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Kintyre


Kintyre is not particularly weel-kent for Scots songs, but the collecting of Hamish Henderson tapped into a rich seam of local singers and songmakers around Campbeltown. In particular, the local butcher, Willie Mitchell, and his friends Alec, Jock and James MacShannon.

Alec MacShannon sings the song Callieburn, about a group of friends leaving their home north of Campbeltown, recorded in 1956 by Hamish Henderson, at the Kist o Riches website.

Willie Mitchell sings the story of Donal MacLean's Coo, a rather unfortunate beast kept by a man outside Campbeltown: http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/49929/3

Killeonan is, unusually, a bothy ballad from near Campbeltown, again sung by Willie Mitchell: http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/49935/7

Willie was also a keen songwriter, most famously penning The Road to Drumleman in 1948, covered by the folk groups Ossian and Malinky.