Named by nature: exploring the Gaelic roots of Scotland's landscapes and wildlife, with Roddy Maclean
Join us as we chat with Roddy Maclean, a celebrated Gaelic journalist and educator. Together, we uncover the profound ties between the Gaelic language and Scotland's natural world.
Roddy shares his unique path from lowland Scotland to Tasmania and back again, where his roots in Applecross ignited a lifelong passion for indigenous languages and their connection to the land and the sea.
He demonstrates how Gaelic helps us understand and protect Scotland's nature, and explains why keeping Gaelic alive matters for both our culture and our understanding of Scotland's landscapes today.
Image of Applecross Bay ©Visit Scotland/Kenny Lam
More Information:
Roddy Maclean - Scotland's Nature blog
Make Space For Nature (Gaelic)
A’ tighinn gu nàdarra: a’ rùrach fhreumhan Gàidhlig ann an cruthan-tìre is fiadh-bheatha na h-Alba, còmhla ri Ruairidh MacIlleathain
Thig nar cuideachd ’s sinn a’ bruidhinn ri Ruairidh MacIlleathain, a tha na fhear-naidheachd ’s fhear-teagaisg cliùiteach. Bidh sinn a’ meòrachadh air na dlùth-cheanglaichean eadar a’ Ghàidhlig ’s saoghal nàdarra na h-Alba.
Bidh Ruairidh ag innse dhuinn mun t-slighe shònraichte aige bhon Ghalldachd gu Tasmania agus air ais, far an do las a fhreuman ris a’ Chòmraich an dealas aige fad a bheatha airson chànanan dùthchasach ’s ceanglaichean cànanach ris an tìr ’s a’ mhuir.
Bidh e a’ cur an cèill mar a bhios a’ Ghàidhlig gar cuideachadh gus nàdar na h-Alba a thuigsinn agus a dhìon, agus bidh e a’ mìneachadh carson a tha e cudromach a’ Ghàidhlig a chumail beò an dà chuid air math ar cultair ’s ar tuigse air cruthan-tìre na h-Alba san latha an-diugh.
Bàgh na Comraich ©Visit Scotland/Kenny Lam
Barrachd fiosrachaidh:
Roddy Maclean Ruairidh MacIlleathain - blogaichean Scotland's Nature
Transcript:
Kirstin:
Welcome to Make Space for Nature, the NatureScot podcast celebrating Scotland's remarkable wildlife and landscapes. I'm Kirstin Guthrie, and in each episode we're joined by inspiring guests who share their expertise and passion for the natural world. Today's special episode features our Gaelic Officer Robyn Ireland and co-host Tim Hancox in conversation with Roddy Maclean, an award winning Gaelic journalist, broadcaster and educator. Roddy’s renowned for his contributions to the Gaelic language and culture, particularly through environmental education courses that explore the connections between Gaelic and nature. Join us as we uncover these hidden connections and discover how understanding them can enrich our own relationship with the natural world.
Robyn:
Fàilte oirbh, a Ruairidh, welcome to the podcast, and thank you very much for joining us today.
Ruairidh:
Mòran taing.
Robyn:
Our listeners will be familiar with the important work that you've done over the years as a journalist, as a broadcaster, an educator, promoting Gaelic and its rich heritage, particularly those intrinsic links with our nature, people and places. Before we get into that though, can you tell us a bit about your background, because you haven't always lived in Scotland.
Ruairidh:
Well, that's true. I grew up in Scotland but in the lowland part of Scotland but Gaelic was in my family and Applecross was always my kind of home country and still is today. And so we would spend all our summers there. And that's when I was really exposed to Gaelic. But when I was 14, we went to live in Australia in the island state of Tasmania. And so I was away from the Gaelic world for a very long time, but returned in 1990 with my Australian wife and two very young children. With the intent and the hope that they would be brought up bilingually and would speak Gaelic, which has been in my family from, well, as far back as we know. So that's been successful in the sense that both the children are fluent. And in fact, my son, Calum, is a broadcaster and a great advocate of the language. Yeah, so we lived in England for a while as well. And I think that when you've been in other places, they impinge upon your view of your own country as well. So I think that Aboriginal Australia, for example, had a big influence on how I viewed Gaelic Scotland.
