Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair (c.1698-c.1770)
Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair (also known as Alexander MacDonald) is the unique example of a Jacobite poet and song collector who was active in Glasgow, a largely anti-Jacobite city. Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair was involved in Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s campaign of 1745, which took the Jacobites from Glenfinnan to the final battle at Culloden. Not only did Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair act as the Bonny Prince’s Gaelic tutor, but he also helped compile The Lockhart Papers – which included first-hand accounts of the uprising.
These papers also suggest Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair’s involvement in the Battle of Sherrifmuir, which would place him as an active Jacobite in the ’15 as well as the ’45. Given his renown as a Jacobite Gaelic poet, it is curious to note that in the thirty years between these uprisings the poet worked as a schoolmaster for the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (then funded by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland).
While there is no record of his matriculation, the poet is said to have attended Glasgow University, where his father graduated MA in 1674. Ronald Black in 2009 suggested that both ‘Oran a’ Gheamhraidh’ and ‘Allt an t-Siùcair’ were set to airs that Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair would likely have heard playing in the chimes of the Tolbooth Steeple at Glasgow Cross.
His most important text was Aiseirigh na Seann Chànain Albannaich (The Resurrection of the Ancient Scottish Tongue; 1751), which promoted Gaelic as an intrinsic aspect of Scottishness. Interestingly, Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair included a Gaelic version of James Thomson’s The Seasons (1726-30), representing a cultural reclamation of sorts. Over 6000 lines in verse have been attributed to the poet.