Gaelic’s haunting psalmody was a soundscape to a way of life

Gaelic psalmody is a beautiful, haunting form of music which is unique to the Scots Gaelic speaking world, now mostly within West Highlands and Western Isles and the Gaelic diaspora in our major cities, but in the past spanning across the Gàidhealtachd. The tradition dates back to at least 1659 when, in the wake of the Scottish Reformation, Gaelic translations of the Psalms of David were first published, to be sung unaccompanied and led by a male precentor (fear togail an fhuinn or salmaiche), who ‘put out the line’ (‘cur a-mach na loidhne’) so that everyone in the congregation could follow, regardless of their reading ability...