Gaelic guide for learners

Làrach Taigh Mhic Dhòmhnaill

Often the origins of seemingly obscure Gaelic place-names are preserved in oral tradition - beul-aithris in Gaelic, writes Coinneach Macfhraing .I discovered this story behind a name in my local area while browsing recordings made by Calum I. Maclean on the Tobar an Dualchais website.

In the year 1539 Dòmhnall Gorm Shlèite (Blue Donald of Sleat), 5th chief of the Macdonalds of Sleat, laid siege to the Macrae stronghold of Eilean Donan Castle. Despite commanding an overwhelmingly larger force, Dòmhnall Gorm was wounded, in truly Homeric fashion, by an arrow to the ankle. In some versions the arrow (saighead) was shot in a joint effort between a blind man and his young son, in others by a keeneyed Macrae archer. Seeing that he was losing blood at an alarming rate, Dòmhnall Gorm’s followers quickly took him away by boat to a hut on a skerry in the eastern end of Loch Alsh, where he died. The skerry (sgeir) is known to this day as Làrach Taigh Mhic Dhòmhnaill ‘the site of the house of Macdonald’. lsabhal Mòr Ostaig offers Gaelic learning opportunities at the College and by distancelearning www.smo.uhi.ac.uk