From the Alleghenies to the Hebrides

by Margaret Fay Shaw

Margaret Fay Shaw's life spans a century of change. In her early teens she was dispatched from the idyllic surroundings of the Alleghenies to stay with a distant cousin near Glasgow. It was here that her love of Scotland was born. After studying music at New York and Paris, she returned to live for six years with two sisters in a cottage on South Uist. Life on South Uist at this time had barely changed from earlier centuries, and the island contained a repository of Gaelic lore and song. Margaret Fay Shaw's collections of this archive and her photography capture a world vanished from the Hebrides. Her autobiography is also a plea in defence of a Gaelic culture and world that is disappearing.

Genres: History, Scotland, Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Travel

Paperback

First published April 7, 1994

About the author

Margaret Fay Shaw was born in Pennsylvania in 1903 and became an orphan when she was just eleven years old. She first crossed the Atlantic to Scotland to visit family friends when she was sixteen, and stayed on to attend school in Helensburgh for a year, where she was introduced to and became enthralled by Gaelic music and culture.

She studied music in New York and then in Paris, but longed to return to Scotland, which she felt was her spiritual home. She embarked on a bicycle tour of the UK from Oxford to the Isle of Skye, supporting herself by selling her photographs to newspapers and magazines such as the Listener.

Finally she arrived on South Uist, a place of which she later said, "There was something about [it] that just won me; it was like falling in love; it was the island that I wanted to go back to." She lived on the island in Lochboisdale for six years with two sisters, Mairi and Peigi Macrae, whose family maintained a strong Gaelic oral tradition. The sisters shared this tradition with Margaret, who transcribed and learned their songs and tales with great enthusiasm. This collection of song and lore was eventually published by Routledge and Kegan Paul in 1955 as Folksongs and Folklore of South Uist. Providing a valuable insight into life in the small crofting community of South Uist in the 1930s, the book has never since been out of print, and a new edition was published by Birlinn in 1999.

Margaret Fay Shaw met the folklorist John Lorne Campbell when he was co-producing The Book of Barra, a collection of the island’s history and traditions. In need of striking illustrations for the book, and having heard of Margaret’s photography, the young Campbell volunteered to go to meet her. The two were married a year later in 1935 and initially lived on Barra before buying Canna, a small Hebridean island to the south-west of Skye. In 1981 they gave the island to the National Trust for Scotland.

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just so different and delightful!!! I think I first found this book referenced on a suggested reading list for travelers planning to visit the western isles of Scotland - where we are headed in September 2018. I had found a used copy to purchase and put it with our other "travel" books. A couple of days ago, I picked up this slim little volume and was immediately transported to "Maighread's" worlds as she explored New York, Paris and London, Ireland and Scotland and finally settled in to discover the treasures of life among the Gaelic peoples and their folklore, music, poetry, language, and history. This book is now one of my treasures that I would love to share with friends.

[Mary Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Vivid Memoir of an Adventurous Life

This book is a delightful read. Margaret Fay Shaw traveled far and wide and reported on everything she saw and experienced. From Pennsylvania to Scotland to Paris and to the islands of the Hebrides, you the reader are right alongside. Informative and entertaining.

[Michael Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having recently spent a week on the Island of South Uist, Western Isles of Scotland I became interested in the life of Margaret Fay Shaw. She was dedicated to understanding and recording the Culture and music of the Western Isles. She was brought up in Glenshaw Pennsylvania, travelled widely but spent the majority of her life in the Western Isles, finally settling on the Isle of Canna with her husband John Lorne Campbell.
She was "a free spirit" and made countless life long friends both ordinary and famous from throughout the world. She had a great interest and love of music both classical and traditional. She spent her life collecting Gaelic lore and music which are amongst the most important made in the 20th century. She always respected the ordinary person, their way of life and set about doing the most mundane tasks . Her well to do friends often did not understand this and looked down on these people and their culture.
Her autobiography is well written and is a must read for anyone interested in the life, culture and history of the Western Isles. I have given it a 5 star rating

[Alan]

Book is at UNT Library

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read about an amazing woman and her life. It did end a bit abruptly though.

[Jane Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this lovely little treasure in a used book sotre in Middlebury, VT in summer of 2010. Finally read it recently and it brought me back to my trip in 2008 to Scotland and the Hebrides. Although written almost like diary entries it was interesting reading. The sories of life on the islands and traveling from one island to another. The people who lived there before they were moved off these islands just west of Scotland. Margaret Fay Shaw was a muscian and she feel in love with the music of these islands and she herself learned Gaelic. She collected the songs over the many years she lived mostly on Canna with her husband. I passed it along to Gillian Shoemaker to take with her for her trip there this summer.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This autobiography, with one anecdote after another in shot-gun style, is a delight. The author, born in 1903 and raised in Pennsylvania, went to Scotland to live with a relative after her parents died. She fell in love with the country and after working in New York for awhile, she eventually returned to Scotland to live on South Uist, an island in the Outer Hebrides. An accomplished musician, she learned Gaelic and began collecting traditional Gaelic folksongs. She met and married, John Lorne Campbell, a folklorist, and they settled on the island of Canna. The entire book is interesting, but her account of their life during World War II is particularly fascinating.

[Moira McPartlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book in the South Uist holiday cottage I spent a week in and read it in one sitting on a rainy day. American Margaret Fay Shaw is a bit of a local hero. In the thirties she came to live on the island and collected previously unrecorded folksong and folklore. CShe married land owner and fleow folklorist Jogn Lorne Campbell. Although she had money, and was in a privileged position to make her collection, her contribution to the music, folklore and reputation of the island itself cannot be denied. She is very highly regarded in South Uist.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A passion for Gaelic folk songs is not the launch pad for a compelling read, yet Shaw's memoir is so charmingly told that she carries you right along. She isn't one of the great 20th century autobiographers, either, not as elegant a writer as Nabokov or Frank McCourt, to name but two. None the less, she turns out a charming memoir of her years collecting Gaelic music in the far reaches of Scotland and Ireland.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A miniature masterpiece," says the Times Literary Supplement. This no-nonsense woman forged her own way and reminds me of some older women I greatly respect. There's nothing overblown or self serving here, as is often the case with an autobiography.

[Myer Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully told life-story and a fascinating look at Hebridean life and tradition in harder times. A delightful little read.