“Ring! Ring! It’s 7:00 A.M.! Move yourself to go again”
’S ann mar sin a thòisicheas an t-òran the Magnificent Seven leis a’ Chlash. Agus bha an LP air a bheil e air m’ aire nuair a ruig mi Lunnainn aig 7:00m bho chionn beagan làithean air an trèana oidhche.
Bha mi air taistealachd roc is rathaid-iarainn mar thoradh air faraidhean saora aig a’ Chaledonian Sleeper gus suidheachaidhean (agus leapannan!) a lìonadh aig àm den bhliadhna nuair nach eil t-iarrtas cho àrd. Aig £35, ’s e bargan a bh’ ann.
An Cadalaiche, Euston, 7m
Cha robh mi gu bhith ann ach fad latha oir bha mi a’ dol air ais air an trèana air an aon oidhche agus bha gu leòr agam ri dhèanamh – safari rèile, taistealachd roc agus beagan ana-faisisteachd!
Tha mi air leth deidheil air a’ Chlash. Fhuair mi teip bho mo charaid Michael san sgoil air an robh measgachadh de dh’òrain bho the Clash (1977) agus bhon chlàr mu dheireadh aca Combat Rock (1982)* agus chòrd a h-uile rud air rium gu mòr – an stuth tràth puncach, an roc àbhaisteach agus an stuth neònach aca le rap is dub is eile.
Chan fhada gus an do cheannaich mi London’s Calling (1979) agus Give em Enough Rope (1978) – dà chlàr air leth fhèin math. Agus an uair sin, cheannaich mi Sandinista! (1980) clàr nach eil idir cho math – ’s e LP triopailte a th’ ann ach chan eil de dh’òrain matha air ach gus is dòcha aon LP a lìonadh – no fiù’s EP!
Ach tha na h-òrain air a tha math fìor mhath – leithid Magnificent Seven, Police on My Back agus Someone Got Murdered.
Chaidh mi a lorg an àite far an deach dealbh còmhdaich Sandinista a thogail. Agus bha mi ag èisteachd ri LP London Calling fhad’s a bha mi air an t-slighe. Ach an àite a bhith Lost in the Supermarket, bha mi air call air cùlaibh stèisean St Pancras!
Lorg mi an t-àite aig a’ cheann-thalla agus a rèir coltais, tha e nas glaine, soilleire, sàbhailte na bha e ann an 1980.
Nis, bha an Clash daonnan a’ seasamh gu daingeann an aghaidh gràin-cinnidh agus faisisteachd. Gu dearbha, tha òran air a’ chuspair sin air Sandinista fhèin.
They say the immigrants steal the hubcaps, of respected gentlemen, they say it would be wine and roses if England were for Englishmen again
Agus sgrìobh Mick Jones agus Joe Strummer bhon Chlash sàr-òran eile còmhla a’ moladh ioma-chultarachd dhan chòmhlan eile aig Mick – Big Audio Dynamite. Ann am Behond the Pale, tha Mick ag innse sgeulachd a sheann phàrantan air taobh a màthar, a bha nan Iùdhach a theich bho na pograman san Ruis agus a rinn dachaich dhaibh fhèin ann an Lunnainn.
Tha loidhnichean matha ann, leithid:
Saint George used his sword on the immigrant poor ‘cause he can’t kill no dragon, agus:
Don’t anybody know that this city was made of immigrant blood and money?
Seo fear de na h-òrain as fheàrr leam agus chunnaic mi BAD ga chluich beò ann an Glaschu ann an 2011.
Bha seo uile gu math iomchaidh oir b’ e an ath stad agam Sràid nan Càballan, Cable Street, ann an Lunnainn an Ear far an deach ruag a chur air na faisistich aig Mosely ann an 1936. Mar sin, rinn mi air Lunnainn an Ear – comin by bus or underground, hurrah, tra-la, mar a chanadh an Clash fhèin san òran English Civil War!
Ach an tòiseach, bha an t-àm ann airson beagan bìdh. Agus mar a thachair e, fhuair mi a-mach gun robh Wimpy faisg air Sràid nan Càballan. Bha mi gu math dèidheil air Wimpy nuair a bha mi òg, agus tha am biadh gam thoirt air ais do làithean sona m’ òige sna 1980an!
Bha luchd-obrach a’ Wimpy a’ bruidhinn ann am Bengali, cànan a tha gu math làidir san sgrìre.
