As a Bhraighe Beyond the Braes: The Gaelic Songs of Allan the Ridge MacDonald, 1794–1868

Desmond Maley is the music librarian at the J.W. Tate Library,
Huntington College, Laurentian University, and editor of the CAML
Review.

This thoughtful and thorough survey of the life and art of the
19th-century Nova Scotian bard Allan the Ridge MacDonald is a notable
contribution to Celtic studies. Rankin demonstrates Allan the Ridge’s
significance as a seanchaidh, or tradition bearer, to the Nova Scotian
Gaelic community while at the same time tracing the story of his clan to
the highlands of Brae Lochaber, Scotland.

Allan the Ridge arrived in Pictou, N.S., with his family from the
Scottish highlands in 1816 while still in his early 20s. For 30 years,
he farmed on the South West ridge (where he came to be called Allan the
Ridge) in Mabou, Cape Breton Island, and then spent the remainder of his
life farming on the mainland on the Upper South River in Antigonish
County.

The centrepiece of the book is Allan the Ridge’s songs, a vivid and
pungent collection of Gaelic laments, drinking songs, satires, and
panegyrics for which Rankin also supplies translations. Together they
form a striking portrait of the pioneer Gaelic community that, while
steeped in its Scottish heritage, also strove to put down roots in the
new world. Rankin describes “The MacDonalds of Bonhuntin” as his
magnum opus, which celebrates the valour and courage of Allan the
Ridge’s clan down through the ages. Songs of these kinds acted as a
cultural lifeline for the Gaels, transcending the fractured and tragic
course of Scottish history.

The otherwise meticulously edited publication is marred by incomplete
musical notation in the selection of airs that accompany some of the
lyrics. It also would have been helpful if there had been a brief
overview of the Gaelic language and the qualities that make the poems
distinctive in their native tongue. Nevertheless, Rankin has given us an
admirable piece of scholarship that deserves a place on the shelf of
Celtic and traditional music collections.