Arran Boat Song: A Song History
"The Arran Boat Song" is an air in triple time that the Traditional Tune Archive classes as Scottish, from the Highlands; it is also known as "The Highland Boat Song."[1][2] Arran itself is the largest island of North Ayrshire, lying where the Firth of Clyde opens to the Atlantic.[3] The sources consulted here name no composer, and none of them documents a Gaelic original or a song text of its own.
Thomas Miles Richardson, Isle of Arran, early morn, watercolor with gouache, 1830–39. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its view of Arran; it has no connection to the tune.
The earliest printing the Tune Archive lists is in Maver's Collection of Genuine Scottish Melodies (1866), where it appears as "Highland Boat Song" (No. 107).[1] The Arran title appears in the first volume of James S. Kerr's Merry Melodies, a book the Archive dates to about 1875 in one entry and about 1880 in another.[1][2]
The air has since turned up in later fiddle collections such as Kilted Fiddler (1985) and Gatherer's Musical Museum (1987), and John and Phil Cunningham recorded it on their album Against the Storm.[1]
Find books with Arran Boat Song for sale →