Tim:
Brilliant. We've actually, we've had your son on the podcast before as well, so we'll slowly but surely work our way through the whole family. Roddy, so it is unusual to have someone who works in Gaelic and has got such a strong connection considering how much time you spent outside of Scotland. Could you tell us a bit more about how you carried on to learn Gaelic while in Australia and how you've kept that connection so strong considering you've not always been in one place.
Ruairidh:
Yeah, and it's actually a lot easier today with all of the internet connections and so on to learn a language away from its homeland, if you like. So it wasn't very easy in Tasmania and very few Australians really have an interest in minority languages, if I'm being honest. The exception being the Aboriginal people who do, because of their own connections. So I was always drawn to the links between indigenous languages and their land. And I saw that very much in Australia. And I just felt we had something special in Scotland that I wanted to explore. I did a degree in the University of Tasmania in ecology. I was pretty familiar with the native plants and so on, but ‘the something that was missing’, was the indigenous narrative that goes with those things, which we do have here in Scotland. So that was what kind of drew me back in a personal sense, was to explore some of these things, to become fluent in the language to start with, because I wasn't when I was a child. And enjoy exploring those links between Gaelic and nature, which I still enjoy very much today.
Robyn:
Seachdain na Gàidhlig, or World Gaelic Week, it's an annual celebration of the language and its culture. And this year its focus is on that theme of building connections. And as you've touched on, Gaelic has strong connections with our natural world. It's abundant in unique animal and plant names, place names that connect our nature, folklore, songs, tradition, literature. Can you expand a bit on how you were first drawn to those connections with our natural world, Ruairidh, and how you went on to grow your knowledge of that area?
Ruairidh:
It was really in Applecross as a child. That was my real sort of spiritual home. And in those days it was quite hard to believe for a lot of people today, probably, but Gaelic was very very strong in Applecross when I was a child. Most of the old people spoke it and a lot of the not so old people as well. And so you would hear being used all the time. And I remember with my father, who was a native speaker of Applecross Gaelic, that he didn't use Gaelic in the home with me because of the sort of propaganda that circulated around the language that it held you back and all this sort of stuff, but he did use the language when we were out fishing in boats, and the fishing was fantastic in those days. I have to say we saw a tremendous diversity of marine fish, and I enjoyed that contact and that contact with learning the names. I actually didn't know the English names for some of them. You know the ‘bodach-ruadh’ was the little codlings you would catch and the ‘fliùgh’was the lythe and all this sort of stuff. That was something that was, I could see, feel very strongly there was that link to the sort of fauna, if you like. And I could see that in time, the same thing would be true of the flora, the bog plants, the forest plants and so on. And that took a lot longer, but eventually when I came to live in Scotland, I was able to spend some time exploring those links right across the realm of nature, to be honest.
Tim:
That's fantastic and I'm going to put you on the spot now and ask for some of possibly your favourite or just examples of any species names that highlight those evocative links that you've come across.
Ruairidh:
Some of them are observational and one I quite like is actually a bird and it's called the ‘gobhar-adhair’ and that's in Applecross Gaelic, but in quite a few other places too. ‘Gobhar-adhair’ which means the ‘goat of the sky’. And the reason for that is when it flies above you, you hear it going “meh meh meh”. And you may know what I'm talking about. Any thoughts?
Tim:
That is brilliant.
Ruairidh:
It's in fact the Snipe, so that's one wee thing. A very kind of rare bird you'll see right on the high tops is called ‘amadan-mòintich’, it means the ‘fool of the hill’. And that's the - I can't even think of its English name now, the dotterel, the dotterel is the ‘amadan-mòintich’, and it's called that because the male bird looks after the eggs, which is pretty good, and it will try and attract anybody who's in the vicinity away from the nest by looking, making it look like it's injured. So it walks in this very strange manner with the wing, one of the wings out. So it does look rather foolish. There are things like that. Some of the names of the plants I really like. We've got plants named after important figures in folklore and history. For example ‘crios Cú Chulainn’, which is the ‘belt of Cú Chulainn’, who was a great pan-Gaelic warrior from Ireland and Scotland. His plant is the meadowsweet, and it's called the belt of Cú Chulainn, crios Cú Chulainn, and it's to do with the fact that Cú Chulainn was a man whose temper was quite famous and he was able to, in one occasion, prevent himself dying, perhaps from apoplexy, by getting into a bath made from the meadowsweet, which had this soothing effect on him. And we still call that ‘crios Cú Chulainn’ today. So there are links to the environment with some of the things like the ‘nathair-challtainn’ which means the snake of the hazel, nathair-challtainn, and that's the Gaelic for the slow worm. It's a little bit like a snake and connected to the hazels. And the hazels, of course, have a slightly magic side to them as well. So lots of connections like that and maybe one other I'll mention is ‘lus Chaluim Chille’, which is ‘St. Columbus plant’, and in English it's connected to St. John. It's the St. John's wort, but in Gaelic is connected to the patron saint, if you like, of the Gales, who was St. Columba, Calum Cille.
