Coronavirus fails to cull Culloden anniversary celebration

While the Battle of Culloden - the last of the great Jacobite risings - has been previously been marked by a series of events on the site near Inverness, due to the coronavirus public health emergency, the charity has moved its memorial online, with a series of videos and articles launched today(Thurs).

Culloden in 1746 saw forces loyal to Bonnie Prince Charlie defeated by the Duke of Cumberland's government army. Described as the last pitched battle on British soil, it was over in less than an hour and involved the deaths of about 1,600 men - with 1,500 of them Jacobites.

In the aftermath of the battle, many Jacobites were imprisoned and later executed.

To mark the 274th anniversary, the public will be able to hear rare snippets of haunting Gaelic songs inspired by the Jacobite cause.

John Lorne Campbell and wife Margaret Fay Shaw at Canna House

In a new video, the charity shares the original audio recordings of a series of Gaelic songs collected by archivist John Lorne Campbell, the late former owner of the tiny island of Canna, in in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, Over a period of about 30 years the historian and patriot, who died in 1996 in Italy, amassed a sound recording archive of some 1,500 Gaelic songs and 350 folktales.

Approximately one-tenth of the recordings were published, including the 135 waulking songs in three volumes of Hebridean Folksongs edited as a collaborative effort with Francis Collinson from 1966 until 1981.

Mr Campbell's book Highland Songs of the Forty Five which helped inspire the video was published in 1933, and brought together songs around the events leading up to the Battle of Culloden, and beyond – many of which had never been written down before.

The book was Mr Campbell's first publication and 51 years later was republished by the Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, and included amendments and additions he was able to reinstate.

That included that ..."the Rising of 1745 was the natural reaction of the Jacobite clans and their sympathisers in the Highlands against what had been since the coming of William of Orange in 1690 a calculated official genocidal campaign against the religion of many and the language of all Highlanders".

The new video also references recordings of songs from Ruaiaridh Iain Bain and Annie Johnston of Barra.

It was created by the Trust’s Canna House archivist Fiona MacKenzie who had been due to give a talk on the book at the battlefield as part of the 2020 anniversary programme.

Raoul Machin-Curtis, the NTS's operations manager at Culloden said: “The anniversary of the Battle of Culloden is a significant date for so many and while we can’t be on site, we know that people will want to pause, reflect and remember.

“These beautiful songs reflect the haunting beauty of battlefield, one of Scotland’s most special places, so powerfully. We feel it is fitting to share them on this poignant day.”

The NTS said it was shutting all parks and gardens three-and-a-half weeks ago five days after it said they would remain open free of charge for people to "escape isolation" as they respond to the coronavirus outbreak.

The charity took actions as concerns persisted that not enough people were adhering to rules of social distancing at the time.

And MSPs and tourism board bosses were urging people planning to visit remote parts of Scotland to stay away to protect local residents.

Mr Campbell, who left the island to the NTS, grew an interest in Gaelic from boyhood, fostered by Professor John Fraser of Jesus College, Oxford.

Mr Campbell began work on a Gaelic anthology while at Oxford and that became Highlands Songs of the Forty Five.

His own recording work advanced in step with contemporary developments; beginning with an Ediphone Recorder using wax cylinders, he progressed to a Presto Disc Recorder, both obtained in New York as state-of-the-art equipment and latterly when magnetic tape recorders became the norm, Mr Campbell used a Grundig Tape Recorder and a Phllips Portable Recorder He had argued for a collection of Gaelic folksong on a properly organised basis, by the endowment of a body in Scotland similar to the Irish Folklore Commission.

The creation of the Folklore Institute of Scotland together with other interested parties led to the creation of the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University in late 1951.

In contributing to the founding of this new archive, Mr Campbell endowed it with copies of more than 300 of his own wire recordings of traditional song.

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