New songs to be unveiled in Oban as part of Scotland Sings
NEW SONGS by Karine Polwart and Alex Hodgson will be sung at a workshop taking place at the Corran Halls in Oban on Sunday February 18.
Karine’s Come Away In and Mauchline Belle by Alex have been commissioned by Scotland Sings as part of a project to get more people singing together.
They are both inspired by the life and work of Robert Burns and will be taught for the first time in Alloway, Birnam, Lauder, Inverness and Oban.
Burns’s wife, Jean Armour, was known as the Belle of Mauchline and is the inspiration behind Alex’s song, while Come Away In celebrates the notion of hospitality from Burns’s poem The Wren’s Nest.
Alison Burns, Scotland Sings co-ordinator, said: ‘The great thing is that the songs are brand new so everyone will be learning them from scratch.
They’ll be included in a book we’re putting together of all the songs we’ve commissioned over the past SCOTTISH trad rock band Mànran are celebrating the work of Scotland’s earliest poet laureate, Iain Lom MacDonald from Lochaber, with their new single Là Inbhir Lòchaidh (‘The Battle of Inverlochy’), writes Harry McArthur.
Iain Lom, which translates from Gaelic as ‘Iain the bald’, lived at Allt a’ Chaorainn near Laggan Dam amid the turbulence of the 17th century.
Despite his other nickname Iain Manntach, ‘stammering John’, his Gaelic poetry earned him fame as the Keppoch Bard, and as poet laureate to Charles II.
Iain Lom’s monument lies near his home in the burial ground of the 15th-century St Cyril’s Church (Cille Choirille) in Glen Spean. This Friday (February 2), 373 years to the day since the second Battle of Inverlochy, Mànran will release their take on Iain Lom MacDonald’s most famous poem Là Inbhir Lòchaidh.
Famously stating, when offered a sword to battle, ‘You battle – I’ll tell’, Iain Lom sought out a high vantage point above the battleground to record a blow-by-blow account – often in gory detail that would make the most hardened Game of Thrones viewer flinch.
Ewen Henderson, a singer, fiddle player and piper with Mànran who hails from Fort William, said: ‘In marking the anniversary of the battle with this new single, we hope to spark a new interest in this fascinating four years from some of Scotland’s top songwriters, including Mairi Campbell and David Francis, Rab Noakes and Eric Bogle.
‘Everyone is welcome, whether they sing every week in a choir or haven’t sung in years.’ and important time in Scottish history while encouraging a renewed respect for the wealth of Gaelic historical sources and the role they have to play in creating a broader, more nuanced view of Scottish history.’
Set against the backdrop of the ‘War of the Three Kingdoms’, the Battle of Inverlochy took place on the morning of a freezing February 2, 1645, on a hill beside Inverlochy Castle, near Fort William.
The battle saw a force of 1,500 Irish and Highland Royalists fight against 3,000 Scots Covenanters. Aside from its wider political importance, the battle was of enormous local significance as one of the largest and most decisive clashes in the centuries-long struggle for Highland supremacy between the MacDonald and Campbell clans. Ultimately, the MacDonalds defeated a Campbell army twice their number and forced the Marquess of Argyll to flee in his galley before the fray had even started.
Iain Lom, bard to the Keppoch MacDonalds, played an important role in the build-up to the action, guiding the Royalist forces on the final stage of their heroic counter-march through 30 miles of wintery mountain passes and providing the crucial intelligence that helped surprise the Campbell force lying in wait at Inverlochy.
Mànran: Là Inbhir Lòchaidh (The Battle of Inverlochy) will be released on Friday February 2.