Sheila Kidd
University of Glasgow
Scottish Gaelic periodical publishing, which dates back to 1803, but
which only gained momentum from the late 1820s, was arguably the most
significant literary product of the nineteenth-century Highland
diaspora and is a feature of those destinations in Scotland and beyond
where Gaelic-speakers settled in significant numbers. With only one,
very short-lived, Gaelic periodical published within the Highlands in
the course of the entire century, these periodicals were instead
produced variously in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Kingston (Ontario),
Antigonish (Nova Scotia), Sydney (Nova Scotia) and Hobart (Tasmania).
This paper will build on previous work which I have undertaken on the
Glasgow Gaelic periodical press of the 1830s and 1840s by considering
three emigrant publications, two containing Gaelic and English and one
Gaelic only: Cuairtear na Coillte (Kingston 1840−42), An Cuairtear
Og Gaidhealach (Antigonish, 1851) and An Teachdaire Gaidhealach
(Hobart, 1857). It will consider the international network of
contributors to, and readers of, Gaelic periodicals which emerged from
the 1830s onwards, the relationship between these overseas journals
and their Scottish counterparts, the reception of these in both their
colonial homelands and in Scotland and the ways in which their content
reflects the process of adjustment to an emigrant context while at the
same time retaining and cultivating links with their native land.