Being Duncan – Now and in English

‘Duncan who?’ I hear you ask. Duncan Ban MacIntyre, a Gaelic poet of the 18th century, maybe even THE Gaelic poet of the 18th Century. I did a presentation on his life the other day. The presentation was minus the PowerPoint as the technology of uploading it to a shared screen on a media platform defeated me. I’m still living in feet and inches and pounds and ounces.

You all know Robert Burns, right? Burn’s Night and haggis and the ‘wee, sleekit, cowran, tim’rous beastie? MacIntyre was his contemporary. Where Burns lived in the south and wrote poems in Scots and enjoyed fame, fortune and the affection of the lasses, MacIntyre was a Highland poet, setting his lyrics to music and enjoying a more outdoor life of mountains, rivers and deer.

Duncan lived through the Battle of Culloden simply because he didn’t fight in it. He fought in the Battle of, no not Dunkirk as I was about to write, but Falkirk. He was paid to take the place of someone who didn't want to fight. A man called Fletcher, who gave him a sword and pushed him towards the battlefield. They were routed by the Jacobites and MacIntyre dropped his sword as he made his escape. The sword was not one of those named swords. No vorpal sword, no Valarian blade and no Sword of Gryffindor, it was just a sword, not sharp, not polished to a shine and just a tad chipped.

Enough with the lecture, Mel. We’ve done it once. What you need to know is that he was a poet, A Gaelic poet.

Incidentally, before I move on, I received a wonderful invitation from a friend this morning. We’re becoming friends, rather than actual friends. She knows I am partial to a poem. Her husband owned shelves of poetry books and she invited me round to her house to browse. How wonderful is that?

Back to Duncan. After the Battle of Culloden, the government implemented a reign of repression. They wanted to grind the defeated army into the bracken making it a crime to celebrate anything to do with highland life – no tartan, no kilts and no bagpipes. MacIntyre composed his ‘Song of the Breeches’ to complain about wearing trousers. They just didn’t feel comfortable – I know how he felt. There are lines in the song about the current crop of royalty having no right to rule. There is something incredibly powerful about a protest poem.

Here's one of mine…I think. It is a protest against division and our refusal to make the first step toward reconciliation.

Reconciliation

the tear in the fabric

of you and me

will get wider with the watching and

truth to tell

it will not mend itself

let us find the needle and thread

and make repairs

while the rent is small

before the ocean unfolds

we must not wait for the other

to make to first move

A lot of Duncan’s poetry is about daily life. He watched. He observed. He sang songs about ploughing fields and churning butter. His poetry rates as history in that it describes what every day life was like. He wasn’t a poet laureate who saved his best poems for the big events. It was the little things, the asides, the unremarkable things he commented on.

Here’s one of mine…just an ordinary task made extraordinary because I noticed and wrote about it.

If a man can mow

A neighbour’s lawn in the dark

Nothing holds him back

What MacIntyre is best known for is his nature poetry. He lived next to Ben Dorain near Glen Orchy. It was a mountain full of wildlife. He accepted hunting as a necessary part of life, with deer on the menu to feed the body. He also saw nature as a place of wellbeing with mountain air, exercise and an appreciation of the beauty of nature there to feed the soul.

Here’s one of mine…nature speaking a necessary message.

Salmon

I have mastered the oceans

Subdued the shifting sea

Flick-finned with the leviathan

Slip-scaled with serpents

Twist-tailed with mermaids

Small, I have out swam the great

Nimble, I have sidestepped the shark

Quick, I have left the school behind

Cautious, I have exploited the hiding places

I have weathered the storms

Felt the bite of lightning and

Heard the growl of thunder

Never tried to count the stars

Felt alone

Now I’m

Driven by an ache I cannot soothe

There’s a yearning inside

Compelled

I must go home

Oh, what hurdles!

Water that tumbles through rocks

Falling, falling, falling

That I must climb

Marshalling all that I have

Leaping, or falling short of the jump

Always the current against me

Nature rages, my enemy

But I don’t surrender

Crafted into every cell is

My life’s beginning

And its completion

I am home…

Poetry says it all. It speaks to the heart. You just have to listen.