Donald John MacDonald

Donald John MacDonald, (lit. "Donald Ian Duncan", fig. "Donald Ian, son of Duncan") legally Dòmhnaill Iain MacDhòmhnaill (7 February 1919 in Peninerine, South Uist, Scotland – 2 October 1986 in Glasgow, Scotland) was a Scottish war poet, philosopher, and folklorist.

According to his friend and editor Bill Innes, "Apart from the war years incarcerated in a German prisoner-of-war camp, he spent his life on the island of South Uist. Yet he was to evolve out of the Bardic tradition into a poet who deserves to rank with the greatest that Gaelic has known."

Early life Dòmhnaill Iain MacDhòmhnaill was born, the third of four children, in a croft at Peninerine on 7 February 1919. His father was the famous Seanchaidh Duncan MacDonald , who was originally from Snishival, but who traced his lineage back via North Uist to the Isle of Skye, and to the MacRury official bards to the Chiefs of Clan MacDonald of Sleat. Among folklorists and Celticists, however, Duncan Macdonald was often referred to, after his occupation, as (lit. "Duncan the Stonemason").

Through his mother, Margaret (née MacIntyre), the future poet was the nephew of the poet Donald MacIntyre and the great-grandson of Angus Maclean . Through his North Uist ancestors, Dòmhnall was a cousin of World War I soldier poet Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna (1887-1967), whose war poetry heavily influenced his own and about whom Dòmhnall later composed an iconic Gaelic eulogy.

Of translating his late friend's poetry for a bilingual complete works, Bill Innes has written, "Where Dwelly's dictionary failed, Fr. Allan MacDonald's Gaelic Words and Expressions from South Uist and Eriskay and the vocabulary to Donald MacIntyre's Sporan Dhòmhnaill were often invaluable, but some words had to be traced back to Irish. (It is a sobering reflection of the deterioration of spoken Gaelic in the last hundred years that the Bard's remarkable vocabulary came not from books but from the oral tradition within his own family)."

Closer to home, his maternal uncle, the poet Dòmhnaill Ruadh Phàislig, was another major influence. Although Dòmhnall Iain was never to follow in his uncle's footsteps by translating the verse of Scottish national poet Robert Burns into Gaelic, he did praise the Lowland poet in verse, used the Burns stanza more than once in his later poetry, and often emulated Burns by, "extracting a deeper moral from a simple rural incident."

At the age of fourteen, Dòmhnall happily dropped out of school and joined in the arduous work on his family's croft. Similarly to many other young Gaels of his generation, Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh and a few close friends enlisted at age eighteen in the Inverness-shire battalion of the Territorial Army, which allowed them to see something of the Scottish mainland in annual training camps. Two years later, upon hearing of the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Dòmhnall gleefully exclaimed to his sister Ann, "At last!" In later years, however, his poetry would be filled with bitter longing for both his lost innocence and the peacetime culture of South Uist that he had once longed to escape.

War poet Following combat training at Inverness and Aldershot, he was assigned to the 4th Service Battalion, King's Own Cameron Highlanders, 152nd Infantry Brigade.

While en route to captivity in Germany in June 1940, Dòmhnall composed a lament for his fellow soldiers who had lost their lives before the 51st (Highland) Division surrendered. The result is the Gaelic song poem "Na Gillean nach Maireann" ("The Lads that Are No More"), which he set to the air "O ho nighean, è ho nighean" and which bears a strong resemblance to the poem "Tha Mi Duilich, Cianail, Duilich" ("I am Sad, Lamenting, and Full of Sorrow"), which was composed for very similar reasons during World War I by his cousin Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna.

In accordance with the Third Geneva Convention, POWs like MacDonald, who were below the rank of sergeant, were required to work. MacDonald spent his captivity attached to Arbeitskommando ("labour units") and doing unpaid labour, mainly in quarries and salt mines. MacDonald later described, "in harrowing detail", his experiences in enemy captivity in the postwar memoir Fo Sgàil a' Swastika ("Under the Shadow of the Swastika").

Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh composed many works of oral poetry during forced labour in German captivity, all of which he memorized and was only able to write down and edit for publication following the end of the war and his release.

Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh's World War II experiences in both combat and as a POW in German captivity left him as a fervent Scottish nationalist with an intensive hatred of colonialism, militarism, and war; which later expressed itself in many works of Gaelic poetry condemning what he considered the wasteful loss of human life due to World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the 1967 Abortion Act.

With these changed beliefs in mind, Dòmhnall would often say following his return from captivity, "I learned more in those five years than I could have in eighty years of ordinary living."

In 1948, MacDonald's poem "Moladh Uibhist" ("In Praise of Uist"), which he had composed while being held as a POW and carefully edited for publication following his release, won the Bardic Crown at the Royal National Mòd at Glasgow.

The 1950 removal of the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalists delighted Dòmhnall Iain, who celebrated the event with the poem "Nuair a Ghoideadh a' Chlach, neo Aoir nan Sasannach" ("When the Stone was Stolen, or Lampoon on the English"). Bill Innes has written that the resulting poem, "reveals just how much the Bard resented the English domination of his country."

Dòmhnall Iain expressed very similar opinions in other poems, such as "An Clàrsair" ("The Harper"), in which, "he calls on the Gaels to rise again as their ancestors once did", and "A' Chrois Tàra" ("The Fiery Cross"), in which the Bard cited the traditional means that Scottish clan chiefs would summon the whole clan to grab their weapons and come immediately to a gathering, and similarly called, "on Gaels to unite ... in defense of their language, their culture, and their freedom."

At the same time, Dòmhnall began collecting Hebridean mythology and folklore from the local oral tradition for Calum Maclean and the newly founded School of Scottish Studies. During the last year before his father's death in 1954, Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh, in response to Maclean's request to tape and transcribe everything his father knew, managed to record and transcribe more than 1,500 pages of his father's stories. In response, Maclean wrote in 1954, "Without any doubt, Donald John... is the best folklore collector that has come amongst us in Scotland in this century."

After folklorist Calum Maclean died prematurely of cancer in 1960, Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh composed a famous Gaelic eulogy and said of his friend's death, , "When news came of the end, It was as a saw-cut to my heart."

As a staunch and believing member of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh, "was deeply disturbed by the increase in the rate of abortion as a result of the 1967 Act." The result was his famous Pro-Life poem in strict bardic metre, "An Guth à Broinn na Màthair" ("Voice from the Womb"). "There were eloquent advocates aplenty for the rights of women. The unborn child had no voice - but a poet could provide one." The resulting song-poem was first published, according to literary scholar Ronald Black, in the Stornoway Gazette on 29 December 1973. It remained popular enough to widely circulate in manuscript for decades afterwards, until it was finally republished posthumously in the Bard's first collected poetry volume in 1998.

The 1969 outbreak of The Troubles in Northern Ireland horrified the deeply religious Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh, particularly in what he saw as the hypocritical misuse of religion by both Irish Republican and Ulster Loyalist paramilitaries to justify terrorism. The result was his poem "Uilebheist Ulaidh" ("The Monster of Ulster"), in which he accused "the Monster" of worshipping at the altar of revenge topped by candles of jealousy and greed, and offering up the blood of innocent children and the bitter grief of their mothers.

At the same time, Dòmhnall Iain was deeply moved by reading Seán Ó Tuama and Thomas Kinsella's "An Duanaire An Irish Anthology: 1600-1900. Poems of the Dispossessed". In the resulting "Trí Rainn agus Amhrán: Air dha an leabhar Eireannach Poetry of the Dispossessed a leughadh" ("Three Verses and a Poem: Having read the Irish book 'Poetry of the Dispossessed'"), Dòmhnall Iain compared the sufferings of the Irish people during the era described in Kinsella's poetry book with those of the Scottish Gaels after the Battle of Culloden , in 1746, , "You spent time in darkness, confined, oppressed in your own country." Dòmhnall Iain praised, however, the Irish people for their loyalty despite systematic religious persecution to the Catholic Church in Ireland and their ultimate victory in the Irish War of Independence.

