Biography

Angus John MacDonald was born the 18th of February 1900 at Knockline, North Uist. His family had lived in the area for seven generations, according to a biography by Professor Donald Ferguson in the book The Hebridean Connection (1984), a collection of Angus John's folklore published in Nova Scotia. His father was Iain mac Eòghainn 'ic Iain, a schoolmaster and storyteller in North Uist and member of a group named Iantruig nam Boid, a storytelling society founded in the early 17th century. Angus John had a great interest in history, songs, and folklore from a young age, and he was also known to have a great memory. He joined the storytellers' society in 1916.

Until the summer of 1919, he was working with his father building and repairing roads in Uist. Later, he served as a police officer in Kilmarnock until 1926, but took every opportunity to go home to learn more about his culture and heritage. After his father's death, Angus John worked for the Crown Service in Ceylon but was struck by malaria and was sent to Australia to recover. He was advised by the doctors to not return to Ceylon for his health, and so he stayed in Australia. He married an Irish woman, Catriona, and settled in Sydney, where he continued to collect oral traditions from other immigrants in the town, from North Uist and elsewhere.

In 1930 Angus John became secretary of the Gaelic Society of New South Wales. Around 1932, he met and worked with Clement Hosking, a famous Australian singer and teacher who had an interest in Gaelic. Angus John helped him learn the language. Hosking wrote a book, Fine Song for Singing, in 1951, about a trip he took to Uist to collect songs. He wrote another book, Three Hebridean Songs, in 1953.

Angus John collaborated with other musicians such as Jean Gillespie London, who took responsibility for the music in the book From the Farthest Hebrides (1978), edited by Professor Donald Ferguson and published in Canada in 1978. Angus John was the Gaelic editor of this book, and many of his own songs feature in it. He also supported Donald Ferguson's work with North American, New Zealand and Australian Gaelic immigrant songs, publishing Fad air Falbh às Innse Gall (Canada, 1977).

Catriona died in 1942, and although Angus John was left on his own to raise two children, aged five and eight, he continued collecting songs and stories, teaching Gaelic, and helping others interested in the language. In 1958, he returned to North Uist on a final visit. He died in Sydney on the 23rd of November 1975 while still working on writing down oral traditions from memory. A biography, The Last Shenachie, by John Douglas Pringle, was published in Sydney in 1976.

There is a recording of Angus singing Banais Chiostal Odhar for the BBC, which came with the following information: "This song, of which there are many variations indeed, is actually a bagpipe composition. And the variation I'm giving here is called, in North Uist at any rate, Tionndadh Dhòmhnaill 'ac Ruaraidh. Mac Ruaraidh was a very colourful personality and in his day a very great piper. He was born in North Uist in the year 1803."