#hallaig

[dockaspbrak]

happy birthday em 💓

Thank you so much Tess 8^) 💖🤧🥺 I hope 28 is a good year. I am very grateful to be friends with you!

[scotianostra]

On October 26th 1911 the Gaelic poet, Sorley MacLean, was born on the island of Raasay.

He was brought up within a family and community immersed in Gaelic language and culture, particularly song. Sorley studied English at Edinburgh University from 1929, taking a first class honours degree and there encountering and finding an affinity with the work of Hugh MacDiarmid, Ezra Pound, and other Modernist poets. Despite this influence, he eventually adopted Gaelic as the medium most appropriate for his poetry. However, it should be noted that MacLean translated much of his own work into English, opening it up to a wider public than the speakers of the Gaelic language.

During the Spanish Civil War, MacLean was torn between family commitments and his desire to fight on behalf of the International Brigades, illustrating his left-wing - even Marxist - political stance. He eventually resigned himself to remaining on Skye. He fought in North Africa during World War Two, before taking up a career in teaching, holding posts on Mull, in Edinburgh and finally as Head Teacher at Plockton High School.

It is often said that what Hugh MacDiarmid did for the Scots language, Sorley MacLean did for Gaelic, sparking a Gaelic renaissance in Scottish literature in line with the earlier ‘Scottish Renaissance’, as evinced in the work of George Campbell Hay, Derick Thomson and Iain Crichton Smith. He was instrumental in preserving and promoting the teaching of Gaelic in Scottish schools. Through the diverse subject matter of his poetry, he demonstrates the capacity of the Gaelic language to express themes from the personal to the political and philosophical.

MacLean’s work was virtually unknown outside Gaelic-speaking circles until the 1970s, when Gordon Wright published Four Points of a Saltire - poems from George Campbell Hay, Stuart MacGregor, William Neill and Sorley MacLean. He also then appeared at the Cambridge Poetry Festival, establishing his fame in England, as well as Scotland and Ireland, where he had become something of a cult figure thanks to a fan base including fellow poet Seamus Heaney. A bilingual Selected Poems of 1977 secured a broader readership and a new generation began to appreciate his work.

Latterly, he wrote and published little, showing his concern with quality and authenticity over quantity. Never a full-time writer, he was also a scholar of the Highlands with a vast knowledge of genealogy, and an avid follower of shinty. Amongst other awards and honours, he received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1990. He passed on in 1996 at the age of 85, and was survived by his wife and two daughters.

I have posted many times about Sorley, and probably overused Martyn Bennet’s Hallaig, but if you haven’t heard it, please go to Youtube and search for it, you won’t regret it.

Todays poem is Tràighean/ Shores, the Gaelic version first, followed by the verse translated by his fellow bi-lingual poet, Iain Crichton Smith.

Nan robh sinn an Talasgar air an tràigh

far a bheil am beul mòr bàn

a’ fosgladh eadar dà ghiall chruaidh,

Rubha nan Clach `s am Bioda Ruadh,

sheasainn-sa ri taobhn na mara

ag ùrachadh gaoil ‘nam anam

fhad ‘s a bhiodh an cuan a’lìonadh

camas Thalasgair gu sìorraidh:

sheasainn an siud air lom na tràghad

gu `n cromadh Priseal a cheann àigich.

Agus nan robh sinn ciudeachd

air tràigh Chalgaraidh am Muile,

eadar Alba is Tiriodh,

eadar an saoghal `s a’bhiothbhuan,

dh’fhuirichinn an siud gu luan

a’ tomhas gainmhich bruan air bhruan.

Agus an Uibhist air tràigh Hòmhstadh

fa chomhair farsaingeachd na h-ònrachd,

dh’fheithinn-sa an siud gu sìorraidh

braon air bhraon an cuan a’ sìoladh.

Agus nan robh mi air tràigh Mhùideart

còmhla riut, a nodhachd ùidhe,

chuirinn suas an co-chur gaoil dhut

an cuan ’s a’ ghaineamh, bruan air bhraon dhiubh.

’S nan robh sinn air Mol Steinnseil Stamhain

’s an fhairge neo-aoibhneach a’ tarraing

nan ulbhag is gan tilgeil tharainn,

thogainn-sa am balla daingeann

ro shìorraidheachd choimhich ’s i framhach.

