According to his song
Smeòrach Chlann Dòmhnaill ("The
Song Thrush of
Clan Donald"), Iain Mac Fhearchair, alias John MacCodrum, was born near
Cladh Chomhgain, which is, according to Bill Lawson, "a disused graveyard in which were the ruins of a little chapel, dedicated to St
Comgan - one of many church dedications in the immediate neighbourhood. In MacCodrum's time, it would have been part of the township of
Hoghagearraidh." The future
Bard was raised on the nearby farm of
Aird an Runair. According to
John Lorne Campbell, Iain, "was in the technical sense of the term, illiterate." In a footnote, however, Campbell explains, "Which is to say that he never learned English. In MacCodrum's day little education was available for the Highlanders, and none at all in their own language." During the era, the people of Hoghagearaidh paid the
Chief of
Clan MacDonald of Sleat a rental fee called "The Seal Dues", in return for the right to kill the seals on the nearby rock of Causamul. The rock remains, according to Bill Lawson, "one of the main breeding areas for the
Atlantic seal." The MacCodrums of Hoghagearaidh, however, never participated in the killing of seals. This was because, according to legend, an ancestor of theirs had stolen the skin of a
selkie while she was ashore in human form and forced her to marry him. As told in a local folk song, however, one of the couple's children later returned the seal skin to her mother, who put it on, abandoned her human family, and returned to the sea. For this reason, the MacCodrum descendants of the couple were referred to in
Scottish Gaelic as,
Clann righ fo gheasan, ("King's children under a spell") and never harmed seals, whom they believed to be their relatives. Although Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat had promised Prince
Charles Edward Stuart that he would do raise the Clan if the Prince arrived from
France, the Chief and his Clansmen took no part in the
Jacobite Uprising of 1745. The Chief's reason for going back on his word was that the French troops that had also been promised had failed to arrive with the Prince. Despite the Clan's neutrality, all the lands of MacDonald of Sleat were included in the savage repression of Highland dress, language, and culture that followed the defeat of the uprising at the
Battle of Culloden in 1746. John MacCodrum's satirical poem,
Oran an Aghaidh an Eididh Ghallda ("A Song Against the Lowland Garb"), "shows clearly where his own sympathies lay." In 1760,
James Macpherson, who was collecting stories from the
Fenian Cycle throughout the Scottish
Highlands and Islands, visited
North Uist. During Macpherson's visit, MacCodrum made, according to John Lorne Campbell, "a brief appearance in the Ossianic controversy which is not without its humorous side." When Macpherson met MacCodrum, he asked the Bard,
"A bheil dad agaibh air an Fheinne?" Macpherson believed himself to be asking, "Do you know anything of the
Fianna?" He had actually said, however, "Do the Fianna owe you anything?" In reply, MacCodrum quipped,
"Cha n-eil agus ge do bhiodh cha ruiginn a leas iarraidh a nis", "No, and if they did it would be useless to ask for it now." According to Campbell, this, "dialogue... illustrates at once Macpherson's imperfect Gaelic and MacCodrum's quickness of reply." In October 1763, as the controversy over the authenticity of Macpherson's
epic poem Ossian, which he alleged was a translation from
Scottish Gaelic, was heating up, Sir James MacDonald of Sleat wrote a letter to Doctor
Hugh Blair in
Edinburgh which sheds light on MacCodrum's role as a
seanchaidh. According to The MacDonald of Sleat, "The few bards that are left amongst us, repeat only detached portions of these poems. I have often heard and understood them, particularly from one man called John MacCodrum, who lives on my estate in
North Uist. I have heard him repeat, for hours together, poems which seems to me to be the same with Macpherson's translation." Campbell writes, however, "None of MacCodrum's Ossianic verses have survived him. One of MacCodrum's closest friends was the famous Gaelic poet
Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, who was related to the Chief of the
Clanranald branch of
Clan Donald. According to John Lorne Campbell, MacCodrum's surviving poems in Gaelic "show considerable signs" of the Clanranald Bard's "influence." Despite their friendship, however, Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair did not hesitate to include two of MacCodrum's poems,
Òran air Sean aois ("A Song on Old Age") and ''Comh-radh, Mar go b' ann eider caraid agus namhaid an Uisgebheatha
("A Dialogue between a Friend and a Foe of Whisky"), in his groundbreaking 1751 poetry collection Ais-Eiridh na Sean Chánoin Albannaich'' and to pass them off as his own work. MacCodrum also composed poetry criticizing both the
Scottish clan chiefs and the
Anglo-Scottish landlords of the
Highlands and Islands for the often brutal
mass evictions of the Scottish Gaels that followed the
Battle of Culloden and on mundane topics such as old age and
whisky. Among MacCodrum's most popular anti-landlord poems mocks Aonghus MacDhòmhnaill, the post-Culloden
tacksman of
Griminish. It is believed to date from between 1769 and 1773, when overwhelming numbers of Sir Alexander MacDonald's tenants on the isles of
North Uist and
Skye were reacting to his
rackrenting and other harsh treatments by immigrating to the area around the
Cape Fear River in
North Carolina. The song is known in the oral tradition of
North Uist as
Òran Fir Ghriminis ("A Song on the Tacksman of Griminish"). The song is equally popular among speakers of
Canadian Gaelic in
Nova Scotia, where it is known under the differing title,
Òran Aimereaga ("The Song of America"). ==Death and burial==