Dark Island: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

"The Dark Island" is played either as a pipe air in 6/4 or as a waltz in 3/4.[1] It is usually attributed to Iain MacLachlan (1927–1995), a Hebridean accordionist.[2] He was born at Hacklett on Benbecula and died at Creagorry, and he was best known for his playing of the three-row button accordion, though he also took up pipes, fiddle and melodeon.[3][4] According to the notes to his album, he first wrote the melody in 1958 as a pipe lament honouring a local doctor and called it "Dr. Mackay's Farewell to Creagorry"; one Traditional Tune Archive entry gives 1963 instead.[3][1] Another Archive entry calls the tune's beginnings unclear: it has sometimes been labelled traditional, and rival accounts name Roddy Macaulay or Allan MacCormack as composer, though every version has the melody existing before the BBC used it.[5]

Watercolor of the Cuillin Hills on the Isle of Skye rising beyond a rocky moorland stream

Paul Jacob Naftel, The Cuillin Hills, Isle of Skye, watercolor and gouache, 1865–71. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Skye, not Benbecula; shown for its Hebridean scenery, and it has no connection to the tune.

Its present name comes from The Dark Island, a BBC television thriller that adopted the melody as its theme and was filmed on Benbecula.[1][3][5] The Archive and the album notes associate the series with 1963, while a broadcast-history site lists a 1962 transmission, so its exact date is uncertain.[1][3][6] The programme made the tune so familiar that the new title displaced the old one.[2] The first lyric came from David Silver, whom the album notes describe as a writer and producer, and the BBC version was credited to Silver for the words and MacLachlan for the music; further lyric sets followed, among them a Gaelic one, "Eilean Dorcha."[3][5][1]

Instrumentalists have taken it up as well: it appears in collections for the English bagpipe (1989) and for fiddle (1991).[1] MacLachlan's own playing was issued by Springthyme Records as An Island Heritage (cassette 1987, CD 1997), whose notes count more than a hundred artists and bands who had recorded the tune.[3]

Find books with Dark Island for sale →

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Dark Island".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Dr. MacKay's Farewell to Creagorry".
  3. Springthyme Records: "Iain McLachlan: An Island Heritage" (SPRCD 1022; notes by Peter Shepheard).
  4. Tobar an Dualchais / Kist o Riches: "Iain MacLachlan".
  5. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Dr. McInnes's Farewell to South Uist".
  6. Scotland on Air: "The Dark Island".