If we were in Talisker on the shore

where the great white foaming mouth of water

opens between two jaws as hard as flint –

the Headland of Stones and the Red Point –

I’d stand forever by the waves

renewing love out of their crumpling graves

as long as the sea would be going over

the Bay of Talisker for ever;

I would stand thee by the filling tide

till Preshal bowed his stallion head.

And if the two of us were together

on the shores of Calgary in Mull

between Scotland and Tiree,

between this world and eternity,

I’d stand there till time was done

counting the sands grain by grain.

And also on Uist, on Hosta’s shore,

in the face of solitude’s fierce stare,

I’d remain standing, without sleep,

while sea were ebbing, drop by drop.

And if I were on Moidart’s shore

With you, my novelty of desire,

I’d offer this synthesis of love,

grain and water, sand and wave.

And were we by the shelves of Staffin

where the huge joyless sea is coughing

stones and boulders from its throat,

I’d build a fortified wall

Against eternity’s savage howl.

As well as Hallaig I enjoy listening to Somhairle by Niteworks, an Electronic Celtic fusion band from the Isle of Skye who put some of Sorley’s words to music. Listen to it below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PgWqrxa_-Y

[paniccats]

Tagged by @moonlitmartyr and @sigurism - thank youuu! 😁💖

put your On Repeat playlist on shuffle and post the first 10 songs that come up

Sundowner - Fontaines D.C.

Cupid De Locke - The Smashing Pumpkins

Hallaig - Martyn Bennett

Chasing Shadows - The Horrors

Cinnamon Eyes - Riverside

Flamme Jumelle - Alcest

'Cello Song - Fontaines D.C.

Kisses (Daniel Avery remix) - Slowdive

Nabokov - Fontaines D.C.

In ár gCroíthe go deo (Orbital remix) - Fontaines D.C.

Tagging @aphroditesblues @a-lil-strawberry @aosansidhe @dylanadreams @a-ffection

[anarchotolkienist]

I would like to be a contrarian anti-Modernist and dislike Somhairle, but I can't. Hallaig really is That Good, as is a lot of the rest. He represents the very best of Gaelic modernism, a successful wedding of Gaelic and Scottish as has rarely been achieved before or since. Read it if you haven't, even the English translation (espescially Heaney's translation) is good.

[sidesaddle-queen]

Chan eil fios agam ciamar a tha mi air a bhith ag ionnsachadh na Gàidhlig fad 4.5 bliadhna ach cha do leugh mi a-riamh Hallaig roimhe.

[ilsimplicissimusblog]

Mamma si è scaricato il traghetto

Oggi ho solo una piccola notizia, così piccola da passare inosservata, ma così pesante da traforare le enormi speculazioni avviate con la scusa del Net Zero, obiettivo palesemente irraggiungibile, ma  che ci impoverirà tutti.  L’MV Hallaig, un traghetto elettrico ibrido che fa servizio in Scozia e celebrato per la riduzione delle emissioni, ora funziona solo a diesel a causa della necessità di …

[beni75]

Photos and texts: @jimrichardsonng

Scottish Moments

1-. Morning mist rising off the moors near Scourie in northwest Scotland

2-. Nights falls on Hallaig, on of the Scottish celarances villages where the people were forced out of their hombes and off the land in the 19 century

3-. Red deer graze on the hills overlooking Loch Carron in the Highlands

4-. Evening calm and clear skies fall over Loch Eilt in the Highlands

5-. Evening falls on Kinlochbervie on the northwest coast of Scotland. This is Sutherland and the mountain backdrop is always dramatic

6-. Exploring Glen Etive led us to Right-angle Falls

7-. Full moon rising over the moors neat Tomintoul in the Highlands

[jjkguk]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

thank you so much kags i love you to the moon and back ❣💕💞💗💖💞💝💘!!!!

[shawcl]

happy birthday Julia!! 🌿💚 I hope this year brings you sunshine and a space of your own and loads shinee content

u know me so well, there‘s nothing more i need. thank you!! 😚💗💓💞💕💕💖💕💓💗

[hinamie]

Happy birthday, lovely!! 💓💓 I hope its a good one!

THANK U HHHH 💕💕💕💕💕💕

[violaceaes]

12 angry men and the godfather pls 💓

12 Angry Men- What’s your favorite movie?

honestly i’m not that big of a movie fan but spirited away & howl’s moving castle will always be special to me <3 oh and if i had to say non animated one, then pride and prejudice!

