Egypt, Empire, and the Gaelic Literary Imagination

Abstract

This article presents an edition, translation, and analysis of a Scottish Gaelic song by the Reverend Seumas MacLagain [James McLagan] (1728-1805) about the battle of Alexandria of 1801. This text, which has not received any previous scholarly attention, is a rare illustration of an attempt of a member of the Gaelic intelligentsia to re-frame Gaelic identity and history so as to reconcile them with the agenda of British imperialism. While largely unmentioned in analysis of Gaelic Scotland, the victory in Egypt was a crucial moment that was used by McLagan and others to draw the Gaidhealtachd into a British sphere more completely than ever before. By exploring the motifs, formulas, and devices used by McLagan in his song, and contrasting them with other Gaelic and pan-British approaches to the victory in Egypt, this article challenges assumptions about the nature of Gaelic military song in this era and suggests the importance of British imperialism to the Gaelic literary imagination in the early nineteenth century.