Page 51 - Art First: Helen MacAlister: At the Foot o’ Yon Excellin’ Brae
P. 51
The Lido, Campbeltown bay The works pull on a passage in which Hugh Miller implied,
1
oil on linen, 2011, 123 x 175cm although not always the case however, that the foreshores
were crown land and therefore the only land available for
congregation in times of ‘disruption’. It is the allusion of an
un-held place that is of interest here.
‘The question of the ownership of the land in
the Highlands is central to the cultural integrity of Scotland
in this new century. Indeed, the long record of land-centred
struggle in the Highlands may be said to have contributed –
in conditions of unassailable imperialist unionist hegemony
– a struggle, albeit by proxy, for precisely that cultural (&
political) integrity.’ 2
The route is discursive: from buidhe meaning
yellow to ‘bay’. ‘Bay, creek’ is òb which led to an t-Òban.
Therefore to be tight it should have been Oban or in fact
Leverburgh, an t-Òb, rather than Campbeltown used.
Interestingly and with similar process, John
MacInnes has found that albeit in a different context (one
evoking ripening corn) ‘Buidheachas’ is gratitude; ‘buidhe’
is yellow. These words are unrelated and are not normally
linked in the mind of a native speaker of Gaelic.’ 3
The convolutions are endless, for example is
buidhe dhut is equivalent to ‘lucky for you’.
The space and the colour determined the
results.
1 Reference; The Cruise of the Betsey – Hugh Miller, p459
2 Highland Resistance – Iain Fraser Grigor, p10
3 Dùthchas Nan Gàidheal: Selected Essays of John MacInnes, p407
Painting = © The Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical
Monuments of Scotland
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