The Godfather- What is something that calms you?

my sweet little children (cats) of course and hmm maybe nighttime? i probably feel the calmest when it’s dark and quiet outside and i feel almost like i’m the only person in the world.

[scotianostra]

On October 26th 1911 the Gaelic poet, Sorley MacLean, was born on the island of Raasay.

Sorley (Somhairle MacGill-Eain)was brought up within a family and community immersed in Gaelic language and culture, particularly song. Sorley studied English at Edinburgh University from 1929, taking a first class honours degree and there encountering and finding an affinity with the work of Hugh MacDiarmid, Ezra Pound, and other Modernist poets. Despite this influence, he eventually adopted Gaelic as the medium most appropriate for his poetry. However, it should be noted that MacLean translated much of his own work into English, opening it up to a wider public than the speakers of the Gaelic language.

During the Spanish Civil War, MacLean was torn between family commitments and his desire to fight on behalf of the International Brigades, illustrating his left-wing - even Marxist - political stance. He eventually resigned himself to remaining on Skye. He fought in North Africa during World War Two, before taking up a career in teaching, holding posts on Mull, in Edinburgh and finally as Head Teacher at Plockton High School.

It is often said that what Hugh MacDiarmid did for the Scots language, Sorley MacLean did for Gaelic, sparking a Gaelic renaissance in Scottish literature in line with the earlier ‘Scottish Renaissance’, as evinced in the work of George Campbell Hay, Derick Thomson and Iain Crichton Smith. He was instrumental in preserving and promoting the teaching of Gaelic in Scottish schools. Through the diverse subject matter of his poetry, he demonstrates the capacity of the Gaelic language to express themes from the personal to the political and philosophical.

MacLean’s work was virtually unknown outside Gaelic-speaking circles until the 1970s, when Gordon Wright published Four Points of a Saltire - poems from George Campbell Hay, Stuart MacGregor, William Neill and Sorley MacLean. He also then appeared at the Cambridge Poetry Festival, establishing his fame in England, as well as Scotland and Ireland, where he had become something of a cult figure thanks to a fan base including fellow poet Seamus Heaney. A bilingual Selected Poems of 1977 secured a broader readership and a new generation began to appreciate his work.

Latterly, he wrote and published little, showing his concern with quality and authenticity over quantity. Never a full-time writer, he was also a scholar of the Highlands with a vast knowledge of genealogy, and an avid follower of shinty. Amongst other awards and honours, he received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1990. He passed on in 1996 at the age of 85, and was survived by his wife and two daughters.

I have posted many times about Sorley, and probably overused Martyn Bennet’s Hallaig, but if you haven’t heard it, please go to Youtube and search for it, you won’t regret it.

The Two MacDonalds Sorley MacLean

You big strong warrior, you hero among heroes, you shut the gate of Hougomont. You shut the gate and behind it your brother did the spoiling. He cleared tenants in Glengarry – the few of them left – and he cleared tenants about Kinloch Nevis, and he cleared tenants in Knoydart. He was no better than the laird of Dunvegan. He spoiled Clan Donald.

What did you do then, you big strong hero? I bet you shut no gate in the face of your bitch of a brother.

There was in your time another hero of Clan Donald, the hero of Wagram, Leipsig, Hanau. I have not heard that he cleared one family by the Meuse or by any other river, that he did any spoiling of French or of MacDonalds.

What a pity that he did not come over with Bonaparte! He would not clear tenants for the sake of the gilded sheep, nor would he put a disease in the great valour of Clan Donald. What a pity that he was not Duke of the Land of the Barley And Prince of Caledonia!

What a pity that he did not come over with Bonaparte twenty years before he did, not to listen to flannel from the creeper Walter nor to gather dust from the old ruin but to put the new vigour in the remnant of his kinsmen!

What a pity that he did not come to succour his kinsmen!

Dá Dhómhnallach Somhairle MacGill-Eain

‘Na do ghaisgeach mór láidir; ‘Nad churaidh miosg nan curaidhean, Dhùin thu geata Hougomont. Dhùin thu ‘n geata ‘s air a chùlaibh Rinn do bhráthair an spùilleadh. Thog e tuath an Gleann Garadh – Am beagan a bh’air fhágail dhiubh – Is thog e tuath mu Cheann Loch Nibheis Is thog e tuath an Cnóideart. Cha b’fhearr e na Fear Dhùn-Bheagain: Rinn e milleadh air Cloinn Domhnaill.

