rorkesdriftvc.com :: View topic

Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 7:53 am

A quick question, to which I am sure some of you will know the answer: Maj Wilsone Black was a native speaker of G�idhlig - where did he come from? Are there any other references to G�idhlig speakers in the AZW?

Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 11:14 am

Paul,

Born Glasgow, Lanarkshire, the son of James Black of Blythswood Square.

One side of Blythswood Square has recently been converted to a hotel, using the old town houses of Black's day.

John Y.

Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 12:48 pm

John, I notice that the scaffolding for the hotel renovation is by Chard.

Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 2:33 pm

Thanks John - very interesting. As it happens, I'll be in Glasgow this week ...

Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 7:58 pm

Paul,

If you get the chance visit the Royal Highland Fusiliers Museum at 518 Sauchiehall Street, that's down the posh end!

John Y.

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:45 am

Hi John

If all goes well on Thursday, I'll be living there ...

Thanks for the info.!

Regards,

Paul

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:49 am

Do we know for sure that he was actually a 'speaker', or were the references to 'wild gaelic oaths' simply euphemisms.

George MacDonald Fraser refers in one of his McCausland books to a Royal personage being greeted by a very small child with a posy of flowers on arriving for a visit to the Battalion.
The child clearly utters 'a mouthful', and the moment is smoothed over by the Commanding Officer reassuring the puzzled guest with the words: "I think he is thanking your Royal Highness in gaelic".

Just a thought.

G

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 10:50 am

Galloglas

Interesting suggestion: I suppose I was following earlier writers who stated that he broke into Gaelic following his (how shall we put it?) lithic experience during the attack on Sihayo's homestead. However, that he may have been a first-language Gaelic / G�idhlig speaker brought up in Glasgow is not as strange as one might think. I know someone now in his 50s who had been brought up in a very close-knit Gaelic speaking community in Glasgow. He had to learn English when he went to school. That Wilsone Black may have similarly been a child of Gaelic speaking parents living there in the mid 1800s wouldn't surprise me at all.

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:40 pm

Yes, and the gaelic/celtic revival providing an underlay to the evolving politics of Ireland had also generated wider contemporary interest in gaelic/celtic matters and studies elsewhere.
Several families in any case would have maintained such interests and even language skills, and especially if visits to parts of Scotland or Ireland for sporting or estate management purposes might have required some working knowledge of the language.
We might also reasonably have expected to see gaelic still in use as a first language or close second amongst the very rural Scots within half a day of Glasgow and, coincidentally, amongst many of the incoming Glasgow Irish.
However, do we know for sure that Black was indeed a gaelic speaker, I guess.
Unless a convincing reference to that can indeed be found.
G

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:29 pm

I meant to write ", I guess not".
However, ignorant (or forgetful) person that I am, I had lost sight of the detail that Black's first commission had been into the 42nd Highlanders, with whom he served in the Crimea.
So, very possible that he had picked up at least some working knowledge of gaelic in a regiment where it was probably quite commonly used by a significant proportion of the soldiers, including in traditional singing.
At least long enough to learn some fairly useful gaelic oaths, I guess.

G

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 9:35 pm

Paul,

If you do get the chance to move up there give me a shout, we did some house-hunting around Loch Lomond not too long ago, and there are a few places I could recommend.

Drop me an e-mail.

John Y.

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 10:05 pm

Will do, John - thanks for the advice.

Kind regards,

Paul