Tim:
That's brilliant. And you clearly are very passionate about the connections with place names and how accurately they portray the place itself and add that connection to the place, through the language.
Ruairidh:
Yeah, place names are really important. I think sometimes maybe people who don't belong to a language that's connected closely to the land, maybe don't realise just how important the place names can be. It can be a fairly academic exercise, but actually, when you speak the language that's out there in the environment around you, it brings in a very close connection to the land and to the history of that land as well. Yeah they are part of the whole sort of knowledge of the land, if you like, place names fit into that brilliantly. And they do tell us a whole lot and that's really something very special. Some parts of the Highlands, the names, it's 99 percent Gaelic names in the landscape so unless you engage with the language in some way or other then that's pretty opaque to you. So I do encourage everybody who lives in the Highlands, whether they're from another country or from the country itself, learn some Gaelic, engage with the language and your maps will mean much more. You'll understand them and you'll have a feeling of connectedness, if you like, to the landscape around you.
Tim:
That's fantastic. From my own background in South Africa, I can recognise that while I'm not a first language Afrikaans speaker it's very similar with some of the place names where they've been named after events as a younger language. We've got a place, I'm going to get this slightly wrong, but I'm going to do my best, Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein which is effectively a place where two buffaloes were killed with one bullet or something, which is folklore, which is how they've named that place, but similar kinds of connection with events or sightings in nature naming some of the places. Albeit some of it are more gory reasons for battles and things but the natural ones are, prettier, shall we say?
Ruairidh:
Yeah that's a great example. I'd love to see that written on the map. But yeah it's absolutely that's the sort of thing that maybe most of our names aren't quite as long as that, but yeah, there are one or two quite long names. Shieling names and so on, the places that people used to be involved in transhumance. There's one, I think it was, it's called Allt Àirigh a’ Ghiubhais and once you get one bit of the landscape named then you name other things from the landscape and you can end up with a big phrase, a whole series of words, but they actually mean something to somebody because once you know where one place is, you know that the place is named from it must be next to it. I mean in Applecross, I always get a bit of a buzz from some of the names, we have, for example, a burn called the Allt Breugach, An t-Allt Breugach, which means ‘the lying burn’ or the, you might say, ‘the deceitful burn’. And the reason for that is that it flows over limestone, which is very unusual because there's not much limestone there, but because of that it disappears underground and then reappears again so it's a deceitful burn. It's hiding itself away some of the time and that's still its name today.
Robyn:
That's a brilliant example. Thank you, Ruairidh. You've spent a large part of your career shining a light on this Gaelic heritage and sharing a knowledge of Scotland's nature that at one point would have been familiar knowledge within some communities. And I just wonder how this understanding of our natural world, how do you feel that can help us today as we face the joint climate and nature crises?
Ruairidh:
It's an interesting question. If I'm being really honest and brutally honest, I don't think necessarily that indigenous languages and cultures can, in a way, point a way forward from a situation which they probably never foresaw. I mean very few of us foresaw where we would be today with global warming and so on, and what I think they do is that they allow you to feel more linked to the land than you might otherwise and to the environment, the marine environment as well, which is very important here. In doing that, I think they bring you to a situation where you can actually feel it quite personal when you, the environment isn't being looked after, or maybe even being destroyed. It's not just something that we can get around this in another way. Actually, you feel it coming into yourself. This is part of me that's being destroyed here, surely goodness, we must do something about it. So that's, I think, is where the strength lies. Obviously in any indigenous culture you have information that comes through from the past that people who've moved into the environment in more recent times may not realise so that can add to our understanding of where the environment was and where it might be again. And so things like rewilding, I think Gaelic has an important role to play in rewilding because we can look at what the place names, for example, are saying, or what maybe the stories are telling us about particular places and interpret that in terms of how we might go forward. So for example, we could find lots of places with tree names and indications of past tree cover where there may not be tree cover today. And I know NatureScot's been involved with a fantastic project called Na Coilltean Caillte, the Lost Woodlands of Scotland, and looking at those names to help us interpret how we might move forward in terms of planting of trees, protection of woodland and that sort of thing.
Tim:
And can you recommend any ways that people might be able to go about learning more about these cultural connections, in particular in Scotland or anywhere for people to find those connections?
Ruairidh:
I wish there were more resources available for that, to be honest with you. I ran a course on Skye for Gaelic speakers for many years before COVID and there was a week or a fortnight every summer and we would look at the Gaelic view of the environment. And I hope from that, that some of the people that did the course, younger people, I know some have gone on to teach others that sort of knowledge. There are bits and pieces dotted around and I know people have been saying to me, “what about a book, Ruairidh?”. I haven't gone that far to do that, but I think we do need more resources. I would say to anybody who's not a Gaelic speaker, the first step for them really ought to be learning the language, at least learning some of it. Learn how to pronounce the names, learn how to interpret the maps. That would be a start for them. From somebody coming from the Gaelic perspective, who already has the language, I would say take more of an interest in the links between the language and nature and the environment, but I feel we're at the start of a long story in this regard. We've had a situation where people were very closely tied to the environment and then we got the 1872 Education Act which threw Gaelic out of education in Scotland and so we started to make this big disconnect between the educational processes and our language and we need to try and get it back in more and more in the years ahead so I see lots of opportunities. I've done sessions in schools with teachers, for example, and I've said, just get the maps out and and teach the children these things, but they very often don't feel that they have the knowledge themselves to pass on so I would like to see more in-service training for teachers in this sort of knowledge and more opportunities for parents as well to when, before their children grow too old to connect with this sort of knowledge so they can go out and take their children and say, gosh, these trees are called this and that and this is the story connected to the tree and inspire them because it's by inspiring this next young generation that I think we'll get to a better future in the years ahead when I'm dead and gone.
Robyn:
Ruairidh, we should also say that you write a fantastic monthly blog for NatureScot’s ‘Scotland's Nature’ blog, exploring many of these links, both in English and in Gaelic, and I think that there's a wealth of knowledge within those blogs that you've written. We encourage folk, we encourage listeners to spend time in nature throughout the year and I'm just wondering, how do you like to spend time outdoors, Ruairidh?
Ruairidh:
Yeah, I used to be a Nordic skier and I haven't totally given it up. That was something, maybe I'll get back to eventually but that was a lovely way to spend winter time and of course a lot of the vegetation and so on disappears at that time of year, but it's the feeling of being out in nature and that wildness and cleanliness of the snow. I've also done a lot of sailing so I don't have a boat anymore but I've spent a lot of time, wonderful times, out in the sea in the West Highlands among the basking sharks and dolphins and and lots of other things, even a sunfish on one occasion, and really enjoyed nature in that regard. But I suppose that the main thing is walking, and it's walking very often in trackless country, enjoying maybe take a fishing rod, but maybe just go and just enjoy being out there and doing it at different times of the year as well because you can go do the same walk a month after you've done it previously and the vegetation is different, the different plants are in bloom so there's a kind of a different narrative in your own head as you go through these places. You can go back again and again to the same places and see them in different conditions and enjoy them. But I would say to anybody just make an effort to get out. If you're in the city, look for little corners where there's nature and if you're out in the wilder places enjoy wandering over some of our beautiful country and look after it.
Robyn:
Good encouragement for us at any time of year, I think. And looking to the future now, you've touched on the training and additional resources being needed to tap into this knowledge of our Gaelic way of looking at our natural world. What are you, do you have any other aspirations for the language and its culture going forward?