De rinn thusa ‘n uair sin, A churaidh mhóir láidir? Fiach na dhùin thu aon gheata An aodann do ghalla bráthair?

Bha ann ri d’linn-sa fear eile, Curaidh eile de Chloinn Dhómhnaill, Curaidh Bhágram, Leipsich, Hanau. Cha chuala mi gun do thog esan Aon teaghlach mun Mheuse No mu abhainn eile. Cha d’rinn esan milleadh Air Frangaich no air Dómhnallaich.

Nach bochd nach táinig esan Le Bonaparte a nall. Cha thogadh esan tuath Air sgáth nan caorach óraidh, ‘S cha mhó chuireadh esan gaiseadh Ann an gaisge mhóir Chloinn Dómhnaill. Nach bochd nach rodh esan ‘Na dhiuc air tir an Eórna Is ‘na phrionns air Albainn.

Nach bochd nach táinig esan Le Bonaparte a nall Fichead bliadhna mun táinig, Cha b’ann a dh’èisteachd sodail O’n t-sliomaire sin Bhátar No a chruinneachadh na h-ùrach As an t-seann láraich, Ach a chur an spionnaidh ùrair Ann am fuidheall a cháirdean.

Nach bochd nach táinig esan Gu cobhair air a cháirdean.

[gwydionmisha]

Hallaig - Sorley MacLean

‘Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig’

The window is nailed and boarded through which I saw the West and my love is at the Burn of Hallaig, a birch tree, and she has always been

between Inver and Milk Hollow, here and there about Baile-Chuirn: she is a birch, a hazel, a straight, slender young rowan.

In Screapadal of my people where Norman and Big Hector were, their daughters and their sons are a wood going up beside the stream.

Proud tonight the pine cocks crowing on the top of Cnoc an Ra, straight their backs in the moonlight – they are not the wood I love.

I will wait for the birch wood until it comes up by the cairn, until the whole ridge from Beinn na Lice will be under its shade.

If it does not, I will go down to Hallaig, to the Sabbath of the dead, where the people are frequenting, every single generation gone.

They are still in Hallaig, MacLeans and MacLeods, all who were there in the time of Mac Gille Chaluim: the dead have been seen alive.

The men lying on the green at the end of every house that was, the girls a wood of birches, straight their backs, bent their heads.

Between the Leac and Fearns the road is under mild moss and the girls in silent bands go to Clachan as in the beginning,

and return from Clachan, from Suisnish and the land of the living; each one young and light-stepping, without the heartbreak of the tale.

From the Burn of Fearns to the raised beach that is clear in the mystery of the hills, there is only the congregation of the girls keeping up the endless walk,

coming back to Hallaig in the evening, in the dumb living twilight, filling the steep slopes, their laughter a mist in my ears,

and their beauty a film on my heart before the dimness comes on the kyles, and when the sun goes down behind Dun Cana a vehement bullet will come from the gun of Love;

and will strike the deer that goes dizzily, sniffing at the grass-grown ruined homes; his eye will freeze in the wood, his blood will not be traced while I live.

[glaissuilarchive-blog]

You have my name, my clan, my family, and if necessary... the protection of my body as well.

[anarchotolkienist]

In case people wonder why Highlanders are angry, 50% of all homes in Raasay are now holiday homes, while 5% of the permanent population lives in caravans and the population declines precipitously as the native islanders are forced away. The school is in danger of closing. Fairly soon, nothing will be left of the Gaels in the island of MacIlleChaluim but the overgrown graves of Hallaig.

[brianmchenry]

Are you in Frobisher Bay, Iqaluit, Kuujjuaq? Are you in the wood of Hallaig?

I have started to think more about how I draw (never mind the why) and I’ve always written on my drawings and loved anything with a narrative quality and it seemed for a while that my sketchbooks had that quality in some sense or at least were an attempt at it but ultimately each new page was a piece itself and sat apart from whatever it was that I attempted the previously. I think uploading each image has compounded everything so this is in some way my attempt to short circuit the whole process. With massive apologies to Jack Kerouac I have started drawing on a long roll of paper that hopefully will blur the edges of each drawing that I do and create overlapping and unintended images and interesting jumping off points that might move my drawing into perhaps more interesting areas.