Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 1, 1893

THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
185
ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR,
PRINTER AND PUBLISHER, GLASGOW.
;R. ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR may be
iptly described as an Islavman liorn in
Glasgow, for, in addition to the fact
that both his parents belonged to that island,
Mr. Sinclair, in speech, in accent, and in sym-
pathies, is an 1 teach, with his heart's best
emotions centred in " green grassy Islay."
Mr. Sinclair's father, also called Archibald,
was in many respects a remarkable man, whose
interesting life-history has yet to be written.
Although ad-
vanced in years
before he ever saw
a printing press,
he, by dint of per-
severance, in face
of many obstacles,
mastered the in-
tricacies of the
compositor's art,
and ultimately
succeeded in estab-
lishing a business
of his own at, (i:i
Argyle Street,
Glasgow, in 1848.
On the death of
bis father in 1870,
the subject of our
sketch, when a
mere lad, was
placed in charge
of the printing
business, which
he has since so
successfully con-
ducted. Finding
his business iu-
creasing, and being
desirous of adopt-
ing the latest im-
provements in the
art — including
the introduction
of the most approved machinery — Mr. Sinclair
a few years ago removed his "Celtic Press" to
his present establishment, Bothwell Street.
Despite the distracting cares of an increasing
business, Mr. Sinclair, in 1879, found time to
collect, edit, print and publish An 1-0ranaiche
(The Gaelic Songster), which a concensus of
Celtic opinion accepts as the best and most com-
plete, as it is the largest, collection of Gaelic
popular songs existing, reflecting most creditably
on Mr. Sinclair's taste and Gaelic scholarship,
and being also a lasting testimony of his
patriotism, courage, and enterprise. Since then
he has published the majority of Gaelic works
which have been issued. Our readers have a
good idea of his workmanship as they peruse
the Celtic Monthly.
Among recent works which have passed
through his hands there is one to which a
melancholy interest is attached — we refer to
that valuable and interesting collection of Duain
Ultach — '■ Ultouian Hero- Ballads," arranged
and translated into English by that gifted son
of [slay, Mr Hector MacLean, who, alas, is now
no more, but whose memory the Islay Associa-
tion and friends seek to perpetuate by the erec-
tion, at Bally
grant School, of
a chaste Celtic
cross bearing a
suitable inscrip-
tion.
Mr. Sinclair is
President of the
Islay Association,
in which he lias
taken a deep in-
terest since its for-
mation. He is also
one of the direc-
tors of the Gaelic
Society of Glas-
gow, and thegene-
rous patron of
every movement
having for its ob-
ject the preserva-
tion of the Gaelic
language or the
social advance-
ment of the High-
land people.
It has been
well remarked of
Archd. Sinclair
the elder, that
he was not only
literary himself,
but the cause
of literature in
others, being at once a centre among Highland
litterateur*, and a medium between them and the
world ; and the same may, with considerable apt-
ness, be said of his son, the subject of our sketch.
The former generation of Gaelic bards and Celtic
litterateurs appealed for advice and guidance to
Mr. Sinclair the elder, so the present toilers in
the Celtic field like to consult the " worthy son
of worthy sire," to whose Celtic press High-
landers are so much indebted.
A h-uile latha sona <lha,
'S gun latha ulir dona dha.
FlONN.