feature

FEATURE ARTICLE (from PIPING WORLD March 2010)

LAMENT FOR GLENGARRY: the last of
the Highland chiefs

By Bruce Campbell
(note - this article is copyright and may not be
reproduced without permission)

THE earliest published reference for this tune is Angus
MacKay's 'Collection of Ancient Piobaireachd' (1838).
But unlike many Piobaireachd which have both an obscure
authorship and history the background to this tune is
extremely well known.
Alasdair Ranaldson MacDonell was the fifteenth chief of
the Glengarry branch of Clan Donald.
He was the last of the Highland chiefs to live in the
grandiose style of his forebears and did so in an era
when that lifestyle was becoming increasingly impossible
because of the impoverished state of the glens in the
continuing aftermath of the destruction and disruption of
the failure of the clan system after the Forty Five.
He was born in 1773 in the shadow of the Forty Five but still in an era when tales of the great Highland warriors were part of the folklore.
Alasdair became chief of his clan in 1788 and whenever he travelled he always did so with his piper, bard and train of servants - in the style he imagined was fitting of a great Highland chief.
Despite his fantasy of Highland life his pursuit of it brought his estate into even further economic decline, which was slowed down by the unexpected bonanza of the sale of access rights on his land to the Caledonian Canal then being built under the direction of Thomas Telfer - even although he still went out of his way to hinder its progress.
Glengarry may well have been an extremely popular figure in his own clan but he made a habit of making many enemies in the bigger world.
At a Northern Meeting ball in Inverness he was famously refused a dance and his ungentlemanly behaviour ended in him caning Norman MacLeod, the grandson of Flora MacDonald.
The two men fought a duel in which MacLeod was killed.
Glengarry was tried for murder but was acquitted.
One of his major supporters was Sir Walter Scott but there is little doubt that even the 'lantern of the north' became exasperated with his behaviour when, after being deliberately excluded, Glengarry upstaged the landing ceremony of King George at Leith (which was managed by Sir Walter Scott) by riding to the front of the procession on his white stallion!
Glengarry also had a dubious 'military' career.
In 1793 he was commissioned as a captain into the Grant & Strathspey Fencible Regiment but the following year, at the age of 21, he became colonel of his own regiment, The Glengarry Fencibles.
They were stationed in the Isle of Wight but he soon became bored with the whole project which then ended in a blaze of controversy.
Sir Henry Raeburn's famous portrait of Glengarry (re-printed here) hangs in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.
It shows a haughty man with cocked bonnet, sword belt, dirk, sgian dubh and musket - a real Highland warrior.
That portrait, as much as this superb Piobaireachd, has ensured his immortality.
Despite all his faults Glengarry deserves to be recognised for the one thing which is overlooked - he was the founder of the modern Highland Games which he started in 1819 to celebrate his birthday.
Soon afterwards the idea was further developed by the St Fillans Highland Society who are generally recognised, even if totally incorrectly, as the founders of the modern Games movement.
On January 14, 1828 Glengarry was on the steam ship the Comet which was travelling south when it foundered near Fort William and even although Glengarry managed to reach the shoreline safely he was lashed against the rocks by the violence of the sea and died later from those injuries.
This tune was composed by Archie Munro, his personal piper, and the night before Glengarry's impressive funeral Munro taught it to the other estate pipers and the next day the six of them played it in concert as the funeral cortege made its way to the cemetery.
An interesting extension to the story of this great tune is that Peter MacLeod used the opening notes of the Urlar to fashion his great 2/4 Competition March 'The Conundrum' - look at it carefully and you'll see and hear the themal phrase.
A full life story of Glengarry can be read in the outstanding book, 'The Last of the Highland Chiefs' by Brian D Osborne (Argyll Publishing).

Music Bibliography
Angus MacKay's 'Ancient Collection of Piobaireachd'
David Glen's Collection Book 2 (Duntroon Publishing)
Charles Thomason's Ceol Mor
Kilberry Book of Ceol Mor