Gaelic Language and Traditions on Rathlin Island
Due to its location in the Irish Sea Rathlin Island (Reachlainn in Irish) has been a crossroads back and forth between Ireland and Scotland for millennia. It is through Rathlin Island that the Gaels first crossed from Ireland to what we know today as Scotland. From the time of the Kingdom of Dal Riata, which spanned from Ulster in Ireland to Argyll and the Inner Hebrides in Scotland, the kingdom founded by King Loarn or Fergus (depending on the source) with its capital at Dunadd in Kintyre, the Gaelic language has been found across the islands between Britain and Ireland. With this migration went not only the Gaelic language of Eire, but many of the same stories and traditions. Even after the Irish side of the kingdom fell into the hands of other Irish princes interaction of one kind or another remained with the common culture. Rathlin was always caught in the middle of things. In 1860 J.F. Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands: Orally Collected was published in Edinburgh. The...