::ALASDAIR MACRAONUILL:: I am remembering my dear friend and mentor Alasdair MacRaonuill this morning. A native Gàidhlig speaker and Class 1 master bagpiper from Islay, he joined the young merchant sailors at 14. With no English, he deserted at port in Corpus Christi, TX and worked as a hand in the feed lots of New Mexico in the late 1930s and 1940s. His lifelong love of the night sky bloomed under the desert stars there and he built his own telescope from found parts to study it further. His favorite thing to do as he became older was to locate rare, out of print books on highland pipe technique through the University Inter-Library loan program, republish, and redistribute them for free. A whole section of the Perry-Castañeda library at the University of Texas at Austin devoted to rare piping books in Gàidhlig was created by these endeavors of his, alone. He was a man full of song, stars, languages and questions, a true rambling rover, a wandering self taught scholar who shared his passion for music, Gàidhlig, and stars with whomever would take the time and sit and listen to a very old man with Buerla briste. I miss him here on the Earth.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 15:14:27 +0000
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