During a touching tribute to Queen Elizabeth II in a poem composed for her 1977 25th Jubilee, Dòmhnaill Iain Dhonnchaidh praised the Queen's maternal descent from the Scottish Earls of Strathmore and Chiefs of Clan Lyon. Dòmhnall Iain Donnchaidh also added facetiously that the Queen's understanding of affairs in mainland Europe owed itself to her descent from "the Georges" instead of the House of Stuart. Dòmhnall Iain proceeded to express extremely harsh criticism of the British Empire in his other poems. When he discussed the enormous loss of soldiers' lives during World War I and the annual ceremonies at Menin Gate in "Flanders", "An Carriage-Cuimhne Cogaidh" ("The War Memorial"), and "Cogadh no Sìth" ("War or Peace"), Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh gave full vent to a belief grounded in his experiences during World War II that, "Human life was far too precious to be squandered at the whim of governments. In particular, he felt that generations of Islanders had paid far too high a price through the years for wars resulting from decisions made in London."

Similarly during the late 1970s, Dòmhnall's enthusiasm for following in the footsteps of Fr. Allan MacDonald by composing hymn texts and Christian poetry in Scottish Gaelic was fired up by Ishabel T. MacDonald, who introduced him to the work of Seán Ó Riada in setting religious poetry in the Irish language to Seán Nos-style tunes. After Dòmhnall composed the poems, Ishabel MacDonald and Fr. Roderick MacNeill set them to traditional Scottish Gaelic-style melodies, which were published posthumously in the 1986 Catholic hymnbook "Seinnibh dhan Tighearna" and which remain deeply popular.

In 1981, Dòmhnall Iain agreed, as part of a bridge-building exercise organized by Gaelic language radio, to compose both literary translations and original lyrics set to arias from Mozart and Verdi operas. Scottish traditional musician Mary Sandeman ultimately made "Nìghneagan Òga", his translation of Voi Che Sapete from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, a regular part of her repertoire. Sandeman not only recorded the aria twice, but even sang the Gaelic words before an audience of more than 5,000 at the Royal Albert Hall.

Dòmhnall also drew upon his Catholic Faith, his imagination, and local history while composing the poems "Smaointean - Aig Làrach Seann Eaglais Hogh Mòir" ("Thoughts - at Howmore Temple Ruins") and "Teampall Hogh Mòir" ("Howmore Temple"); in which he called for a return to the simpler Pre-Reformation religious life on South Uist, which was once centered around the ruined monastery, its school, and its church.

Dòmhnall Iain was understandably elated by the efforts of the underground Solidarity labour union and social movement to nonviolently resist both Marxist-Leninism and Martial law in Poland. The Bard accordingly had very high praise for them in his poem "Poland."

Of "Ùrnaigh Naomh Francis", Dòmhnall Iain's Gaelic verse paraphrase of the Prayer of Saint Francis, his friend Bill Innes has written, , "The translation to verse of this well-known prayer was done at the request of Fr. Colin MacInnes. It is no surprise that the project appealed to the Bard for it could almost be read as a summary of his own philosophy."

Personal life Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh began his courtship of North Uist poet Mary M Maclean by letter following his return from captivity in 1946. Equally motivated by fear of losing her independence, Màiri MacLean also composed what has been described as some the most poignant poetry in recent Scottish Gaelic literature in response to the end of their relationship.

Death and legacy As he grew older, Dòmhnall Iain's pondering of his own mortality and the inevitability of death for all human beings inspired his iconic Memento mori poem "Geata Tìr nan Òg" ("The Gate to Tìr nan Òg").

While accompanying his wife Nellie during a medical appointment at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow, MacDonald's condition was serious enough for him to be admitted for observation himself. He died there unexpectedly on 2 October 1986, was returned to South Uist for burial, and now lies in Ardmichael Cemetery.

Similarly to his contemporary Duncan Livingstone, a Gaelic Bard from the Isle of Mull resident in South Africa under Apartheid, Dòmhnaill Iain Dhonnchaidh made an English-Gaelic literary translation of Thomas Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard, which has been termed "masterly" and which he completed in the late 1940s.

According to Ronald Black, a recognized scholar of modern Scottish Gaelic literature, "The work of Donald John MacDonald represents a powerful combination of deep traditional knowledge with modern Gaelic literacy. A cairn in his memory and that of his uncle Donald Macintyre was erected at Snishival", Scottish traditional musician Julie Fowlis has both performed and recorded Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh's poem "An Ròn" ("The Seal"), which speaks with the voice of a Selkie from Celtic mythology, for her 2014 album Gach sgeul - Every story.