Gillebride MacMillan, Gaelic songs new and old
Profile of a South Uist native singer and teacher
A couple of weeks ago, as we began our visit to the island of South Uist in the far west of Scotland, I mentioned that our group got a chance to hear the Gaelic singing of Gillebride (pronounced Gill-ah-BREE-juh) MacMillan. He told us about, and sang, a number of Gaelic songs, and spoke of the local culture and history.
I got a chance to speak with Gillebride recently and learned about his life in South Uist, which is, as he puts it, one of the “heartlands” of Scots Gaelic. He grew up speaking Gaelic at home, with friends, at church, and first learned to speak English at school. His father had been the pipe major for the South Uist pipe band, and used to emcee the local ceilidhs (participatory parties, with music and dance for all) in the Bornais (pronounced “Bornish”) village hall. His mother knew and loved the Gaelic songs and poetry, though she didn’t sing herself.
Gillebride’s two older sisters sang at the ceilidhs, where people from the community would gather to perform songs, dances, or bagpipes, followed by a social dance, with tea, whisky, and the like. It was natural for young Gillebride to sing as well at the ceilidhs and at school, until his teenage years when he felt too shy, and stopped singing until college.
While studying Celtic languages and geography at the University of Glasgow, he began singing again with a student group, and eventually competed in the National Mòd, where he ended up winning prestigious gold medals in Gaelic song.
Gillebride’s voice is calm, clear, and incisive. We spoke about his latest album, which was released in February 2023, called Sèimh: The State of Calm. This is his second album of original Gaelic songs, which is unusual in a tradition where most Gaelic speakers love best hearing the old songs they have long known.
To remedy this seeming reluctance to hear new songs, Gillebride has hosted and produced a program on BBC Radio which focuses specifically on newly composed Gaelic songs. He estimates that in the last ten years, there have been about 200 new songs composed, and his program exposes them to what has turned out to be a very interested audience. After a trial run of six radio episodes, BBC approved a continuation for ten more, and is in the process of considering a continuation of the series.
The concept of writing new songs telling stories has been relatively new for the Gaelic tradition. Many of the older songs were almost like pieces of journalism, where bards would write words to commemorate people and events, to maintain an oral history, and existing melodies would be matched with the lilt of the bards’ words. Since the 1970s, influenced particularly by poets like Murdo MacFarlane, or the innovative Gaelic rock band Runrig, Gaelic songs have moved toward setting a mood and telling a story, rather than giving a detailed historical account of an event or a person’s life.
The melodies Gillebride wrote for his new album are just beautiful, as are the musical arrangements by producer Mhairi Hall. The accompaniment is provided by excellent Scottish musicians on violin, guitar, bass, percussion, piano, bass, whistles, and sax. Whether you know any Gaelic or not, the melodies of the traditional songs are enchanting, and Gillebride’s are no less so.
One of the pleasures he had in putting the album together, despite the rigors of recording under Covid restrictions, was in having a couple of other singers perform his songs. One song, “Chì Mi Thu,” passionately rendered by Karen Matheson of Capercaillie, was written in honor of teenager Eilidh MacLeod of Barra, who was among the 22 concertgoers killed by a terrorist’s bomb at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017. Karen’s rich voice, and her own connection to Barra, where her mother grew up, give a loving sadness to this song told from the point of view of Eilidh’s parents.
The other song on the album sung by a guest singer is called “Chaill I A Faclan (She Lost Her Words).” It was inspired when Gillebride viewed an artist’s video commemorating the centennial of the Iolaire disaster. The Iolaire sank on New Year’s Day 1919 near the harbor of Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, killing over 200 soldiers who had survived World War I and were tragically within sight of home. What caught Gillebride’s attention was how the artist described her grand-aunt as having “lost her words,” unable to speak every New Year’s Day because her husband had gone down with the Iolaire. The song is sung beautifully by the great Lewis singer Margaret Stewart. It can be heard at the end of this article.
Another song from the album, “Meadhan-oidhche (Midnight)” also had a video made for it, at midnight on a South Uist beach, which you can also enjoy below.
Gillebride became quite famous about ten years ago when he played the role of The Bard on the television version of Diana Gabaldon’s hit novel series, Outlander. That TV appearance has done wonders for his singing career, as the fans of that show are quite keen to learn about the history and culture of the Highlands, and love the authenticity of Gillebride’s singing. (If you’ve seen and heard him as the Bard in season 1 of the show, be forewarned: on TV, he was wearing a nice long wig!)
Outlander has had a huge impact on its viewers. In addition to the many tours to sites that have appeared in the story, other interesting effects have come to the fore. For example, the folk who run the Gaelic learning website at speakgaelic.scot, which is sponsored by the Scottish government, were quite mystified by huge spikes of interest very early on Monday mornings, until they realized that this corresponded to the time in the U.S. when the Outlander show finished airing on Sunday nights!
Gillebride has continued to be a consultant for the TV show, teaching a Gaelic song to one of the actors in season 7, and instructing various actors when they need to speak Gaelic phrases. He comes by this teaching skill quite naturally, since in his day job, he works at his old school, the University of Glasgow, as a professor of Scots Gaelic language and literature.
When he can, he performs at festivals such as Celtic Connections, at events in Canada, the U.S., Holland, and Germany, and teaches Gaelic song at the Ceòlas summer festival we mentioned in our earlier discussion of South Uist. He has also been commissioned to write and perform new Gaelic songs. One such song honored the 120th anniversary of the Dundee Gaelic Choir. Another marked the centennial of the emigration of hundreds who left South Uist and Barra in 1923 to create a new community in Red Deer, in Alberta, Canada.
It was always a delight to meet up with Gillebride on our trips to Scotland. In addition to meeting our group a couple times in his native South Uist, some of our groups also got to hear him speak about the Gaelic culture and sing songs for us when we visited Glencoe. On one trip, in 2009, he met us in a rustic spot off the shores of Loch Ossian, where he taught our group a “wauking song,” a type of song usually sung by women who would process wool around a table, beating it in time to the song. He even had our group mime the motions of working the cloth.
At times, Gillebride says, a new phrase or melody will run through his mind for a while, and he’ll eventually sit down and work it into a new song. He is looking forward to writing enough songs to record another album, which will add a fifth CD to his two traditional and two original recordings. All can be found on his website.
Below is a video of Gillebride singing the “Midnight” song from his latest album, as a couple dances on a South Uist beach. It’s followed by a video of the Iolaire song, including the words in translation, and paintings of some of the soldiers.