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he making of the gorgeous, subtle, and sometimes laugh- out-loud-with-the-joy-and- sheer-beauty-of-it album Oran Bagraidh, involved a stellar line-up of Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh singer/musicians meeting in a bar. Or at least in a big old house in Galloway, South West Scotland, that boasts a bar. So an excellent opportunity for a joke. Here’s one, but you can insert your own and change the punchline depending on where you’re from.
T “‘My son was born on St George’s
day,’ said the Englishman, ‘So we called him George.’ ‘That’s a real coincidence,’ said the Scotsman, ‘my son was born on St. Andrew’s day, so we called him Andrew.’ ‘Funny,’ said the Welshman, ‘my son’s called David, because he was born on St. David’s day.’ ‘That’s really incredible,’ said the Irishman, ‘exactly the same thing hap- pened with my son Pancake.’”
But unlike these tales that rely on divi- sion and ingrained nationalistic stereotyp- ing, the scenario that unfolded at Barscobe House over six days last Septem- ber relied on exactly the opposite. In that place, a focus on diversity, identity and our shared multi-cultural past caused an explo- sion of fabulous creative chemistry.
In the fall-out this wonderful album appeared, the dust of the past settling dif- ferently around it. With sheer sonic bril- liance, songs shed light on cultural threads that sparkle with ancient and new sounds and production techniques. Together the award-winning virtuoso singer-musicians/ poets and instrument makers reveal new truths as they weave a work that’s diverse and cohesive, timeless and radiant in the right here, right now.
Exploring themes of identity – of links to the landscape, of exile, of love and point- less battles and the grief we bring on others and ourselves when we don’t welcome apparent strangers at our door – influences from across the world are welcomed into this gorgeous Gaelic sound world.
The brainchild of Katch Holmes, a
singer, anthropologist and producer of the Knockengorroch Festival (billed as a ‘World Ceilidh’, a wonderful kind of mini Womad that began on her family’s farm in Galloway in 1998), Oran Bagraidh has its roots in an abiding passion of her father’s that sprang to life around the same time.
At its heart, Oran Bagraidh is the re- imagination of an ancient poem of the same name. Holmes’ father Simon, an artist and historian, discovered the work when it came to light in the library of a local fami- ly’s castle. His research showed it to reveal a new take on the history of Galloway.
It’s believed to be the only surviving example of Galloway Gaelic, with ele- ments that remain unintelligible to mod- ern Gaelic speakers and researchers.
Back row: Mary-Anne Roberts, Lorcán Mac Mathúna, Josie Duncan. 2nd row down: Rody Gorman, Robert ‘Bob’ Evans, Barna- by Brown. 3rd row down: Gwynneth Glynn, Doimnic Mac Giolla Bhride, Conor Caldwell. Front: Katch Holmes, Ben Seal, Macgillivray
Holmes says, “The song references the topography of Galloway. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so difficult for people else- where to interpret; you need to know what kind of fish are in the loch.”
Her father, who has researched the history of the region since moving there in the 1970s, and the poem itself since the ’90s, “found mention of the place we were from.” He found, too, old Welsh place names. “That put the poem before 12th century, when Welsh stopped being spo- ken in the area.”
Her father writes: “With respect to its historical significance, in establishing that the Gall Gael were Chro-Cruithne Gal- loway Picts, I submit it (Oran Bagraidh) opens up a whole new chapter of previ- ously unexplored Caledonian Atlantic seaboard history.” “The region is moun- tainous,” says Holmes, “with a vantage point out to the Irish sea. Galloway con- trolled the Irish sea, so it was important politically in the British Isles.”
The poem points to the region’s his- torical cultural diversity. “Galloway,” says Holmes, “was a crossroads in Mediaeval times for people of all languages: Norse, Cumbrian, Welsh, the Irish from across the water, the English, Northumbrians from the East, Gaels from the North and the Picts from the East and North East. So here nearly all of the languages of the British Isles were spoken at the same time.”
Becoming the lingua franca in this multi-cultural melting pot, Galloway Gael- ic was spoken for centuries, until the last known native speaker, Margaret McMur- ray, died in 1760.
I
nspired by the region’s vibrant multi-lingual past, Holmes had the idea to reflect the culture and sounds of Mediaeval Galloway through bringing the poem to life in the present. This determined the line- up she pulled together. “I needed Scot- tish, Welsh and English artists, people who could speak Irish and Scottish Gaelic as well as Scottish and ancient Welsh. I needed mediaeval specialists and instru- ments and people who work in traditional music as well as those who work with modern compositional techniques and sound production.”
It meant Holmes needed people who’d be comfortable working outside their nor- mal tradition, as she says: “We were going into unknown territory with no written evidence as to how it should sound. Work- ing with very old tradition you have more freedom to be creative and I wanted musi- cians who would be happy with innovation and who would feel easy working with people they hadn’t met before.”
And that’s how award-winning Scots/Gaelic singer Josie Duncan (harp/ voice); former Welsh poet laureate and singer Gwyneth Glyn (guitar/voice) (fR415/6); Irish ‘song archaeologist’ Lorcan Mac Mathuna (voice/ pipes); Irish sean-nós singer Doimnic Mac Giolla Bhride (voice); ancient instrument maker virtuoso Barna- by Brown (pipes/ voice); Welsh mediaeval music/ text maestros Bragod (voice/ lyre); Scots/ Irish Gaelic poet/ singer Rody Gor- man (voice); Gaelic poet/ scholar/ singer/
performance artist Macgillivray (voice/ piano/ melodica); and Irish musician/ experimental composer Conor Caldwell (fiddle/voice) all came to be in a house together with producer and composer Ben Seal to breathe life into the ancient poem rooted in that same place.
It wasn’t easy. Rody Gorman, who’s bilingual in Scots and Irish Gaelic, explains: “Oran Bagraidh is one weird song, of doubtful origin and of limited intelligibili- ty,” adding he was “taken by the refer- ences to local places (and persons to a less- er extent)” and liked “the idea of Gal- loway as a meeting place for languages.”
One of the arguments regarding its provenance springs from the text’s appear- ance in From The Farthest Hebrides, a 1978 publication of songs collected by Donald Fergusson and his Gaelic editor Angus Macdonald, who heard Oran Bagraidh from a singer on North Uist performing it to the tune of When The Kye Come Hame (the melody to which it’s set on this album). Angus Macdonald was later accused of making some of the songs up, thus casting doubt on all of them.
But Holmes Snr.’s decades of research point to its Mediaeval credentials and the respected academic, writer, broadcaster and senior lecturer in Celtic Studies, Ronald Black, also argues against its recent authorship. And there is agreement, too, that the poem’s subject refers to the mur- der of a local royal and the threat of revenge, as the compensation that such a crime customarily demanded was not paid.
The poem’s meaning, however, is contested. Depending on the translation, says Holmes, Oran Bagraidh can mean song of defiance, song of revenge, song of protection or song of evil. McGillivray likes the incantation interpretation: “It’s like a spell of protection,” she says. And Gorman’s voicing of the first verse in Irish phonetics against a sparse bowed string sounds like ancient magic. The melody is then picked up by Duncan singing with Scottish Gaelic phonetics, and Glyn later sings Welsh phonetics, reflecting the multi-lingual/multi-cultural society from whence the poem sprang.
The whole line-up participate in this title song, whilst the arrangement is subtle and spacious. There are gorgeous har- monies on the ‘chorus’, which they created from four lines of the text and which work perfectly. The beauty of it all is testimony to the sensibility of the artists and Seal’s gob-smacking skill as a producer.
There was concern that the addition of the chorus might detract from the sense of incantation, break the spell. A concern I’d argue is unwarranted, given that only magic could make me sing along, truly believing that I can a) sing in the first place and b) do this perfectly in Gaelic.
“Every phrase of the poem can be told
in different ways,” says Glyn. “It remains an enigma. I think the mystery that the whole thing sprung from, that we were not intended to solve, but to delve into, was attractive for us all from a creative point of view.”
“On the first night,” says Caldwell, “we sat down and discussed the different
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