The
1951 Edinburgh People's Festival Ceilidh brought
Scottish traditional music to a large public stage for the first time inside
Edinburgh's
Oddfellows Hall and continued long afterwards at
St. Columba's Church Hall in August 1951. The Scottish
Gàidhealtachd was represented at the Celidh by
Flora MacNeil, fellow
Barra native
Calum Johnston, and
John Burgess. The music was recorded live at the scene by American musicologist
Alan Lomax. Towards the end of the Ceilidh, master of ceremonies
Hamish Henderson announced that Calum Johnston would be performing Roderick Morison's
Òran do Mhac Leoid Dhun Bheagain ("A Song to MacLeod of Dunvegan"). The song had been composed as a rebuke to Ruaridh Òg MacLeod, 19th
Chief of
Clan MacLeod of
Dunvegan, for not fulfilling "the obligations of his office". Instead of patronizing the Bards and holding feasts at
Dunvegan Castle for his clansmen, the Chief had become an
absentee landlord in
London, who, "spent his money on foppish clothes". Instead, Morison urged the Chief to emulate his predecessors. Henderson said of the song, "it's one of the great songs in the Gaelic tongue, and the poetic concept in it is very great. The poet says that he left the castle, and he found on the slopes of the mountain the echo of past mirth, the echo of his own singing. And he then has a conversation with the echo about the fate of the House of MacLeod." ==See also==