Tha Solas air a' Bhalla | A Light on the Wall

Gaelic non-profit saves beloved Elder's home

By Frances MacEachen 

You couldn’t get there by car. The road was narrow and deeply rutted near the farmhouse, which stood straight on a hill overlooking the vast Northumberland Strait. A truck was best, and you could catch a ride in one going up at the corner in Inverness. Four or five people packed in, a pot of chili in the back seat, fixings for tea, water, with staging, hammers, nail pullers, and crow bars rattling in the back.

It was a cheerful crew, especially considering the work ahead of them. They were going to deconstruct an old house, board by board, with dreams of building it again as part of an intentional Gaelic community. And they had a special connection to this old house.

This was the Sight Point childhood home of Anna MacKinnon (Annag ni'n Iain Alaisdair 'ic Aonghais Ailein), 91, one of the last fluent native Gaelic speakers in Cape Breton, who spoke it as a child and never stopped speaking it. “'S i a' chiad bhiadh a dh'ith mi” (Gaelic is the first food I ate), she likes to say.

For the last 20 years Anna has been an important mentor, conversationalist and friend to dozens of Gaelic speakers from far and near who delight in her hospitality, wit and Lochaber blas (dialect).

Visitors to her trailer on the Banks Road near Inverness invariably hear stories of her Sight Point home.

“My heart was in that house,” Anna says in her living room on a hot summer afternoon, a well-worn rosary in her lap. Photos of the home grace the wall and coffee table. “It broke my heart to leave Sight Point.”

Anna recalls happy days in the house until tragedy struck in 1939 when her mother Margaret (Peggy) died from a heart condition. Anna was six, yet recites a fragment of a song her mother composed on her deathbed:

"Tha solas air a' bhalla an àit' Aonghais Ailein,

Tha saoghal `na shaoghal 's tha an saoghal deas.

There is a light on the wall of Angus Allan’s house, 

The world is the world, and the world is coming to an end.

For her it was,” Anna says with a sigh. 

Margaret's death, the isolation, and her father John Alex's poor health made living in Sight Point difficult. They had to leave – John Alex said he couldn't stand another winter there. They sold the house in 1949 and moved closer to town when Anna was 16. She has thought about her first home every day since.

The house was built around 1910 by Anna’s grandfather Angus (Aonghas Ailein) and his carpenter son, Allan. Angus’s father Ailein Mór (Big Allan) was nephew to the renowned bard Allan the Ridge, who was one of the most important Gaelic immigrant poets in Canada. Ailean Mór and his brother Archibald settled in Beinn Bhiorach, Sight Point. Anna’s mother, Peggy Rankin (Peigi ni’n Uilleim Dhonnchaidh Bhig), also came from Sight Point, and was a great-granddaughter of John “the Immigrant,” also from the MacDonald's Scottish home of Brae Lochaber. Add to the mix Anna’s grandmother’s Beatons from Mabou Coal Mines you have quite a poetic and musical lineage, manifesting today in Anna as a touchstone for the language that underpins this tradition. It’s no wonder the younger generation she mentored and befriended were inspired to save the beloved home.  

Emily MacDonald of Ainslie Glen learned a lot of Gaelic from Anna, as part of the Bun is Bàrr mentorship program and through regular visits and phone conversations.  She considers her family. 

It was Emily’s brother Robby who first heard that the Nova Scotia Nature Trust was going to tear down the house for safety reasons. During a chance conversation with the potential demolisher at Tim Hortons in We’koqma’q, Robby’s ears perked up when he heard Sight Point. Robby, who is an antique dealer, dismantled his grandmother’s old home last year and had it rebuilt as a two-story storage for antiques. He was familiar with the work and knew the value of the wood. He also knew Anna.

“So, Robby got me on the horn and said, ‘Anna’s house is going to be torn down, would your group be interested in saving it for the Gaelic community?’,” Emily recalls. “I said, yes - definitely. 100 percent.”

Robby reached out and got support from the Nature Trust and Emily turned to her partners in the nonprofit Gaelic intentional community group, Freumh is Fàs (Root and Grow). Freumh is Fàs members began asking others for help, uncertain about the response they would receive.

