Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair
Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair (c. 1698–1770), legal name Alexander MacDonald, or, in Gaelic Alasdair MacDhòmhnaill, was a Scottish war poet, satirist, lexicographer, political writer and memoirist. The poet's Gaelic name means "Alasdair, son of the Reverend Alasdair". His father, also named Alasdair, was known as Maighstir Alasdair ("Master Alexander") which was then the way of referring to a clergyman in Scottish Gaelic. In English, Maighstir Alasdair was known as the "Reverend Alexander MacDonald".
Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair was born into the minor Scottish nobility (Scottish Gaelic: flath) and Clan MacDonald of Clanranald (Scottish Gaelic: Clann Raghnaill) inside a still extant house at Dalilea, around the dawn of the 18th-century. He was the second son of Maighstir Alasdair (Dr. Alexander MacDonald, 1st of Dalilea) who was the Non-juring Episcopalian Rector of Kilchoan and Tacksman (Scottish Gaelic: Fear-Taic) of Dalilea.
MacDhòmhnaill is believed to have been homeschooled and to have received an education in Celtic mythology, Irish bardic poetry, Classics, and the Western canon from his father, before briefly attending University. In addition to being multilingual, Alasdair MacDhòmhnaill had the almost unheard of skill for the time in the Highlands and Islands of being able to read and write in the vernacular Scottish Gaelic language. Drawing upon the literature of the other many other languages he knew, Alasdair MacDhòmhnaill began composing Gaelic poetry very early.
According to Derrick Thomson, even though he would have been only a teenager at the time, a memoir by the poet suggests that he may have fought for Prince James Francis Edward Stuart during the Jacobite rising of 1715.
While teaching at a Protestant missionary school at Kilchoan run by the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, the bard compiled the first secular book in Scottish Gaelic to be printed: Leabhar a Theagasc Ainminnin (1741), a Gaelic-English glossary.
According to literary scholar John Mackenzie, listening to English translations of Alasdair MacDhòmhnaill's Jacobite poetry read aloud allegedly helped persuade Prince Charles Edward Stuart to sail from France to Scotland and begin the Rising of 1745. Beginning with the raising of the Prince's standard at Glenfinnan, Alasdair MacDhòmhnaill fought as a military officer in the Clanranald Regiment. During that same uprising, The Clanranald Bard, as he has since been dubbed by Hamish Henderson, was chosen, due to his "skill in the Highland Language", to teach Scottish Gaelic to the Prince.
After the defeat of the uprising at the Battle of Culloden, Alasdair MacDhòmhnaill and his older brother Aonghas Beag MacDhòmhnaill (Angus MacDonald, 2nd of Dalilea) remained in hiding as outlaws until the Act of Indemnity was passed.
In 1751, MacDhòmhnaill published the second secular book in the Gaelic language in Edinburgh; Ais-Eiridh na Sean Chánoin Albannaich — (The Resurrection of the Old Scottish Language), which was a collection of his poetry. Due to its vocal attacks in verse against King George II, the House of Hanover, and the ruling Whig political party, copies of the book were rounded up and burned by the public hangman. Twelve copies of the original edition are now known to survive, however.
Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, who was one of the most famous, most innovative, and most influential Gaelic Bards of the 18th century, died at Arisaig in 1770. He remains, along with 20th century Symbolist Bard Sorley MacLean, one of the two most important poets and writers in the history of Scottish Gaelic literature.
In a 2016 article, Scottish poet Alan Riach described translating into English Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair's immram poem Birlinn Chloinne Raghnaill ("The Birlinn of Clanranald"), about a sea voyage from Loch Eynort, in South Uist, to Carrickfergus, in Northern Ireland. Riach praised the genius of the poem's 18th-century author and how brilliantly he emulated both Homer and Virgil in telling his tale of men against the sea. Riach has also argued that The Birlinn of Clanranald, is, "one of the great poems of world literature", and that, in the same poem, Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair anticipated 20th and 21st century literary movements, including both surrealism and Psychedelic literature.
In a 2020 article, Scottish nationalist Hamish MacPherson ranked the Clanranald Bard as one of the two greatest Scottish poets in any language. MacPherson also wrote, "It is a national disgrace that there is no national monument to Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair... I have no hesitation in saying that Alasdair is a seminal figure in the history of this country, for just as Robert Burns helped preserve the Scots language, so did Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair perform the same duty for Gaelic."