Callieburn

Original Track ID

SA1956.172.A8

Original Tape ID

SA1956.172

Summary

This fragment of an emigrant song describes a man leaving Calliburn north of Campbeltown, and the friends and family he will miss.

Alec MacShannon learned the song from an old ploughman at Hillside [north-west of Campbeltown], when he was fifteen years old. Alec gives his personal details.

Item Notes

3 verses with chorus after each. Unusually contains a reference to meeting in Zion with the friends left behind. The chorus words and style are quite similar to the Jacobite song, 'King Fareweel'.

In 'Tocher' 25 (1977, pp. 36-37), Hamish Henderson writes: "The small farming community of Callieburn is in the hills a few miles north of Campbeltown and the song tells of emigration from an area that suffered hardship in the 1830s and 1840s - especially during the 'hungry 40s' when the West Highlands had a famine almost as severe as Ireland's." Henderson says that Willie Mitchell of Campbeltown (a friend of the contributor here, Alec MacShannon) collected a longer version of the song from a "Mr. Reid ... the farmer at Callieburn". (Callieburn is now usually spelled Calliburn.)

This song was famously learned by the border shepherd, Willie Scott, from Willie Mitchell, at a late-night ceilidh in the Angus Hotel during the 1968 TMSA Blairgowrie festival; the events are detailed by Hamish Henderson in 'Alias MacAlias' (1992, pp. 95-96).

See:
'Tocher' 25 (1977) pp. 36-37, 40-41
'Herd Laddie o the Glen' (ed. Alison McMorland, 1998, 2006), pp. 134, 155-156

Recording Location

Item Location

Language

Scots

Genre

Song Information

Collection

SoSS

Classification

R6932

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good