“I could almost cry when I think about the fact that everyone we asked for help said yes, pretty much, bar one or two fishermen because it was fishing season," said Màiri Britton, a Scottish-born Freum is Fàs member and driving force behind the project.

Glen MacDonald signed on early. He was on site for the seven days it took to tear it down. He hauled staging from his Glendale home, tools and food made by his partner, Mary Jane Lamond.

“I went because Màiri asked me,” said Glen. I am a little handy with tools and this and that. I am used to old houses, because I was born in an old house in Northern Cape Breton. And this house was particularly well built. It’s all 6x6 beams …and everything was really quite square. They obviously took pains to put it together properly.”

Dale Gillis, who worked with Anna at Freddie Malcolm’s store in Inverness when he was 16, made 4 trips to haul beams and boards from Sight Point to barn storage in Southwest Margaree.

More than 40 people contributed 580 hours to take the roof and walls down, de-shingle, haul the wood, and pull thousands of nails from the boards – and that doesn't include travel, food prep and coordination. Some traveled from Bedford and Chezzetcook and all corners of Cape Breton. 

The vision of Freumh is Fàs to create a community that lives and works together in Gaelic came alive during the weeks in Sight Point. What seemed like a crazy project at first became a joyful experience of doing physical work together, eating lunch on the grass, having laughs and getting to know each other better. 

Amber Power, a Freum is Fàs member who drove with her family from Chezzetcook to help on a few weekends wondered in the beginning if she had the energy for this project. "But it didn't really take anything from me," she said, "It gave to me. I was so lifted up. I was tired and sore when I left but I was really happy." 

Along with connecting people in community, Freumh is Fàs envisions a sustainable community connected to the land, so the value of reclaiming and reusing materials in a time of climate crisis was not lost on participants. Now they notice similar houses dotting the landscape, and wonder about the hard work, people and stories in the boards and beams that are likely destined for the dump.

 “It also got me thinking about how good it feels to put effort into something,” said Màiri.  “It goes against the grain in our society. If something breaks, it’s cheaper to buy a new one. If something is too difficult, you don’t do it.”

And what does Anna think of it all: "When I hear that it’s going to be used instead of being demolished, it does my heart good. . . And I’m thinking of my father and how proud he would be that they are making use of the house. Maybe they know in the next world, who knows?”

One thing’s for certain, Anna plans to open the new building and has one request – that a piper be there.

Where and when the house will be rebuilt is still up in the air. The group is hoping to acquire land soon and are encouraged by the success of the deconstruction project.

 “I’m thinking about what it will become,” said volunteer Bradley Murphy. “That’s open-ended now, but it’s like planting a seed. You don’t know how things will manifest, but sometimes they are better or more meaningful than you could have planned.”

Amber Buchanan, a founding member of Freumh is Fàs, sees the much-loved, well-built home as a metaphor for the language and culture they want to nurture. She reflects on Anna’s mother and the light she saw on the wall of àit' Aonghais Ailein.

"I believe she was holding an intention for the goodness of that house, and somehow, here we are. . .There’s something bigger that wants to see the success of this project. Our intention is to re-ignite the Gaelic community in a big way, and there’s all this energy behind it that’s saying yes to that.”

Bradley Murphy, who travelled from Sydney to help out, muses about the future : "The house is going to outlive Anna, and maybe all of us. The house represents everything that Anna stands for. We think about her and the love she has for everybody, the love she has for the language and culture - the house represents that."

"It's a real legacy project," continues Màiri. "It's her legacy, but hopefully it will be our legacy, too. It's for generations to come . . .that's what Freumh is Fàs is for. It's for the generations to come -  to have a place to come to and to grow a resilience and to share the joy of everything Gaelic this land has to offer." 

For more information or to support the project contact community.raising@gmail.com, or visit https://www.freumhisfas.com

Tapadh leat a Fhrangag airson a’ phìos eireachdail seo a sgrìobhadh! Thanks to Frangag herself for writing this heart moving piece. Tha sin nad chomain.