Ruairidh:
That more people speak it! And more people defend it, I suppose. When I grew up, although I was saying that Applecross was a great place for Gaelic in those days, at the same time, looking forward, you could have seen the writing on the wall because it wasn't in the schools. People, parents had stopped speaking it to their children to a large degree because they were told it held them back and all this sort of thing. We've lost a tremendous amount in my lifetime and I just hope that we can kind of turn that around a bit, and part of that is changing attitudes. I've been able to make some contribution to that. We've had things like BBC Alba, the television station, has done a lot as well, I think. Lots of people are working in various ways now to improve people's appreciation of Gaelic. The narrative Scotland-wide has definitely changed. There was so much negativity about Gaelic when I grew up. Terrible, it was really very negative. Even Gaelic speakers themselves thinking that their language had no future and shouldn't have a future because that's how they'd been brought up to, that's what they'd been brought up to believe and from hearing it all the time. We're turning that around. What we haven't turned around fully is the use of the language and the promotion and just general use of Gaelic in public situations in Scotland and I would hope that we can do that a bit more in the future, but I'm kind of positive. I think we have turned a lot around, maybe better than I'd expected in some regards. So while we've been losing things, we've also been gaining things as well. And I think that we ought to be positive. I was just listening to a report the other day about the Strathpuffer mountain bike competition. An amazing event in the middle of winter and it was four or five Gaelic speakers being interviewed for the radio, fluent speakers, young people that maybe a few years ago you might not have expected to be able to just find people at that time. There are good things happening and let's be positive and see if we can improve the situation for the next generation that grows up.
Tim:
Yeah, that's a fantastic message. While we've got you with us, is there an anecdote that you're able to share with us that reflects the Gaels’ way of aiming or knowing aspects of Scottish nature?
Ruairidh:
Yeah, I think that maybe one thing that would be interesting to say to people who are interested in nature is that just be careful when you're looking at maps and place names and so on that you're interpreting from the point of view of a people who tell stories because we have quite a folkloric landscape in places. The one that comes to mind is the word ‘torc’, and torc means a wild boar, and there still are wild boar of a sort in Scotland today, so they've been around a long time, but the genitive form is ‘tuirc’ so we've got places called Càrn an Tuirc, Loch an Tuirc, Meall an Tuirc and so on, naming the wild boar. And I guess, if you just looked at that without an understanding of the history of the Gaels and their culture, you might think, gosh, there must have been quite a lot of wild boar roaming the landscape in these past times for all of these names to be there. But actually, in many cases, I would think the vast majority of cases actually, these are connected to stories. For example, the great legend of Diarmuid agus Gràinne, which is one of these pan-Gaelic enormous tales that are told in both Ireland and Scotland and the Isle of Man as well. And so when you see Càrn an Tuirc and Loch an Tuirc, and particularly with the name ‘guilbean’ connected to it, Beinn Guilbein. There's about five or six or seven actually places in Scotland, I think, where you have a torc name and a guilbean name, which means the snouted mountain, Beinn Guilbein or Tòrr a’ Ghuilbein. You see them next to each other, that for me, there's the story that they would have told the story of Diarmuid and Gràinne in that locality in the past, so the torc names are actually folkloric. Bear that in mind, so when you see some of these names in the landscape, it just might be because people told stories, which they did all the time, and they located those stories in their particular locality.
Robyn:
Deagh chomhairle dhuinn, a Ruairidh. Wise advice for us. That's us come to the end of our discussion and it just leaves me to say ceud mìle taing airson a bhith còmhla rinn an-diugh agus ur n-ùine a chur seachad còmhla rinn a’ freagairt ar ceistean. Thank you so much for joining us today and spending time answering our questions. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Ruairidh:
’S e ur beatha gu dearbh. Mòran taing. Thank you.
Tim:
Yes, thank you so much. And just another brilliant reminder through the Gaelic language and the history of the language, how we've always been connected to nature in this modern times where we try to make sure that we find ways to make space for nature. That this is something people have always done and we need to continue to do. And thank you so much, Roddy.
Ruairidh:
My pleasure.
Kirstin:
Thanks for listening. If you're enjoying Make Space for Nature, please follow it on your podcast app and leave a review or rating. We'd also love you to tell more people about the series. For more ways to connect with and help protect Scotland's natural world, go to nature.scot.
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