Biography

Angus MacMillan (Aonghas Barrach) was born on 3 July 1874. He was a gifted storyteller with an expansive range of tales and anecdotes. He learnt many stories from his father, Calum Barrach, whose house would be full of people who would gather to listen to his stories.

Angus was born and raised in Griminish but had a paternal grandfather from Barra. After leaving school he worked on his father's croft and on a tack in Nunton. He then got a job in road building on the Isle of Rum for a year before being employed as a postman there.

After leaving Rum, he spent the following three years working on the West Highland railway line between Fort William and Mallaig. He was then called up to the Militia during the Boer War and travelled to Aldershot and Ireland for training but wasn't sent to Africa due to catching measles as he was due to depart. He was sent on two tours of Ireland and spent a total of 15 years in Militia service, before returning home.

Calum Iain Maclean, who was working for the Irish Folklore Commission at the time, recorded Angus' biography, inter-twined with many of his stories, between 1948 and 1950. The original transcripts of these recordings are held in the National Folklore Collection at University College Dublin.

Some of Angus' stories were very long and in his biography he says that he once told a story to a group of people which he started in the evening and by the time the story was finished, the sun had risen the next day. However, depending on where he was and how much of a hurry he was in, he could just as easily shorten them.