal forest of Dalness. Coire a’ Cheathaich and
Beinn Dorain, the formal subjects of two of his most beautiful
poems, are both in Mam Lorn, and it was at this period of his
life that he acquired that minute topographical knowledge of
the district displayed conspicuously in so many of his best-
known songs and poems.
Here it is necessary to digress for a moment or two in order
to point out that almost all the topographical details men¬
tioned by Duncan McIntyre are located within the marches of
the two forests on which he was employed. His primary
interest in topography was that of a hunter who got his living
on the hill, and the poetic tradition in which he worked assumed
that it was this matter-of-fact, professional aspect of the
subject that would be of primary interest to his listeners. Yet
it is clear too that he was keenly sensitive to the beauty of
nature and that he loved it simply for its own sake.
The same is true of the wild red deer that figure so
prominently in Duncan’s poetry. His ardent passion for the
chase is not unqualified by considerations of a more ordinary
character.
’S muladach bhith siubhal frithe
Ri la gaoith’ is uisg’ is dile,
’S 6rdugh teann ag iarraidh sithne
Cur nan glomanach ’nan eiginn.
Duncan’s duties were not exactly those of a modern
gamekeeper. One of his main responsibilities was that of
roviding venison for the Earl’s table, and there must have
een occasions when “ strict orders ” coming from Taymouth
sent him reluctantly to the hill “ on a day of wind and wet and
showers.” Red deer, symbolic of virility, strength and freedom,
exerted on Duncan all his life a compelling fascination, but his
fond and careful observation of them is governed by motives
of professional interest that differentiate his songs about them
from the quantities of rubbish that have been written about
the Highlands. This is one source of the freshness of their
charm. (l)
It was probably while in Glen Lochay that Duncan married
the Mairi Bhan of his love-songs. Her surname was McIntyre
(Mairi nic Neacail), and her father was keeper of the Inn at
Inveroran. Some time before 1767 they left Glen Etive and
went to Edinburgh, where Duncan became a member of the
(>) The point of this paragraph was suggested by
some remarks of my Glen Etive friend, himself a gamekeeper
familiar with the district. Once again his comment is very
much to the point. He is in fact representative of the kind of
people who formed Duncan McIntyre’s audience, and his
approach is instructive.