Tha cuid de na soidhnichean anns a’ cheàrnaidh seo de Lunnainn an Ear dà-chànanach. Seo soidhne ann am Brick Lane mar eisimpleir. Dh’ionnsaich mi, ge-tà, nach e eadar-theangachadh air Brick Lane a th’ anns an sgrìobhadh Bengali idir ach Brick Lane (‘Brik Len’) sgrìobhte ann an dòigh-sgrìobhaidh Bengali. ’S e sin ri ràdh, nam biodh iad air Gàidhlig a chur air san aon dòigh, an àite a bhith a’ sgrìobhadh Slighe nam Briogaichean no rudeigin mar sin, s e Briog Lèin a bhiodh air. Tha e a’ cur nam chuimhne mar a bhios Tim Armstrong a’ cur litreachadh na Gàidhlig air a’ Bheurla sna leabhraichean sci-fi aige!
Às dèidh deagh bhiadh sa Wimpy, rinn mi air Sràid nan Càballan gus an dealbh balla agus plac fhaicinn mu Bhlar Sràid nan Càballan far an deach Mosely agus na Blackshirts a chur a-mach às an sgìre.
Cha d’fhuair iad seachadh – agus chan fhaigh iad seachad.
Às dèidh sin, bha an t-àm ann a dhol gu taobh eile a’ bhaile gus balach eile à Lunnainn an Ear a chomharrachadh – Mark Feld, no Marc Bolan mar as fheàrr a dh’aithnichear e!
Ri leantainn…. An ath thuras: Marc Bolan, zombie soup, Ar-a-mach Còrnach 1497 agus an Suffaragette Line
Alasdair
Ag èisteachd ri: “London’s Calling”, the Clash (1979), 10/10, “Sandinista!”, the Clash (1980), 1/10.
Air mo Khobo: “Rossa’s Recollections, 1838, 1898”, O’ Donovan Rossa
*Cha chanainn gu bheil Cut the Crap (1985) canonical leis nach robh Mick no Topper air, agus nas cudromaiche, a chionn ‘s nach eil e uabhasach math nas motha (ged a tha òran no dhà ann a tha math).
We need to talk about Gaelic and Machine Translation, specifically we need to talk about the use of unedited Machine Translation.
Machine translation (MT), most notably Google Translate has become increasingly common in recent years. Using MT at all raises many practical, ethical and philosophical questions and I could write a series of articles on this subject alone.
Today, however, I’m looking particularly at the use of unedited MT. This is quite simply when someone puts some text into Google Translate in one language and then uses the supplied translation without doing any editing or checking whatsoever on it.
If you don’t know a language and want to get the gist of what something is saying, Google Translate is a good and easy way to do it. However, it is highly likely to contain mistakes and hallucinations and isn’t a substitute for a real translation and a human opinion is always necessary for any important matter.
I’m raising the issue of unedited MT just now as I’ve seen it used a few times in real world situations in the last few months, including by public bodies which I find concerning.
I wrote a blog post last year about the lack of merchandise featuring Gaelic, where I believe the tourist and arts and crafts industries are missing a trick. At a couple of craft fairs and shops in the run up to Christmas, I saw a few products featuring Gaelic. I was delighted and was keen to buy some until I saw that the Gaelic was wrong, clearly an MT job by someone who doesn’t understand the language.
Then for Christmas, I was kindly given a Kobo e-reader as a present by my Mum. I was keen to see what Gaelic books were available. There were indeed many great Gaelic books available but also some books which were MT slop which were clearly English books fed into MT and put straight up on the internet for sale with cringeworthily bad Gaelic. Any Gaelic speaker would notice straight away but not perhaps a parent of children in Gaelic medium education or someone wanting to buy a book for a Gaelic speaking friend.
More recently, I wrote to ScotRail in Gaelic with a question about tickets (namely whether they planned to put RailBus tickets to Glasgow Airport on the ScotRail app). They said they don’t in fact reply to Gaelic correspondence in Gaelic but that I could translate their website content into Gaelic using an MT button on the website.
I’ve seen a few organisations suggest that the availability of an MT button on websites offering translation to many languages is provision for Gaelic and supporting the language. This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the position of Gaelic which I’ll look into more below.
