![]() ![]() Apart from tunes of Scottish origin all the music was strange to me. On visiting Cape Breton in May, 1966, I was amazed and pleasantly surprised to learn that there were literally hundreds of fiddlers on the Island, young and old, men, women and children. I heard it spoken by a few dozen older folk in the Cape Breton Highlands and have grave doubts about its survival. The Gaelic did not fare so well and is rarely spoken today. With them when they left Scotland, the emigrants brought their Gaelic language, their music, oral tradition, religion, their work ethic and by communal effort cleared the forests, created farms and developed a thriving fishery and farm culture.ĭuring the long snowy winter days and nights they passed the time ‘ceilidhing’ with their neighbours, story telling, card playing, playing music on bagpipes and fiddle, lilting and singing and thereby kept their music alive and well, and so it is today. There is no doubt that the Vlearances contributed to the destruction of communities in the Highlands and Islands from which they never fully recovered. The most notorious character by far who partook in the Clearances was the First Duke of Sutherland who ‘cleared’ some 15,000 residents from his one million acre estate to make way for sheep farming in the early 19th century. Unlike the Irish who had to leave Ireland due to famine, the Scots were forced of their crofts and estates by Scottish landowners who forced 500,000 people off their land in the notorious ‘Highland Clearances’ for the purpose of rearing sheep and formation of game reserves. The rest of the people are of Irish, English and French descent plus a large indigenous native Indian Min Mac Indian population. The population is mainly of Scottish Highland and Western Isles of Scotland origin who migrated here during the latter half of the 18th century and early 19th century. Inland the country is a mixture of farmland and extensive forests of spruce, pine, larch, birch and maple and needless to say has a great attraction for visitors from other parts of Canada and the USA who come to enjoy its scenery, its fishing and hunting, its friendly people and its music and song. There are also numerous salmon and trout rivers. It is truly a beautiful country, with a varied coastline with alternating rugged cliffs, rocky shores and sandy beaches, quite like Ireland. Cape Breton Island was separated from Nova Scotia by a narrow strip of ocean about ¼ mile wide until £100 years ago when a Causeway was built connecting the two by road and rail.Ĭape Breton Island is about two thirds the size of Ireland and has a population of about 150,000. I discovered that Cape Breton was situated 100 miles from Newfoundland separated by the Cabot Straight which connects the Gulf of St Lawrence from the Atlantic Ocean. I had never previously heard of Winston Fitzgerald, usually known as ‘Scotty’ Fitzgerald, so I wasted no time finding out all about Scotty and Cape Breton Island. They were ‘Mrs Scott Skinner’ – slow air, ‘The Smith’s a Gallant Fireman’, reel ‘Johnny Cope’, march, ‘Paddy on the Turnpike’, reel, also known in Ireland as ‘The Mills are Grinding’, ‘The Flowers of Limerick’ the final tune being ‘The Banks Hornpipe’. They were mostly Scottish tunes, some of which I recognised. The whole incident was so unexpected and pleasing that I can still remember some of the tunes played that morning. It was announced that the music was played by a Winston ‘Scotty’ Fitzgerald and that the radio station was located in the town of Sydney, Cape Breton, part of the adjoining province of Nova Scotia, Canada. One cold December’s day in 1965 whilst driving to my clinic situated in the remote Settlement on the West Coast of Newfoundland, on the Gulf of St Lawrence, I was very pleasantly surprised and interested to hear some very fine fiddle music being played on the car radio. ![]()
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