In the Shadow of the Bard: The Gaelic Short Story, Drama and Novel since the early Twentieth Century

The twentieth century has seen a dramatic decrease in Gaelic speakers in Scotland: the1901 census recorded 202,700 speakers; the 2001 census only 58,652. In 1901, although only a minority of Scotland’s population spoke Gaelic (4.5 per cent of the total population), the Gaelic community was stable; by 2001, the language community was in flux and facing its language’s death. The relative health of the Gaelic language contextualises developments charted in this chapter. Awareness of the language predicament is apparent as a theme in some prose (though not perhaps as prevalent as in the poetry of the same era).Despite the drop in speakers, however, the current Gaelic-speaking population is probably more literate than previous ones. This may explain the growing trend for literary prose writing. Prior to the twentieth century, there were discursive prose and traditional tales, but no tradition of literary prose and drama. The early twentieth century witnessed an awakening experimentation with Gaelic prose style, part of the predominant Celtic Twilight movement. Drama too was quickly established as a popular genre by the 1920s. Yet, it was not until the second half of the twentieth century that Gaelic literary prose truly began to develop. The comparative health of a substantial corpus of short stories is due in part to the periodical Gairm(1952–2002), edited by Ruaraidh MacThòmais (Derick Thomson) – with Fionnlagh MacDhomhnaill (Finlay MacDonald) until 1964. Through this quarterly new writers found print and new styles were pioneered. Yet, these developments have never reached as wide an audience as poetry of the same period; neither have they received the same level of critical study or acclaim. This must be due in part to limited readership. While bilingual publishing is the norm for Gaelic poetry, thus increasing its readership considerably, this is not the case for prose. This chapter presents a survey of three less considered genres: the short novel, story and drama.