Biography

Allan MacLean (1890-1982) was known as Allan the Missionary in Shawbost, the village where he grew up. His family were not from Shawbost, however, as Donald MacDonald from Shawbost explained on BBC Radio nan Gàidheal:

"Allan was my mother's brother and their family were from Brue before they moved to Shawbost. Allan's father, my grandfather, was a missionary and there were eight in the family, four boys and four girls, and three of the boys were singers, though Allan was the best of the three. One brother was named Donald. He lived in Greenock and worked as a policeman, and he would also sing. The youngest son, Seonaidh, stayed at home in Shawbost and would sing at concerts at Shawbost School, and also played the pipes and the melodeon. The strangest thing was that none of the sisters sang, or at least sang well."

After young Allan left school, he went to Greenock, which is where he spent the rest of his days.

"He left home when he was 15 years old and moved down to Greenock, as many other boys did, and to Glasgow. He went to Greenock to learn a trade, and he worked in a shipyard there. He worked with wood as a pattern maker, cutting wood and making boxes and such things into which melted iron was poured as part of the process of building the boats."

Allan spoke to Patrick Graham from Borve, Lewis, about his life in Greenock and about his family:

"I made a living from that trade for over fifty years. There is a proverb in Gaelic which says that finishing is a life's work, and this proved to be true for me as I have retired as of August 1960. I have three sons, John Allan, Angus and Donald. The three of them are married and each have two sons, so now my wife Peggy and I are on our own as we were years ago."

At age 16, Allan would sing at the ceilidhs that Greenock was famous for in those days. He also sang in Greenock's Gaelic Choir. He won the Gold Medal at the Royal National Mòd in Dunoon in 1930. Donald MacDonald explains: "Our family then was very proud that he won it, but I don't know what the wider community thought. A lot of them had never heard him sing." That did not last long, however. Allan was one of the first people to have his voice recorded in Gaelic, and he would often be on Gaelic programmes on the BBC, both singing and acting in sketches that he and Kate Galbraith wrote together. His recordings had an impact on lots of people, as Donald MacDonald recalls:

"My first memory of hearing him was when the records first came out, the Beltona Records, and we had a gramophone and we would listen to them. My brother would take the gramophone to the neighbours houses and would play the records near enough all night."

While Allan spent his life in Greenock, he and his family would go back home to Shawbost every summer on their holidays and he always wore Highland dress which, for the time, was unusual.

"I remember when he would go visiting, let's say he would go to someone's house in the afternoon, around 3 o'clock, he would start singing for them to pass the time. And he would do that in every house he visited."

After the war especially, Allan was well known at ceilidhs and concerts in Glasgow, at the Lewis and Harris Society gatherings, and halls such as Overnewton. When he would come home during summer he would always make time to sing at ceilidhs in Stornoway and other places too:

"One year, during summer, Allan was at home on holiday and it just so happened that Archie Grant [11099] was in Lewis too. They were both invited to the hut in Shawbost. And the place was full of people, most of whom were standing, and throughout the whole night Allan and Archie Grant sang song after song. You'd never heard such noise in your life. You would have thought the walls of the hut were shaking."

Allan would also write poems and compose and sing his own songs which praised the villages on the West of Lewis and the people who lived in them:

'S thugainnibh leam, a chuideachd mo ghaoil,
O thugainnibh leam a dh'Eilean an Fhraoich
Gheibh sibh ann fàilte, furan is aoibh
Bho gach bodach is cailleach san àite.

Nuair a chì iad sibh tighinn a-nuas air fàire
Tilgidh iad an cliabh, an spaid is an gràp'
Thig iad nad choinneamh a chrathadh do làmh
A ghràidh, gun di don dùthaich.

'S bheir iad dhut biadh bhios fallain is làn
Bradan na linne agus adag sa bhàgh
Lit' agus bainne, aran eòrn' agus càis'
Sgadan gu annlan buntàta.

For fifty years, Allan would precent at Greenock Free Church. He was only a month off 91 when he passed away.