LIFE OF MRS. MARY MACPHERSON
THE SKYE POETESS
Seventy years
ago, last tenth of March, at Skeabost in Skye, Mrs. Macpherson was born. Her
maiden name was Mary Macdonald. Her father, whose name was John Macdonald.
and who was a small farmer at Skeabost, was known as “Ian Ban Mac Aonghais
Oig,” and it is from this paternal designation that the poetess derives her
favourite bardic title of “Mairi Nighean Iain Bhain.” Her mother was Flora
Macinnes. daughter of Neil Macinnes, crofter in Uig, Snizort. The first
twelve years of her parents’ married life were spent in Glasgow, where they
settled on their refusal, with many other Skye people, to proceed to some
bogus settlements exploited for them in Canada. In Glasgow all Ian Ban’s
family was born, save the poetess and one brother, who were born at Skeabost
after their parents’ return to Skye. Here Mary spent her youth and early
womanhoood. not. however, in attending school or literature classes, but in
acquiring ample experience in the management of cattle and all that pertains
to the conduct of a house in the olden days, from cooking to cloth-making,
and, further, in storing her mind with the lays and lyrics of her native
isle. In 1818 she left Skye for Inverness to get married to Isaac
Macpherson, a shoemaker there, whose parents belonged to Skye. After nearly
a quarter of a century’s happy married life, her husband died in 1871,
leaving her with four surviving children.
Mrs. Macpherson had known all through her life, unmarried and
married, what hard work was, and after her husband’s death she bravely set
herself to earn her own living. In the following year she left Inverness for
Glasgow, where she entered the Royal Infirmary with the view of becoming a
practised nurse. Here she remained for over five years, and not only
obtained the usual certificate of a nurse, but took her diploma in
obstetrics as well. After leaving the Infirmary, she practised in Greenock,
Glasgow, and the neighbourhood until she returned to Skye to live there
permanently in 1882. At Skeabost, her native home, a rent-free cottage was
put at her disposal by her benefactor, the benevolent proprietor of the
place. She had, however, before her permanent settlement at Skeabost in
1882, paid annual visits to her native isle, where it is no exaggeration to
say that every house was open for her reception. Her principal place of
resort was the hospitable residence of Mr. and Mrs. Macrae, Glen Oze. Mrs.
Macrae, who had in the meantime been left a widow, gave up the farm a few
years ago and returned to Australia, but her virtues will be commemorated in
the verses of our poetess, where her benefactress plays her part as “Bean
Ois.” Hale and hearty as the poetess yet is, though in her 71st year, and
with undiminished vigour of mind, long may she live to enjoy the old age of
peace and comfort which her good work and her brave heart deserve
Curiously enough during the whole of her life, married and
unmarried, until a year after her husband’s death, Mrs. Macpherson was
entirely unconscious of possessing any poetic gift. But in 1872 certain
miscarriages of justice in her own case roused her Highland spirit to frenzy
point, and she suddenly broke out in song pure and sparkling as one of her
own native streams. It is to this noble indignation that we owe the poems of
Juvenal: Facit
indignatio versus, he
says; and good poetic work seems to require such rousing of sorrow or anger.
Sorrow and song, it has been said, go hand in hand; and “Mairi Nighean Iain
Bhain” found her voice of song in the midst of sorrow and sore travail.
Mrs. Macpherson came first into prominence as a poetic power
in the contested election in the Inverness Burghs in 1874, between Mr.
AEneas Mackintosh of Raigmore and Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh of Drummond. She
composed several songs during the contest and afterwards in favour of the
latter, who was the successful candidate. Throughout the whole of the
Highland land law reform agitation, Mrs. Macpherson gave herself
whole-heartedly to the people’s cause, and her songs largely contributed to
the victory of the popular candidates all over the Highlands in 1885 and
1886. Indeed she might be very properly described as the bard of the
movement; for with the exception of her fellow Skyeman, Neil Macleod, we are
not aware that any of her contemporaries has written anything which has
given voice to the aspirations of her countrymen during these eventful
years.
Mrs. Macpherson, who seems destined to fill among female
bards the position -which Duncan Ban has among poets of the sterner sex,
rivals him to some extent in educational disadvantages. Though she can read
her own poetry in print, she cannot write it. All the following poems were
taken down from her own recitation within the last twelve months by the
well-known Gaelic authority, Mr John Whyte. Between eight and nine thousand
lines of poetry from memory!
And she has at least half as much more of her own, and twice
as much which she is able to repeat, of floating, unpublished poetry, mainly
that of Skye and the Western Isles.
It is not our place to characterise the quality of Mrs.
Macpherson’s work here given, but this we may say in regard to the mere form
and language in which it is couched; her poetry is a well of pure Gaelic
undefiled. Nor has her work been marred in the spelling or in the editing,
like so much Gaelic poetry. The utmost care has been taken with the
orthography, and it is believed that but few errors have escaped the
vigilant proof-reader.
Mr. Lachlan Macdonald of Skeabost, as already said, gave her
in 1882 her house, Woodside Cottage, Skeabost, where she has since resided.
He has in all respects proved himself the best friend that the poetess
possesses in the world, and one of his last but not least acts of kindness
has been to meet the whole cost of printing and binding this volume of her
poems, which probably would never have appeared in this permanent form were
it not for his generous patriotism. The expense of illustrating the work has
been defrayed by another kind friend, Mr. William Fraser of Pahang; while
the cost of taking down the poems from the author’s recitation was met by a
few other admirers. In bidding God-speed to the work we cannot do better
than take Kirke’s lines written for a like purpose two hundred years ago :—
Imthigh, a Dhuilleachan, gu dan,
Le dan glan Gaidhlig duisg
iad thall;
Cuir failte ar fonn fial nab Fionn,
Ar Gharbh-cbriocha is Innseadh Gall.
A. M‘B.
Inverness, 12th
May, 1891.
Poems and Songs
By Mary MacPherson (1891) (pdf) |
