Biography

Dugald Buchanan was the headmaster of Kinloch Rannoch school, a catechist, a preacher, a translator, and a bard. He was born in Ardoch, Strathyre, in 1716. His mother died when he was young, and his father remarried less than a year later. Buchanan was married to Margaret Brisbane, daughter of the bailiff of the Earl of Loudon, and they had eight children. He left a written account of the first 34 years of his life which can be read in the book Buchanan, The Sacred Bard of the Scottish Highlands.

Only eight of Buchanan's poems are known to have survived today, and they were first published in 1767 when he was directing the first Gaelic translation of the New Testament.

As John MacDonald said on a BBC Gaelic programme, 3 December 1954:

"He had many ups and downs before his conscience was at ease. When he would write, he would at times be consumed by the wonder of it all that he couldn't write a thing, and, at other times, his tears would be flowing."

As the scholar Kenneth MacDonald said about Buchanan on the programme Molam E, on BBC Radio nan Gàidheal on the 18th of February 2003:

"Dugald had true bardic talent, but in addition to that, he had an English education, and that left a clear mark on his poems. He gained knowledge of the work of some pious English bards, particularly Isaac Watts and Edward Young in England, and Robert Blair in Scotland. From them he took subjects and ideas and, sometimes, words, but it must not be thought that he was merely a translator. In fluent Gaelic, he put his own stamp on every subject he handled and built on the ideas he got from the people of the Gàidhealtachd."

In Gairm, Issue 148, Professor Donald Meek wrote:

"The real strength of Buchanan as a bard, I think, lies in how he uses his skills. When it comes to putting words together, Buchanan measures the size, importance, and sound of every word, like a craftsman building a house with stones. He does not use more words than necessary, even the syllables are important to the message of his poems. His imagery is clear, and beautifully written. If the house is built on someone else's foundation, that does not mean the house is not polished, skilled, and Gàidhealach."

The respect people had for Buchanan in his day is clear from John MacDonald's account of what happened when Buchanan died in 1768 at the age of 52:

"When they heard the news of the death, a crowd from Callander and Strathyre rushed to Kinloch Rannoch where his body was kept, to bring it home to the cemetery of his forefathers. That was not as easy as they expected. The people of Rannoch were very fond of him. His lifestyle and teaching brought such a reformation of morals and way of life that they resolved he should be buried among them in Rannoch. The two groups were about to come to blows. The case looked grim, with the people of Callander determined to have the bard's body, and the people of Rannoch refusing. Eventually, after the men of Rannoch reflected on the calmness and kindness of the honoured deceased who had been their leader for fifteen years, they came to an agreement. They let the men of Callander take the gentle man's body with them."

Dugald Buchanan was buried in the Chapel of Clan Buchanan in a place called Lèanaidh Beag, on the edge of Callander. It is close to the river, about a hundred yards from where the waters of the River Leny meet Eas a' Ghobhainn waterfall. Around 1925, the Callander Gaelic Society, under the leadership of their president John MacDonald, raised money to repair the walls of the chapel and to place a memorial stone above the bard's grave. It was designed by the famous carver Pittendrigh MacGillivray and had this verse from Buchanan's Laoidh na h-Ùrnaigh carved into it:

An fhuil a dhìol do cheartas teann
'S a dhòirteadh air a' chrann gu làr;
'S ann aist' tha m' earbsa, O mo Rìgh,
Nach dìt thu m' anam air a sgath.

List of compositions

Fulangas Chrìosd