Most worryingly of all, a tech company which has supported Gaelic a lot in the past, using experienced translators has now moved some of its Gaelic provision from translators to unedited Machine Translation.
This has me very worried for the future of Gaelic reading and service provision.
Why? Let’s take a look.
Rupert, Rupert the bear!
OK – so where does Rupert the Bear come in?
My family are very big fans of Rupert the Bear. In fact, my parents actually had an ongoing argument as to what colour our plucky little ursine hero is – brown as shown on the cover of his books, or white as shown in the comic strips themselves.
Regardless of the colour of his fur, imagine that Rupert is having an adventure in Cornwall with some Cornish pixies or the like.
I am a big fan of the Cornish language and am impressed by the amazing progress made in the language revival over the last 100 years. However, there were some bumps in the road for the language, the most notable of these being a major fracture in the movement in the 1990s about the best written form to use. Cornish was largely revived from written sources and a great deal of the Middle Cornish available was written in verse.
Commentators in favour of placing more emphasis on the latest available written sources were concerned that putting too much emphasis on poetic language had a somewhat stilting event on the revived language.*
Linguistically, one of the key characteristic features of the Rupert adventures is that the stories are written in rhyming verse.
We’ll never have to recreate the English language based on Rupert the Bear (great fun though it would be) but imagine that we were basing machine translation into English on AI trained on Rupert comic strips.
“Machine translation is terribly new – And golly gosh it’s in poetry too!”
In a way, Gaelic machine translation is like that. Basically, what comes out in MT is dependent on what goes in as it depends on what is available in the target and source languages online.
For Gaelic, online sources are not medieval plays in verse or rhyming comic strips but are overwhelmingly translated official documents like annual reports, Gaelic language plans, educational resources, news reports and such like. It also contains a lot of old Gaelic books that have been digitised with OCD but never proofed and other “wild west web” type content. And even within the formal documents available, these are more likely to be documents about education or local service provision, rather than say relating to science or engineering issues. In terms of breadth, there isn’t a huge amount of literary, colloquial or lower register material available online (though social media has increased this to some degree).
This means that what is available is somewhat stilted to the formal and high register rather than more informal everyday formats. This isn’t ideal. It means that everyday subjects can sound more stilted than they would be in natural Gaelic.
“Move over rover, and let Jimi take over!” – MT and corpus
As a minority language, Gaelic isn’t as standardised as English.
Don’t get me wrong, Gaelic is very standardised by minority language standards and dialect difficulties are minor.
However, in the issue of terminology, Gaelic isn’t as standardised as it might be, particularly for new and specialist terminology. A lot of work is needed to make sure that terminology of this type is agreed, understood and used. This is a part of what is called Corpus Planning. The more text that is written in Gaelic, and the wider the range, the more important that Corpus Planning becomes.
How does MT relate to Gaelic corpus planning? It doesn’t. Not at all. In fact, it works against it.
If specialist and new words are uncommon and are therefore not all over the internet for AI to see, MT may not pick up on the words that translators and experts use and will simply invent its own terms which are not likely to be as suitable or as readily understood.
Another problem is that Gaelic often doesn’t make distinctions between things in specialist writing in the way that English does due to a historic lack of use in formal documents. In the example of a risk assessment, for example, the English might use risk, danger and hazard in the same document. In Gaelic, most people would use “cunnart” for all three in the first instance and in translation, careful thought would have to be given. MT would be simply likely to come out with cunnart, cunnart and cunnart!
Furthermore, MT is inconsistent. In their 1967 song “The Wind Cries Mary” the Jimi Hendrix Experienced asked:
“Will the wind ever remember, the names it has blown in the past?”
For Google Translate, the answer is simply no. It will not consistently use the same term for the same word. If you put a document into MT in a programme that breaks text into different fields or if you put material into MT separately, it will often come out with different words for the same thing.
“I feel fantastic” – hallucination / uncanny valley and context
Like AI in general, MT hallucinates. It particularly does this if there are typos or punctuation marks in the wrong places and as a translator, I can confirm that there are almost always small mistakes in the source text. If you are translating from Gaelic to English, the problem is worse as spelling isn’t often as consistent.
