An Comunn Gàidhealach Publications > Gaidheal > Volume 49--51, January 1954--December 1956

A Heavy Loss to Gaeltlom
The Late Prime Minister of Nova Scotia
“Weekly Scotsman” Photo.
At the Jubilee Mod, Oban, October 1953, Mr. Angus L. Macdonald with
Mr. J. M. Bannerman, Provost John MacLachlan and Mr. Neil Shaw.
IT is with very great regret that we have
learned of the death in hospital at Halifax,
Nova Scotia, on 13th April, of the Hon.
Angus Lewis Macdonald, P.C., Q.C., B.A.,
LL.D., Prime Minister of Nova Scotia. He
was 64 years of age.
Last October at the Jubilee National Mod in
Oban, Mr. Macdonald, accompanied by his
wife, won for himself a secure place in the
respect and affection of the great crowds present.
To all who had personal contact with him he
was the most genial of friends, while his eloquent
public utterances both in Gaelic and in English
will long be remembered. During his visit to
this country last year he had various important
duties to perform, but it was manifest that
participation in the great Jubilee Mod was his
chief interest and delight.
A great-grandson of an emigrant from
Moidart, Inverness-shire, to Nova Scotia,
a century and a half ago, Angus L. Macdonald
was born at Dunvegan, Inverness County,
in Cape Breton, and was a graduate of St.
Francis Xavier University, Antigonish. He
was severely wounded while serving as a Captain
in the Canadian Highland Brigade during the
First World War. In 1921 he became Assistant
Deputy Attorney-General of Nova Scotia, and
in the early 1920’s was elected leader of the
Nova Scotia Liberal Party. In 1933 he became
Prime Minister of Nova Scotia and continued
in that high office until his death, with the
exception of the period between 1940 and 1945
during the Second World War when he did
excellent work as Canadian Minister of Defence
for Naval Services. During his tenure of this
responsible office, the Canadian Navy grew
from some half-a-dozen ships and 2,000 men to
500 ships and 90,000 men.
In his moving speech at the official opening
of the Jubilee Mod, Mr. Macdonald said:
‘ ‘Tha farsaingeachd cuain eadarainn, ach
ann an Albainn Nuaidh tha an fhuil blath agus
an cridhe Gaidhealach, mar a thuirt am bard,
agus, ged tha sinn measail air an diithaich anns
a bheil sinn a’ tamh, tha pairt mhdr de’n
chridhe ann an duthaich ar sinnsirean, anns an
t-seann duthaich.” “The ties that unite the
Old Scotland and the New,” he said, ‘‘are
long established and, I believe, unbreakable.”
Presiding at one of the Mod Concerts
Mr. Macdonald said that it was not now
necessary, if it ever was necessary, to apologise
for the continuance of Gaelic and for the Gael’s
cherishing of his ancestral language. Gaelic
had entered into the fibre of our being. In
Nova Scotia, he said, one person in 25 spoke
Gaelic; in Scotland less than one in 50. There
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