Gile na gile

I found a translation of the poem. I also realised that much of the novel takes place earlier than 1932, but certainly not as early as 1892, the year in which women were admitted to Glasgow University.

In the end The Albannach is about Murdo, the protagonist, finding his true self, his identity as a Highland Scot, a Gaelic speaker and a piper. Oddly enough, considering the misogyny, it turns out that the great Murdo, the man who leads his village from the horrors of Calvinism into the sunny uplands of Alba, seems to have been taught to play the pipes by his mother.

"'God about us!' exclaimed Duncan Lachlan Iain, as if in the greatest consternation. 'A woman piper! I won't believe it. The day I see a man bear a child that day I'll see a woman tune the pipes, and that day I'll know I am dead. Man, man, they have not the wind nor the trick of the fingers nor the musician's ear not the poet's heart.'"

The Albannach, Finn Mac Colla.

This evening I certainly felt unfit to play. Following the fan's suggestion that I work on more reels and jigs I've been working on Troy, Miss Girdle and Crossing the Minch.  I've been thwarted by an utter inability to hold pipes and bellows in a way that doesn't involve a numb arm, cricked neck and sore thumb. Maybe it's the drop in temperature - I've had to resort to playing in fingerless mitts. In the midst of all the physical discomfort I got the buzz: there really is no rhyme or reason to it.