“MacTalla, persistent echo, marginalized voice, contemporary reverberation” - Susan Cameron
Channel: Bibliographical Society of Canada
Date: 2021-06-25

Susan Cameron, St. Francis Xavier University

As a follow up to my 2018 presentation, “An ni nach cluinn mi an diugh cha’n aithris mi maireach”, Gaelic Zealots, praising, preserving, publishing: The story of Gaelic publications in Nova Scotia in the 18th and 19th centuries.”  I would explore a key publication from that era.

The all Gaelic periodical, MacTalla, published from 1892-1904 in Sydney, Nova Scotia holds a vast amount of material of interest to scholars from diverse fields.  A search on Google Scholar produces an impressive array of citations, both in number and topics explored.  

In addition to providing material for scholarship, it has an interesting history of its own.   Some researchers without knowledge of the language have collaborated with Gaelic speakers and translators to mine the material presented in its pages. Linguists, sociologists, ethnologists, musicologists, language activists, teachers, historians, and other academics include citations in their works from the publication.  It also spans several continents in its reach, as well as citations in Scottish Gaelic, Irish and French.   

It was digitized by Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, a Gaelic College in Skye, U.K. and it is also currently being used as a resource for a three year project, Language in Lyrics, led by the Canada Research Chair in Musical Traditions, at Cape Breton University.   

I believe my proposal fits well with numbers one and two of the listed themes.  There is a colonizing theme to the history of the Nova Scotia Gael, and Gaelic publishing is an example of a diverse minority linguistic, ethnic, and cultural groups in Canada which presents challenges.