Catriona Mairi MacIver

HALIFAX: March 7 - (CP). From Stornoway, Lewis, comes Miss Catriona Mairi MacIver with the message for the sea divided Gael of New Scotland and the new world. "The Gaelic language will never die in Scotland. It is taught in the schools of the Highlands and Islands, and its place is secure in the hearts of the people, for they realize that the whole culture of Scotland is dependent upon the distinctive genius of the language. Scottish culture is Gaelic culture.

Miss MacIver will lecture upon the actual life of the Hebridean Islands today, illustrating her lectures with snatches of song and examples of Gaelic poetry. Her lectures are intended for non-Highland as well as Highland audiences. She is a native speaker and was educated at Aberdeen University.

Asked as to the present creative writing among Scottish Gaels, she said that the outstanding figure in Highland Literature today is Kenneth McLeod who was the guiding star of Mrs. Kennedy Fraser in her epoch-making works of collecting Hebridean song. Kenneth McLeod is the only true mystic and the greatest poet in Scotland today, according to Miss MacIver. `Iona' is his latest masterpiece of prose-poetry. Since the collaboration of these pioneers, there has been a great deal of collecting of folk-lore and song in the Islands.

"However sordid their life or death, they always made it a thing of beauty," said Miss MacIver, speaking of the people of the Hebrides. "It is the genius of the Saxon to take adverse circumstances by the throat and make them bend to his will. It is the genius of the true Gael; never to fail to bend his knee to beauty wherever or in whatever form he may meet it."

Miss MacIver will lecture throughout Canada and probably in the United States.

An old, yellowed newspaper clipping within
the MacLean Sinclair Collection;
No date or location are given.
Public Archives of Nova Scotia: MG9, Vol. 538

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