Gaelic Folkways Festival and Summer Institute set for this weekend

The Sir Andrew Macphail Homestead’s second annual Eilean an Àigh: Gaelic Folkways Festival and Summer Institute is this weekend, featuring workshops and events focusing on the Island’s rich Scottish Gaelic cultural inheritance.

The institute opens today at 7 p.m., with the first annual Bard Jane MacLeod Memorial Lecture (Òraid Chuimhneachaidh Shìne Mhòir NicLeòid) in honour of Jane MacLeod (Sìne Mhòr) of Caledonia, P.E.I., remembered as a gifted song-maker and strongly independent member of the community who emigrated from the Isle of Skye in the mid-nineteenth century. The inaugural lecture, entitled “Atlantic Songlines: Gaelic Singing in Contemporary Island Communities,” will be delivered by Lillis Ó Laoire, senior lecturer at Roinn na Gaeilge (department of modern Irish), National University of Ireland, Galway.

On Saturday, Aug. 27, workshops will be held at the homestead focusing on the Scottish Gaelic language on the Island as well as its musical and oral traditions in the region and among our Cape Breton, Scottish and Irish counterparts.

Joining Ó Laoire as workshop leaders are Mary Jane Lamond (Scottish Gaelic singing, including mouth music), Seumas Watson (Scottish Gaelic language, song and storytelling), Tiber Falzett, Macphail Homestead Foundation’s chairman of heritage and culture (Scottish Gaelic oral traditions from Prince Edward Island-sourced archival sound recordings and printed texts as uncovered during his ongoing research).

Also on hand will be Scottish Gaelic cultural and linguistic ambassadors from the province of Nova Scotia, including Lewis MacKinnon, Emily MacDonald and Shay MacMullin.

The afternoon workshops will conclude on site at the Macphail Wood’s Nature Centre between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. with a milling frolic, allowing participants to join instructors in putting skills learned throughout the day to use in pounding the wool cloth to choruses of Gaelic song.

At 7:30 p.m., in Orwell Hall on the site of Orwell Corner Historic Village there will be a Taigh Cèilidh (ceilidh house) concert of Gaelic song and music with performances by Lamond, Ó Laoire, Watson, MacKinnon and friends. The concert will be immediately followed by a square dance featuring fiddler Rannie MacLellan and pianist Kevin Chaisson, two of our Island’s most celebrated traditional musicians.

All proceeds from the Summer Institute’s events will go towards funding future programming to facilitate grass-roots community-based renewal of local Scottish Gaelic language and culture in Prince Edward Island. Furthermore, it is part of creating broader awareness in safeguarding and sustaining the province’s folks traditions.

For further information and to register, visit www.macphailgaelic.com or phone 902 6512789.