WAS BURNS DESCENDED FROM THE GAELS?
Dà Chànan, Aon Chridhe / Twa Leids, Ane Hert
Sunday 25th January 2009, 10pm, BBC ALBA
As Scotland’s Year of Homecoming officially begins this weekend, BBC ALBA will be broadcasting an insightful documentary asking the question, ‘Did Burns Descend from the Gaels’?
BBC ALBA, the new Gaelic television channel, will make a fitting tribute to celebrate Burns Night with the broadcast of Dà Chànan, Aon Chridhe / Twa Leids, Ane Hert on Sunday at 10pm. The programme was last broadcast on BBC 2 Scotland in 2007.
Some of Scotland’s leading musicians join Dr Anne Lorne Gillies in an engaging programme to stray along some unusual pathways in the life and work of Scotland’s national bard, Robert Burns.
In Dà Chànan, Aon Chridhe / Twa Leids, Ane Hert Anne brings a highly personal slant to the life and work of the bard (bàrd: Gaelic for poet) emphasising the common links between the Lowland Scots and Highland Gaelic traditions, illustrating this through some of Burns’ greatest masterpieces.
Gaelic resonances is found not only among the language, concepts, poetic style, traditional and political beliefs that give Burns’ poetry their greatness, but also in Burns’ use of Highland melodies for his work. Anne even floats a surprisingly tenacious Gaelic tradition that Burns’ ancestors were Gaelic-speakers from Argyll, where Anne herself was raised.
The programme was filmed in Ayrshire, Dumfries, Argyll, and Edinburgh, and showcases performances in Scots and Gaelic from some of the brightest talents on the contemporary folk scene. Some of the vocalists taking part in the programme include Jim Malcolm, Anne Lorne Gillies, Sheena Wellington, and Allan MacDonald. Musicians include Donald Shaw, Manus Lunny, Ewan Vernal, Anna Massie, and Ali Hutton. Music directors for the programme were Donald Shaw and Anne Lorne Gillies.
The music was filmed in the beautiful music room at Oswald Hall on the campus of the Scottish Agricultural College on the Auchincruive Estate in Ayrshire. In May 1795 Burns wrote the song, 'O Wat Ye Wha's in Yon Town' for celebrated beauty Lucy Oswald, the wife of Richard A. Oswald of Auchincruive, who were at that time owners of Oswald Hall.
Dà Chànan, Aon Chridhe / Twa Leids, Ane Hert, produced by MNE Media, is in Gaelic with English subtitles and will be broadcast on BBC ALBA on Sunday 25th January at 22:00.