MT is prone to inventing place-names. You are fine for major placenames but again, for smaller placenames that aren’t all over the internet, it will invent English equivalents for Gaelic names (say small hills or glens in the Highlands where there is no English equivalent) or Gaelic equivalents for obscure English names which don’t have a Gaelic equivalent. I’ve found it is particularly keen on creating Gaelic names for Orkney and Shetland where it uses the Gaelicised Norse names in the Hebrides to invent similar Gaelic names for the Northern Isles! This undermines the good efforts of Ainmean-àite na h-Alba, lead national corpus planning group for Gaelic place-names.
Never forget, if in doubt, MT always prioritises sounding correct over being correct!
MT also creates an uncanny valley. It says things in Gaelic which are not wrong grammatically but are a bit strange and unnatural. If you were a language teacher, you’d say “well, that’s not wrong, but you just wouldn’t say it!”
Uncanny Valley – picture of Tara the creepy android who spawned many internet conspieracy tehries
Perhaps most importantly is context. Good translation requires context and often there isn’t enough in translations fed into MT to ensure that a correct translation is given.
This is particularly the case for websites, one of the areas where unedited MT is often recommended as a way of accessing Gaelic content by the website owners. A lot of web text, particularly buttons and headings, is short and without context.
This matters. Does “refuse” mean diùlt (deny) or does it mean sgudal (rubbish)? Does “open” mean open as an adjective or as a verb? I also recently saw some MT generated text where “charge” as in electrical charge was translated as financial charge and “current” was translated in a temporal rather than an electric sense. Without enough context, this issue will never be ironed out.
Idioms are an issue too. For common idioms, no matter how different Gaelic and English versions are, MT should be able to handle it to some extent. But for less common idioms, where they are not all over the internet in writing, this isn’t the case and this is never likely to be solved. I was wondering about what the Gaelic would be for “to hold a candle to” the other day. For “this doesn’t hold a candle to”, Google Translate suggested a literal translation: “chan eil seo a’ cumail coinneal ris” which is a heinous calque and just doesn’t make sense in Gaelic.
The moral of the story is:“Machine translation can be bad, use a human translation and you’ll be glad!”
Anna Frater and Steven King ** – Gaelic speakers and reading
When I started learning Gaelic at university back in 1991, the amazing Gaelic poet Anna Frater was my Gaelic tutor and I was also lucky enough to have speaking classes with Mina Smith.
As well as learning the language, I had a learning moment about Gaelic reading. I was sitting my Gaelic exam and Anna was an invigilator. She had a paperback with her which was in English.
The young, ignorant and somewhat patronising Alasdair asked himself “why does Anna have an English book when she could have a Gaelic book? If I was fluent in Gaelic, I’d read Gaelic books all the time”.
I’m really embarrassed looking back on this now. People should read whatever they like in whatever language they like and restricting reading of English on ideological grounds would just be silly.
More pertinently, what I didn’t realise then was that there were in fact almost no Gaelic novels in print at the time and that someone could probably read all the Gaelic books in existence in the span of a few years. Things have moved on a lot since then, of course, in terms of written Gaelic but the point remains. I was thinking with a monolingual mindset and didn’t understand that Gaelic speakers have a different relationship with reading Gaelic and reading English.
A monolingual mindset is often the problem here.
Very few Gaelic speakers are as confident in reading and writing Gaelic as they are in English. Many extremely fluent native speakers didn’t get a chance to learn to read Gaelic at school or aren’t confident in reading Gaelic. Many younger fluent speakers are L2 speakers of Gaelic or have more confidence in their English reading skills than in their Gaelic skills.
Often too, Gaelic speakers tend to read about Gaelic in a narrower range of registers or domains than they would in English due to the reading material available.
And of course, Gaelic speakers are bilingual and have access to a near-infinite amount of reading material in English whether it be for pleasure in the magical world of literature or for necessity in the world of work reports and gas bills!
For the reasons above, material in Gaelic needs to be good and easy to understand and as idiomatic and natural as possible or people simply won’t read it. Translation in Gaelic is about status as well as corpus. It is about creating good material in Gaelic that encourages Gaelic speakers to read and increase their confidence in reading. Using unedited MT undermines this.
Does anybody remember the happy days of the early 80s where you’d buy a TV, a new-fangled microwave oven or your first video recorder and the instructions would invariably be appallingly translated from Japanese or Chinese? We’d struggle with the English instructions because we had no alternative but we’d never choose to read material like that if we had a choice.
Remember the halcyon days of the early 80s when we were encouraged to use microwaves to make Sunday roasts?
Why then would anybody choose to use a button that translates a website or document from good English into flawed Gaelic that might well contain inaccuracies?
Using MT is great for working out the gist of something in a language you don’t understand (I use it for reading articles on Wikipedia about French railways for example) but quite simply, nobody would ever use it to translate material from a language they understand perfectly to a language which they are less confident in reading.
Another danger is that if anybody is monitoring the usage of Gaelic on automatic translation buttons on their website, it will give them the false impression that there is no demand for written material in Gaelic. What is actually means is that there is no demand for AI slop.
Poisoning the well
Using unedited Machine Translation is simply poisoning the well for written Gaelic.
I saw a good example of this recently when the Bluesky interface was translated into Gaelic. I saw somebody saying “I see that Bluesky has been translated into Gaelic but it will just be machine translation so I’m not going to bother looking at it”. It was in fact translated by a translator but the perception that it might be MT was enough to put this person off and I suspect that this is a feeling that many people have.
Quite simply, people won’t read things they know or suspect to be unedited Machine Translation. Even worse, readers might thing that MT generated slop has been created by an actual translator which might bring real, live translators into disrepute. Either way, the more unedited MT is used, the more people will be reluctant to read any Gaelic.
Economic and cultural effect
Using unedited MT has risks for translators by reducing the work available. There is also a bigger issue about the use of post editing of MT driving down the pay for linguists which I don’t have time to cover here. These are not just abstract figures, these are real people, people you’ve met at cèilidhs, people who taught you a song, a story, the genitive case or the dental blocking rule who are might now find themselves in the unenviable position of having to reconsider both the cost of living crisis and a potential career swerve.
Conclusion:
Unedited Machine Translation is bad for Gaelic and rather than creating a lot of Gaelic reading material at virtually no cost it can actually discourage Gaelic reading and impoverish the language and damage the Gaelic economy.
“Unedited MT is bad for us and for me, it’s time to throw it into the sea”
Alasdair
*I have no dog in the fight in the great Cornish orthography debate and am not an expert. I don’t know whether the argument about language written in verse is justified or not and I’m aware that the counter argument is a lack of later written material but I’m just using it here to illustrate a point. I am, however, delighted that there is a standard written form and that the language continues to grow and thrive. I think Gaelic has a lot to learn from Cornish.
**I don’t think the book was actually was Steven King but it makes good clickbait!
If you are still reading, don’t forget to check out the excellent punk version of the Rupert the Bear theme tune by the chronically overrated Sunderland band the Toy Dolls!
Tha mi gu math dèidheil an dà chuid air rathaidean-iarainn agus ceòl roc agus nuair a bha mi ann an ear-thuath Shasainn bho chionn ghoirid airson turas dhan Tanfield Railway, bha deagh leisgeul agam a dhol air taistealachd roc.
Nuair a tha daoine a’ smaoineachadh air ceòl punc, mar as trice, bidh iad a’ smaoineachadh air Lunnainn, dachaigh a’ Chlash is nam Pistols. Ach ’s ann a bha mi a’ dèanamh air Sunderland, às bheil an comhlain na Toy Dolls.
Ma tha thu cho aosta ’s a tha mi fhèin, bidh cuimhne agad air mar a rinn iad tionndadh punc de Nellie the Elephant air ais ann an 1983. Bha mi sa bhun-sgoil aig an àm agus cheannaich mi an clàr-singilte.
Dè am b-side? Fisticuffs in Frederick Street!
Tha na Toy Dolls fhathast ri ceòl punc sgoinneil. Bidh iad a’ sgrìobhadh òrain mu charactaran agus dol a-mach àbhaisteach ann an sgeamaichean comhairle ann an ceann a tuath Shasainn le tiotalan leithid Dougie Gyro, Barry the Roofer agus the Lambrusco Kid.
Agus eu-choltach ri cuid de chomhlain punc, tha iad fìor mhath air ceòl – tha Olga, an seinneadair, na chluicheadair giotàir air leth agus tha Tommy Goober na chluicheadair beus gun samhail. Mur eil thu air èisteachd riutha roimhe, mholainn an clàr beò a rinn iad air ais ann an 2004. Còrdaidh e ri duine sam bith a tha measail air punc no air meatailt.
Chunnaic mi beò iad ann an Dùn Èideann an-uiridh agus abair gun robh iad math!
Le cuideachadh bho Ghoogle Maps, fhuair mi a-mach nach eil Frederick Street ach 5 mionaidean air falbh bho stèisean a’ bhaile is mar sin, leum mi air a’ chiad trèana bhon Chaisteal Nuadh.
Frederick Street, Sunderland
’S ann mu chlub oidhche a bha air leth garbh a tha an t-òran agus mar a bhiodh daoine a’ sabaid ann.
Lorg mi Fredrick Street agus chan eil an club ann tuilleadh, ach tha an t-sràid fhathast ann agus bha e math a bhith ann far an robh Olga uair!
Às dèidh sin, agus ag èisteachd ris na Toy Dolls, rinn mi air an stèisean a-rithist.
Tha stèisean Sunderland inntinneach oir bidh an dà chuid trèanaichean air an lìonra nàiseanta agus trèanaichean aig an Tyne and Wear metro ga chleachdadh, air na h-aon tracaichean.
Chaidh mi ann air trèana Northern agus thill mi air trèana a’ Mheatro.
’S e deagh àm airson a bhith a’ dol air a’ mheatro a tha seo oir tha na seann trèanaichean bho thòiseach nan 80an a’ dol a-mach à seirbheis agus tha trèanaichean ùra a’ tighinn a-steach agus chithear an dà chuid an-dràsta.
Diaordaoin 11 an Dùbhlachd 2025, 5.30f, Leabharlann Mitchell / air-loidhne
Màiri Challan: ‘Slighe Fonn na bàrdachd: Bho Bhalbhachd nan duilleag gu Binn-ghuthan an t-Sluaigh’
Fàilte bhlàth air a h-uile duine!
Cuiribh fios gun rùnaire (a_maccoinnich@hotmail.com) a dh’ iarraidh ceangal-lìn. Tha sinn a’ sireadh £5 o aoighean. Tha seo saor an asgaidh do bhuill – is faodar ballrachd-bhliadhnail a ghabhail – £25. Saor an asgaidh do dh’oileanaich.
Cuiribh fios gun rùnaire (a_maccoinnich@hotmail.com) a dh’ iarraidh ceangal-lìn. Tha sinn a’ sireadh £5 o aoighean. Tha seo saor an asgaidh do bhuill – is faodar ballrachd-bhliadhnail a ghabhail – £25. Saor an asgaidh do dh’oileanaich.
An Dr Aonghas MacLeòid (Glaschu): ‘Raiders Bhatarsaigh san Iar Mhanachainn: Deasbadan is Connspaid’
Fàilte bhlàth air a h-uile duine!
Cuiribh fios gun rùnaire (a_maccoinnich@hotmail.com) a dh’ iarraidh ceangal-lìn. Tha sinn a’ sireadh £5 o aoighean. Tha seo saor an asgaidh do bhuill – is faodar ballrachd-bhliadhnail a ghabhail – £25. Saor an asgaidh do dh’oileanaich.
Thadhail buill de Chomataidh Chùisean Dùthchail is Eileanan Thaigh an Ròid air ceithir croitean anns an Eilean Sgitheanach air an deireadh-sheachdain mar phàirt den sgrùdadh aca air Bile na Croitearachd is Cùirt an Fhearainn. Bha a’ Chomataidh airson bruidhinn gu dìreach ri croitearan mu mar a bheireadh molaidhean a’ Bhile buaidh air coimhearsnachdan croitearachd. Thadhail … Leugh an corr de Fios: Comataidh Thaigh an Ròid a’ tadhal air coimhearsnachdan croitearachd air an Eilean Sgitheanach
Bidh fios aig luchd-leughadh cunbhalach gu bheil mi beò-ghlaicte le Loidhne a’ Chinn a Tuath eadar Inbhir Nis agus Inbhir Ùige/Inbhir Theòrsa.
Chaidh mi air turas eile ann tràth san Iuchar airson a dhol gu stèisean Allt nam Breac ann an Gallaibh a tha air ùr fhosgladh às dèidh dha a bhith dùinte far còrr is bliadhna.
Agus fhad ’s a bha mi aig tuath, chuir mi turas air dòigh thairis air a’ chrìch ann an Cataibh gu Tèarmann Nàdair Nàiseanta Fhors an-Àird, àite a tha air a bhith air an liosta-bhucaid agam fad bhliadhnaichean.
Thòisich an turas agam le moch-èirigh Dihaoine gus am bus a ghlacadh dhan bhaile aig 6:15 airson trèana 7:07 gu Inbhir Nis agus trèana 10:40 gu Allt nam Breac. Chuir mi crìoch air beagan obair eadar-theangachaidh a bh’ agam ri dhèanamh agus an uair sin bha norrag-chumhachd agam agus chan fhada gus an robh sinn ann an Inbhir Nis.
Dh’fhalbh sinn air an uair air loidhne a’ chinn a tuath. Tha mi air a siubhal oirre gu math tric bho chionn ghoirid ach chan fhàs mi sgìth dhì uair sam bith. Tha an loidhne air fad dìreach àlainn le seallaidhean nach gabh a chreidsinn, eadar talamh àiteachas còmhnard, beanntan, lochan, seallaidhean den mhuir agus na flobhaichean (the flow country).
’S e rud sònraichte leis an loidhne gu bheil i a’ dol a-steach dhan tìr ann an taobh tuath Chataibh is Ghallaibh air slighe eadar-dhealaichte bhon rathad agus gum faic thu àiteachan nach fhaicear bhon chàr no bus, nam measg stèiseanan Fors an-Àird agus Allt nam Breac.
Chaidh mi gu Allt nam Breac an tòiseach. ’S e stèisean beag is iomallach a tha seo. Chanar gu math tric gur e Coire Odhar air loidhne na Gàidhealtachd an Iar an stèisean as iomallaiche an Alba ach ged nach eil ceangal rathaid dhan àite, tha taigh-òsta spaideil ann. Ann an Allt nam Breac, chan eil ceangail rathaid ann nas motha agus chan eil ach 4 no 5 taighean sgaipte ann agus gun rud sam bith eile ann!
’S e stad air iarrtais a th’ ann. Feumaidh tu innse do stiùiriche na trèana gu bheil thu airson ’s gun stad an trèana ann agus ma tha thu airson an trèana a ghlacadh ann an Allt nam Breac, feumaidh tu do ghàirdean a chur a-mach mar a dhèanadh tu le bus. Mur a dèan thu sin, cha stad an trèana ann.
Cha deach an stèisean a thogail gus coimhearsnachd no fiù ’s taigh-òsta a fhrithealadh ach a chionn ’s gun robh feum air tùr-uisge do na trèanaichean smùid agus air lùb seachnaidh gus am faigheadh na trèanaichean seachad air a’ chèile. Chuir e rud beag iongnadh air stiùiriche an trèana gun robh mi gu bhith a’ tighinn far na trèana aig stèisean cho iomallach.
Bha mi caran draghail mu bhith a’ tadhal air an stèisean oir dhùin i fad 18 mìosan mar thoradh air eus-aonta eadar na daoine leis a bheil an taigh ri taobh an stèisein agus Network Rail mu bhith a’ faighinn dhan àrd-ùrlar airson obair càraidh. Tha cùisean sìobhalta agus cùisean eucoireach air a bhith ann mun chùis.
Cha robh duilgheadas sam bith agam, ge-tà. Chaidh mi a-mach às an stèisean agus shìos an rathad agus choisich mi sìos gu Loch Dubh. Bha mi air planadh coiseachd na b’ fhaide ach ’s ann a bha e anabarrach fhèin teth. Feumaidh gun robh e mu 28c agus cha robh fiù ’s oiteag gaoithe ann agus glè bheag de dh’fhasgadh. Cha do smaoinich mi air “grian-dìon” no suntan lotion a thoirt leum nas motha – oir mar as trice cha bhi feum air a leithid ann an Gallaibh.
Chunnaic mi gu leòr air an turas ge-tà, a’ gabhail a-steach taigh treigte brèagha agus loidse Loch Dhuibh agus eile.
Chaidh mi air ais dhan stèisean às dèidh uair no dhà oir bha e fada ro theth. Chaidh mi a-staigh gu bothan an stèisein ach bha e fada ro theth an sin cuideachd! Shuidh mi sìos fo chraobh le leabhar ach ged a bha e na b’ fhuaire an sin, bha fada chus chuileagan ann. ’S e an superpower agam nach bi meanbh-chuileagan gam bhìdeadh idir agus bha sin feumail ach gu mì-fhortanach, tha creithleagan nan each (clegs) a cheart cho dèidheil orm ’s a tha iad air a h-uile duine eile agus bha gu leòr aca ann…
Chan eil trèanaichean cho pailt ann an Allt nam Breac agus bha dà uair a thìde ri feitheimh gus an tigeadh an ath thrèana gu tuath.
Shuidh mi sìos air a’ bheing air san stèisean agus thàinig an tè a tha a’ fuireach ann an taigh an stèisean gus bruidhinn rium agus thug i deoch fuar dhomh is bha mi fada na comain.
Thàinig a cearcan a-mach airson bruidhinn rium cuideachd.
Às dèidh sinn, dh’èist mi ri podcast no dhà gus an tàinig an trèana.
Rinn mi caraid ùr aig Allt nam Breac
Bha an trèana gu bhith ann aig 17:20 ach cha robh sgeul oirre. Bidh na trèanaichean gu tric air dhèireadh air loidhne a’ Chinn a Tuath ach bha mi ann an stèisean gun clàr fiosrachaidh no siognal airson fòn làimh. Gu fortanach, tha fòn ann gus fios a chur gu ScotRail agus thog mi e is thuirt iad gun robh an trèana mu 25 mionaidean air dheireadh. Bha mi toilichte cluinntinn gun robh i air an t-slighe oir cha bhiodh an ath thrèana ann gu 21:50!
Trèanaichean ann an Allt nam Breac agus Inbhir Theòrsa
Às dèidh oidhche ann an Inbhir Theòrsa, ghlac mi an 08:34 gu deas agus ràining mi Fors an-Àird aig 09:13.
‘S e stèisean gu math iomallach is beag a th’ ann ach tha e cudromach oir tha lùb seachnaidh ann agus ’s ann an seo a bhios na trèanaichean eadar tuath is deas a’ dol seachad air a’ chèile.
‘S e stèisean àlainn a th’ ann cuideachd, le taigh an stèisean a-nis na ionad tadhail airson Tèarmann Nàdair Nàiseanta Flobhaichean Fhors an-Àird agus tha flùraichean gu leòr ann.
Fhuair mi beachd airson còmhlan roc ann an Ionad an RBPB cuideachd:
“Hallò Cleveland, is sinne:
Agus seo a’ chiad òran bhon chlàr concept dùbailte againn:
Tha ionad nam Flobhaichean fìor mhath le gu leòr mu cho cudromach ’s a tha iad dhan àrainneachd agus mun obair a tha iad a’ dèanamh gus cur às do na craobhan a chaidh a chur ann sna 1980an a tha a’ drèanadh nam flobhaichean agus a’ leigeil CO2 a-mach.
Tha e fìor mhath ath-bheòthachadh nam flobhaichean fhaicinn.
Tha ceum-coiseachd ùr ann le tùr le seallaidhean matha den sgìre agus pannalan fiosrachaidh mu nàdar anns na boglaichean.
Aon rud a bhuail orm, ’s e nach robh Gàidhlig ri fhaighinn ann an soidhnichean no eadar-mhìneachadh ach a-mhàin ach a-mhàin an rud gu h-àrd (“Blazing knitting needles”).
Airson Tèarmann Nàdar Nàiseanta, tha e neònach nach eil soidhnichean Gàidhlig ann idir. Chan eil mi a’ utigsinn carson nach eil barrachd cuideam air a’ Ghàidhlig anns na tèarmainn nàdair nàiseanta. Dh’fhàg mi nòta ann an an leabhran an luchd-tadhail mu dheidhinn.
Chaidh mi airson srùbag ann an seòmar-tì Loidse Fors an-Àird agus nuair a thill mi dhan stèisean, chunnaic mi gun deach mo thrèana gu deas a chur dheth is gum biodh trì uairean gu leth ann dhan ath thrèana. Chuir mi fios gu ScotRail air a’ fòn aca air an àrd-ùrlar agus thuirt iad nach biodh e comasach còmhdhail eile a chur air dòigh. Leis gun robh e air leth teth agus gun robh mi ann na àite gu math iomallach gun ghioreasan, mhol iad gum bu chòir dhomh an ath thrèana gu tuath a ghlacadh gu Inbhir Ùige is air ais oir ’s e sin an ath thrèana a bhiodh a’ dol gu deas co-dhiù.
Mar sin, bha latha fada agam ach fhuair mi leisgeul a dhol air ais a dh’Inbhir Ùige air an trèana!
