The First Hundred Years of the Gaelic Novel

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The First Hundred Years of the Gaelic Novel Moray Watson It would not have been a realistic proposition to write a chapter on the Gaelic novel much before around 2000. In a general Scottish volume, this may strike many readers as surprising, when we consider the long and rich history of novel-writing that can be seen in the other two main languages we associate with the country. But we must always bear in mind that novel-writing is not a given in every community that has a literature, and that most languages of the world do not even enjoy any version of what we might properly describe as a literature. In An Introduction to Gaelic Fiction (2011), I discussed this situation at length, and noted that most of what we would think of as the body of Gaelic literature consisted of poetry until the early part of this century.1 While poetry has remained important into the current century, there has been a marked change in the attention given to other forms, including both drama2 and the novel, as well as a substantial increase in the production of these kinds of texts. In this chapter, I will explain the changes that have taken place that now make a discussion of the Gaelic novel viable, note some of the most salient features of the various surges in novel-writing activity, discuss the major figures whose work has set the standard for the form, and then finish by taking a look at the emergence of some new influences and areas of interest. Before beginning, it is worth noting that I am writing exclusively about novels written for adults. Since the 1960s, there have been short novels appearing that were aimed at children and teenagers. These books deserve their own critical attention, but they will not be discussed here as they have tended to be written for specific purposes and they are often directed towards educational goals. If this were a longer chapter, it would be worthwhile including them, and in any case they are overdue a thorough analysis in their own right. It is worth acknowledging that several of the recent books produced for adults have also been written at least partly with language education as a goal. the first hundred years of the gaelic novel 207 The present burgeoning in novel-writing and criticism is only the latest in a series of ‘waves’ in the development of the form. While it might be possible to point to some activity in the nineteenth century if we were trying to track down the first Gaelic novels, we can apply two criteria of convenience in our effort to date the emergence of the novel: namely, completion and appearance under their own cover. These criteria are by no means absolute, but they allow us to pinpoint a useful starting point for our survey: that is, a period between 1908 and 1923 when three novels and one novella appeared. Iain MacCormaic, a prolific writer of short stories, brought out his story Gun D’Thug I Spéis Do ’n Àrmuinn in 1908, described in its own publicity as ‘a novelette’. This was followed four years later by the same author’s Dùn-Aluinn: no an t-Oighre ’na Dhìobarach, representing the first ‘full-sized’ novel. The following year, MacCormaic’s close contemporary and literary rival Aonghas MacDhonnchaidh published his An t-Ogha Mór: no am Fear-Sgeòil air Uilinn. This short flurry of activity was capped a decade later by Seumas MacLeòid’s Cailin Sgiathanach: no Faodalach na h-Abaid. (Hereafter, the three novels will be referred to by their main titles only, for the sake of conciseness.) There then followed a hiatus of almost fifty years before sporadic production resumed during the 1970s, only to fade away again in the 1980s. A third period of productivity flared into life in the 1990s. This irregular and unpredictable activity relied on the efforts of certain energetic individuals, including MacCormaic, MacDhonnchaidh, their contemporary Ruaraidh Erskine of Mar, and, in the second half of the twentieth century, most crucially the editor, academic and publisher Derick Thomson. At the beginning of the current century, Thomson’s retirement, and the consequent winding down of both his magazine Gairm and publishing house became the catalysts for a major effort to establish fiction writing on a steady and continuing footing. This took various forms, including fund-raising, awareness-raising, and the establishment of publishing...