At present the Church of Scotland’s own organ of “Life and Work” has a Gaelic Supplement. The Free Church issues The Gaelic Record. Gaelic articles have also appeared in the newspapers of Inverness and Oban, editors having discovered of late years that the insertion of Gaelic articles is not inimical to the circulation of their journals. The Celtic Magazine, ably carried on for some years by Mr Alexander Mackenzie, and the Highland Monthly at present, though not written in Gaelic, have helped forward Gaelic scholarship. Nor must I omit to mention the earlier patriotic efforts of Mr John Murdoch in The Highlander, in writing the language and advocating its claims—efforts which ought to find a special place in the pages of the historian of the Gaelic Renaissance of this quarter of the nineteenth century.
HIGHLAND SOCIETIES.
The Highland Societies of London and Scotland have contributed materially towards the cultivation of Celtic literature, although the latter for more than half a century has developed into a merely agricultural association. The Scottish one has given us the learned “Report” on the Ossianic literature, which Henry Mackenzie, author of “The Man of Feeling,” edited as well as the magnificent Dictionary already described. The London Society helped to give Smith’s Seann Dana to the world more than a century ago, and Patrick Macgregor’s Genuine Remains of Ossian in 1840. Ibis Society still flourishes under royal and aristocratic smiles in London, and in recent years, under the guidance of Dr Farquhar Matheson, Dr Roderick Macdonald, M.P., and others, has helped many Highland youths with bursaries to enable them to obtain University training. The Gaelic Society of London was formed in the year 1777, and is still rejoicing in a vigorous manhood. In those days there were many Gaelic patriots about the metropolis who had made considerable fortunes abroad and in the south; and they felt it a sacred duty to encourage organisations which might nurse the apparently decaying spirit of the threatened Scottish nationality. Some twenty years ago the Gaelic Society of Inverness was formed, and to it the Celtic world is indebted for a series of annual volumes of Transactions in which we have materials for a rich museum of folk-lore, poetry, tradition, history, philology, etc. These volumes will be of the utmost value for the future student. Two names deserve special mention in connection with these volumes—that of Mr William Mackenzie, Principal Clerk of the Highland Land Court, a gentleman who wields a facile pen in both Gaelic and English; and that of Mr William Mackay, solicitor, Inverness, who is among the most distinguished archæological lawyers in the country, and who has furnished contributions of the highest value to these volumes.
The Gaels of Glasgow more recently formed a Gaelic Society, of which Mr Magnus Maclean, M.A. of Glasgow University, is the admirable secretary. This Society has made a good beginning with the publication of the first volume of its Transactions lately published. Perth and other large towns have also their Gaelic Societies in this country, and if we look across the Atlantic we find quite a large number of them in Canada. The Gaelic Society of Toronto, of which a distinguished native of Islay—Mr David Spence—has been a moving spirit, is in a very flourishing condition.
In the great political change which has just come over the dreams of Highlanders the Gaelic language has been of the most undoubted service. Indeed it is through its judicious use as a political weapon that this change was brought to a successful pass in 1886. It was the thousands of the Gaelic Land-Law Reform manifestoes sent forth from London in 1883-4, that organised the Highlands and Islands for the brilliant Parliamentary triumph of 1885, by which the first practical fruits of the Gaelic revival were reaped. And here it may be interesting to preserve a copy of one of these manifestoes, which played so prominent a part in bringing about the Imperial recognition of Highland rights. The following prose paragraphs may be referred to as a specimen of the Gaelic of the period as well as a monument of the services rendered by the use of Gaelic in an important national crisis:—
A GAELIC LAND-LAW REFORM MANIFESTO.
“Comunn Gaidhealach Lunnuinn airson Lagh an Fhearainn Aihleasachadh.
“Chuireadh an Comunn so air chois an toiseach air son gu’m biodh Teachdairean Rioghail air an cur feadh Gàidhealtachd agus Eileana na h-Alba a rannsachadh mu chor agus mu ghearan na Tuadh Bhig anns na ceàrnaibh sin; mar an ceudna air son atharrachaidhean a dheanamh air Laghan an Fhearainn, a shocruicheadh gu dainghean Mail Chothromach, Greim Seasmhach airan Fhearann, agus Pàidheadh air son Athleasachaidhean maille ri leithid d o Ath-shuidheachadh air an Fhearann ’sa bhiodh feumail air son math an t-Sluaigh.
“Air an dara là do Sheptember 1884, choinnich Fir-ionaid o na Comuinn Ghàidhealach a tha air son Lagh an Fhearainn Ath-leasachadh ann an Co-Labhairt ann an Inbher-feothrain; agus dh’aontaich iad air a bhonn a leanas mar Chlar-innsidh air son a’ Chomuinn Ghàidhealaich a tha air son Lagh an Fhearainn Ath-leasachadh: