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SWS23 2022

Machair

Gathering Seaweed
Liniclate, Isle of Benbecula, UK
35 minutes
Free
Gaelic

Soundwalk

Collection · 288 items

Landscape

Collection · 462 items

environment

Collection · 245 items

place

Collection · 395 items
Sound walk

This soundwalk explores the traditions and ecology of Uist’s machair. A Gaelic word meaning fertile, low-lying grassy plain, machair is one of Europe’s rarest yet most species-rich habitats; only occurring on the exposed west-facing shores of Scotland and Ireland, 70% of which is found on Uist. Generations of low-intensity farming have shaped this unique landscape and encouraged wildlife over millennia. Developed in partnership with the local community, this work combines spoken narratives, field recordings, and compositions with archival sound recordings from Edinburgh University’s School of Scottish Studies, that chart over 70-years of recorded history.

This work was commissioned by Dandelion and Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre, with funds from Event Scotland.

Credits

Production Team: Duncan MacLeod (composer), Mairi McFadyen (creative ethnologist), and Sorcha Monk (creative producer),

Contributors: Alisdair MacEachen, Freddie MacDonald, Seoras MacDonald, and Matthew Topsfield.


Hosted by: Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre, Lochmaddy, Isle of North Uist

APA style reference

MacLeod, D. (2022). Machair. walk · listen · create. https://walklistencreate.org/walkingpiece/machair/

2 thoughts on “Machair

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snaffle, snoodle

These fanciful-sounding words have no definitive origin: They probably just sounded right to someone who was sauntering, which is what they both mean. An Oxford English Dictionary (OED) example from 1821 describes someone “soodling up and down the street.” Credits to Mark Peters.

Added by Geert Vermeire
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