INTO THE ARCHIVE: Importance of radical author's heritage and ancestry revealed in writings of Fionn Mac Colla
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Fionn Mac Colla might conjure up images of Celtic mythology, clan warfare, the Gàidhealtachd – maybe that was the intention of writer Thomas Douglas Macdonald when he adopted it as his pen name.
One of Scotland’s eminent writers of the 20th century, Mac Colla was a radical among his peers, holding strong political views coupled with a deeply rooted passion for Gaelic, the roots of which can be found in his family’s background in Inverness-shire and Ross-shire.
Born in Montrose, it is with his father, Donald Macdonald, where we find Mac Colla’s Highland heritage.In the Farraline Park school admission register Donald appears residing at Lotland Place in Inverness.
Fionn Mac Colla had been named after his paternal grandfather and, looking at the Inverness valuation rolls for 1885, a mason named Thomas Macdonald was the tenant and occupier of a property at 8 Lotland Place.
From census records we see Fionn Mac Colla’s grandfather, Thomas Macdonald, was born in Killearnan on the Black Isle around 1840. Thomas was brought up in the locality of Tore, his father a farmer of seven acres, was named Donald Macdonald.
Donald Macdonald, Fionn Mac Colla’s great-grandfather, was born around 1798 in the Parish of Urray yet appears in the Killearnan Register of the Poor in 1879. It is from this document we can see his birthplace is Faebait, which is found on the Aultgowrie road, heading west from Glen Ord Distillery.
This is where Donald resided when he married Fionn’s great-grandmother Elizabeth Macdonald, who lived nearby in Aultvaich.
The Clearances feature prominently in Mac Colla’s second novel And the Cock Crew.Donald and Elizabeth (Betty) Macdonald suffered the consequences of clearance when they were removed from Urray to the Black Isle between 1833 and 1841.
Throughout Fionn Mac Colla’s life as a writer he spoke vehemently of the hardships faced by the Gael, the importance of acknowledging it, and resurrecting the heritage before it is lost. This was not necessarily from lived in experience, albeit he did speak Gaelic, but from his ancestry as a Gael.
He did however spend much of the latter part of his life living among the Gaelic communities of the Hebrides. In the 1958-59 County of Inverness Valuation Rolls Thomas D. Macdonald is listed as the occupier of the Teacher’s House in Northbay, Barra. He and his family spent 20 years living in the Western Isles while he was a headmaster in Benbecula and Barra.
From Fionn Mac Colla’s writing we gain an understanding of the importance of heritage and ancestry to his identity; some of which is documented in the records held in the archive centre.
The Highland Archive Centre is open on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. To make a booking or to enquire about remote archive or family history research contact the archive centre in Inverness at archives@highlifehighland.com tel: 01349 781130 or see the website for further details, www.highlifehighland.com/archives-service/covid-19-archive-updates/
