 catherine-ann macphee (born 1959) is a scottish gaelic singer. ==acting career== catherine-ann was born on 21 november 1959 in the island of barra, scotland. there she grew up with scottish gaelic as her first language. electricity did not reach the island until she was six. at the age of five she started singing at candle-lit ceilidhs in the little village of eoligarry. during the summer she sang for tourists. at the age of seventeen she joined "fir chlis" (northern lights). it was the first scottish gaelic repertory theatre company and did work for radio and television including the 1979 bbc scotland gaelic language course can seo. following budget cuts the company ended after three years. she moved to the isle of mull, where she worked in a bar in tobermory, but soon joined john mcgrath's english-speaking 7:84 theatre company. she traveled with them to leningrad, tbilisi, toronto, cape breton and berlin. ==the first gaelic albums== ian green from greentrax records heard her at a festival in dingwall and offered a recording contract. like her subsequent albums, all of the songs on "cÃ nan nan gaidheal" (the language of the gael) (1987) are in gaelic, and most are traditional. one of the songs is by the gaelic-speaking folk-rock group runrig. her voice is a powerful alto with exceptionally clear diction. the backing musicians include tony cuffe and william jackson, both from the group ossian. her second album contains a bewildering range of pop and new age influences including drum machine, harp and bass guitar. it was probably the first time that "waulking songs" (work songs for women finishing tweed cloth) were treated this way. the mrs ackyroyd band is a loose association of singers who record perform comic parodies of folk music. in 1987 they undertook their only non-comic project, a song-cycle called "the stones of callanish". macphee sang two of the songs on it. ==mÃ iri mhÃ³r (1821 - 1898)== the highland land league was an organisation devoted to resisting the highland clearances in the mid to late nineteenth century. many songs were written by mÃ iri mhÃ³r (mary macpherson) from skye in support of their cause. fifty years before woody guthrie she wrote protest songs and set them to traditional tunes. in 1993 a biographical bbc tv film about mÃ iri mhÃ³r was made in which alyxis daly played mÃ iri mhÃ³r and macphee sang the soundtrack.{{cite web|url=http://www.folkmusic.net/htm
1959_births Living_people People_from_the_Isle_of_Mull People_from_the_Outer_Hebrides Scottish_Gaelic-speaking_people Scottish_Gaelic_singers Scottish_emigrants_to_Canada Scottish_female_singers