Obituary: John MacInnes, globally-respected Gaelic scholar

Died: May 10, 2019

DR John MacIness, who has died aged 89, was one of the world’s leading experts on the Gaelic language, tradition and culture. Known in his mother tongue as Iain MacAonghuis, he spent his life studying and promoting Gaelic, its history, folklore, traditional music and spoken word. He played a major part in keeping the language alive at a time when it was danger of dying out and his legacy, passed on to this students, will hopefully ensure that Gaelic remains alive and well within Scottish culture.

Dr MacInnes was often described as “the last of the native scholars.” But his students are determined to carry on his work and keep Gaelic thriving. With a mischievous twinkle in his eye, Dr MacInnes, originally from Uig on Lewis, liked to call himself an “Abo” – an aboriginal, a man of the land the way aborigines see themselves in Australia.

In the Gaelic world, Dr MacInnes was not only a scholar and ethnographer but a regular broadcaster and activist on behalf of the language, often appearing on BBC Radio’s nan Gàidheal programme. His 2006 book Dùtchas nan Gàidheal (Traditions of the Gael): Selected Essays of John MacInnes, edited by Michael Newton, won a Saltire Literary Award from the Saltire Society as Scottish Research Book of the Year. The collection covers varying aspects of life, history, literature and oral tradition in the Scottish Highlands, from the clan sagas, through the Clearances and dipping into the supernatural.

Dr Newton, a southern Californian who got a PhD in Celtic Studies at Edinburgh, is a co-founder and board member of Urras Gàidhlig nan Stàitean Aonaichte (the Scottish Gaelic Foundation of the United States). He describes Dr MacInnes as m’ oide gaolach (my beloved foster-father/mentor). “Here was a scholar who not only had a unique breadth and depth of knowledge about Scottish Gaeldom, but could also frame it within the larger issues of the world, such as imperialism and social justice,” according to Dr Newton. “Very few scholars previously had the guts or clarity of vision to describe the way that the dominant anglophone world treated Gaeldom as ‘ethnocide.’”

In 2014, the Journal of the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh, where Dr MacInnes spent his career, produced an entire volume dedicated to him and edited by Virginia Blankenhorn, also a California-born Gaelic expert, who noted that “MacInnes derived his scholarly authority not from years of formal study of the Celtic languages and of Gaelic literature, but from what he had learned before he entered university at all.” In 2015, he received the Services to Gaelic Award from the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame, where he was described as “the foremost living authority on the oral traditions of Scottish Gaeldom.”

“He really was the oracle. His loss to our scholarly community is incalculable,” said Dr Neill Martin, current head of department at what is now known as the School of Celtic and Scottish Studies. “We will sorely miss his genial presence, dazzling conversation and mischievous sense of humour – qualities for which he was also justly famed.”

Iain MacAonghuis, as he was known then, was born in the parish of Uig to Church of Scotland minister Ruaridh MacInnes and his wife Morag, both Gaelic speakers. When he was eight, the family moved to Raasay and he later boarded at Portree Secondary School on Skye where he gained Highers in Latin, Greek, English and Art.

He was, however, upset to find that the entire school curriculum was in English. He only had a chance to keep up his Gaelic during visits to family on Skye. He once observed that “education brought a great deal more destruction upon the Gaelic language than the Clearances ever did”. He went to Edinburgh University from 1948 to 1955, studying English language, literature and philosophy before doing his national service in Cyprus with the Intelligence Corps as part of the Gordon Highlanders.

For more half a century, he collected hundreds of Gaelic songs, music, folk tales and historical legends, all now preserved in the School of Scottish Studies archives. In 1958, he started a Junior Research Fellowship in 1958 at that School, where he would stay for his entire career until he retired in 1993.

Professor Rob Ó Maolalaigh, vice principal and head of the College of Arts at the University of Glasgow, said: “John carried his formidable traditional and formal learning very lightly. He was a gifted teacher and storyteller who gave generously of his time and knowledge.” Professor Gary West of the University of Edinburgh, a former student of Dr MacInnes, added: “Even as a teenager, I could tell we were in the presence of an intellectual giant.”

In a tribute, Dr Michael Newton wrote: “Iain came from a long line of tradition bearers and was conscious of the marginalisation of Gaelic from an early age, as is implicit in many anecdotes he relates about his childhood and schooling. Unlike so many others, he did not absorb an inferiority complex about the Gaelic language or culture, although he clearly felt overwhelmed and disheartened at times by the steep decline of Gaeldom … the anglo-centric forces working against it. He was an unabashed Scottish nationalist who anticipated the day when Scotland could regain its sovereignty for the good of its people."

Dr MacInnes is survived by his wife Wendy, son Ruairi, daughter Catriona and grand-children Sinead and Roddy.

PHIL DAVISON