Hi!
Here are a couple of news articles about Runrig that I posted over in the Celtic Languages In the News thread.
Hope you enjoy them!
Munro embodies Scotland's music and culture (Scottish Gaelic)
1. http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=160682005
KENNY MATHIESON Scotsman.com
Mon 14 Feb 2005
DONNIE Munro has proved that there is life after Runrig, even if his aim to sit in Parliament failed. The band's former lead singer has continued his career as a solo artist, and is also an indefatigable worker for Gaelic language and culture.
Runrig is a uniquely Scottish phenomenon. A Celtic rock band with roots in Skye and a huge following across Scotland, the group's palpable sense of communion with their audience and the immediacy and passion of their music survived the journey from local dance band in the Western Isles to national institution.
Munro fronted Runrig through their glory years, and his final gigs with the band at Stirling Castle in 1997 were highly emotional affairs for all concerned.
"Leaving Runrig was always going to be painful," he admits. "We grew up as a band, and there was a very close personal connection. It was a painful break to make, but I think there are times in life that you know you have to make certain decisions, even if it might be easier not to."
One of the primary reasons for leaving was his ambition to be elected to Parliament. He stood for Labour in his home constituency of Ross, Skye and Inverness West, but lost out to Charles Kennedy, now the leader of the Liberal Democrats, who also happens to be a big Runrig fan. (Munro's colleague from Runrig, keyboard player Peter Wishart, fared better, and is now the Scottish National Party's chief whip and spokesperson for Transport, Rural Affairs, Culture, Media and Sport).
Munro has not run for office since, but it is a door that he chooses to leave open.
"I remain open-minded about standing for election again," he says. "I would certainly not rule anything out. It's a question I'm often asked, and I've said all along that I continue with political activity in a wider sense anyway in my various involvements."
Those include his solo career as a singer and songwriter. Munro has issued several albums, including a project entirely devoted to traditional Gaelic songs. He writes most of his material, but still returns to songs from the Runrig era as well.
"It was strange at first," he admits, "and I definitely felt a bit out on a limb. With Runrig we created an entity together, but now it's very much me and my songs, and I think that maybe creates a more relaxed, more intimate relationship with the audience and the music.
"I do go back to the Runrig songs as well," says Munro. "It's all about the song for me, and as far as I'm concerned, those songs by Calum and Rory MacDonald are some of the best things to have come out of Scotland."
Munro also has served as rector of both Edinburgh University and the University of the Highlands and Islands, and is involved in awareness-raising with Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic College at Sleat on his native Skye.
"I'm very proud to be involved with Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, which to my knowledge is the only institution in the world dealing with higher education solely through Gaelic language," explains Munro. "I've always seen the development work as an extension of what I was doing in Runrig," he says.
"I grew up in a house where Gaelic was spoken, but it was very much discouraged in school, and the pervasive influence of television added to that," Munro says. "I came to it again through music, and this work (with Sabhal Mòr Ostaig) is a wonderful opportunity for me to be involved with projects which recognise the value of regenerating Gaelic language and the economic, social and cultural health of the Gaidhealtachd."
In 2003, Munro completed a 20-day trek in Nepal to within sight of Everest, following the original supply route taken by the 1953 British expedition. The walk was done on behalf of the Highland Society for the Blind ? of which he is president - and was partly inspired by a family photograph of a two-year-old Munro perched on the shoulders of Edmund Hillary when the great mountaineer visited Skye in 1955.
"Apparently he broke his ankle climbing in the Cuillins!" Munro claims. "The trek was a very special undertaking for me. It was an absolutely wonderful experience made all the more significant by walking and living with my friend Sherpa Nema Tend and his family.
"In many ways their lives are probably close to what life was like in the Highlands and Islands a century or more ago."
©2005 Scotsman.com
March 25, 2005
Grand Gaelic gathering is unveiled for Glasgow (Scottish Gaelic)
http://news.scotsman.com/glasgow.cfm?id=317872005
The Scotsman
Fri 25 Mar 2005
Scotland - Glasgow
CHRIS MCAULEY
AN AMBITIOUS plan to bring together the largest number of Gaelic poets and musicians ever assembled was unveiled in Glasgow yesterday.
The Flower of the West project, launched by the Glasgow Gaelic Arts' An Lochran organisation, will promote Gaelic culture though the enduring work of the well-known Scots band, Runrig.
The idea is to bring to life - through music, song and poetry - the images from Flower of the West, a book written by Calum and Rory MacDonald of Runrig.
The story documents the brothers' journey in spreading Gaelic culture across the world through music, verse and song.
The celebration of Celtic tradition is planned for May when artists, poets, singers and performers will converge on Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall to hail the lasting legacy of Runrig, and the influence the MacDonald brothers, in particular, have had in delivering the traditional Gaelic culture to an international audience.
Helping to get the show on the road yesterday at Cafe Gandolfi in the Merchant City was Stevie Jackson, better known as the guitarist with the internationally acclaimed Glasgow band Belle and Sebastian.
He said: "The overall concept is to make the Gaelic culture in Glasgow that bit more apparent, and I am only too happy to help out with that, even though I don't speak the language myself."
The Flower of the West event is part of a broader programme of Gaelic arts activity planned for the city during the coming months, and has been developed in conjunction with Glasgow City Council.
©2005 Scotsman.com
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