The Dark Island - An t-Eilean Dubh

[Geoff Noble]

This was a tune that we played at my recent visit to the Scottish Steel Players meeting at Gartcosh in Scotland, one of many we did on the Round Robin. I liked the feel of the song and decided to work on a version of it.

Dark Island was originally an instrumental, originally entitled Dr Mackay's Farewell To Creagorry. Iain Maclachlan was stated to be the author of the tune in around 1958. It was used as an accordian melody for a BBC theme tune for the 1962 TV series 'Dark Island', a spy thriller, re-titled for the TV series, there were no words to it. Several writers from about 1963 added words, including Glasgow writer David Silver whose famous 'Away to the West', words about Benbecula were then added to the tune to create a song. These were then translated from English into Gaelic.

The video footage was taken on a trip my wife and I made touring around the Hebrides, we fell in love with the islands and the song reflected that feeling of mystery and outstanding scenery that we discovered there including the most amazing silver sand beaches composed of broken down sea shells over thousands of years.

Anyway, this is for all the guys at Gartcosh who always make anyone attending most welcome. Hope you like it.

https://youtu.be/DVVoqwaNb0E?si=rD-FZ5phYUT7TDet

[Lee Rider]

Very nice!

[Geoff Noble]

Very nice!

Thanks Lee, enjoyed playing it.