Bernie Smith singing ‘Lag nan Cruachan’
Sound clip of Bernie Smith of West Hynish singing ‘Lag nan Cruachan’.
Courtesy of Mr Bernie Smith
During a cèilidh held in March 2006 to celebrate the end of the Society for Northern Studies’ Tiree Conference, Bernie Smith of West Hynish sang four verses of ‘Lag nan Cruachan’, a song written by Captain Angus Lamont of Cornaigmore in the 19th century.
Captain Lamont enrolled as a medical student at Glasgow University but, as the Rev Hector Cameron noted in ‘Na Bàird Thirisdeach’, ‘the lure of the sea…was too much for him and he deserted the healing profession for the romantic calling of the mariner.’
He wrote a number of songs, of which only ‘Lag nan Cruachan’ survives. He died aged around forty-four on board his ship at San Francisco. His brother-in-law, Captain Donald MacKinnon of the tea clipper ‘Taeping’, also died in the prime of life.