‘Sa Choille Ghruamaich: Ceist Cuideachd, Cainnt is Cèilidh’/‘In the Gloomy Forest: a Question of Company, Speech and Ceilidhs’

A paper for the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, written in Scottish Gaelic, which looks at the use of Canda/British North America as a geo-emotional construct in the socio-politico debate regarding the merits of emigration from the Scottish Gaidhealtachd/Highlands to the New World. By taking on three of the most well-known Scottish Gaelic song-poems, from the contra side of the debate, the author submits them to a close reading to elucidate the various narratives of cultural, linguistic and geographic (topographical) anxiety on the parts of the composers/poets. Throughout, various examples of pro emigration/immigration song-poems composed/written in Scottish Gaelic in Canada are marshalled to counter the prevailing mood of displacement as a journey through a vale of unremitting tears. Issues of the forces of metropolitan cultural models imposed on colonial productions are also raised in the process.