PARAIG MACNEIL

Traditional Scottish

Storyteller

will provide two sessions,

both of which will feature a mix of English and Gaelic.

There will be much to enjoy

for non-Gaelic speakers

as well as for Gaelic

speakers and Gaelic learners.

SATURDAY 16th JUNE at 3.30

FOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS, GAELIC LEARNERS AND ADULTS

TARTAN TRUTHS

Through traditional, stories, songs and poems Paraig will illustrate the importance of the Breacan or tartan as the dress of the warrior Gael and latterly symbolic of the Jacobites.
He will dispel the fabricated history, born of commercial and military expediency, and will demonstrate how the old plaid or feile-mor is worn.

SUNDAY 17th JUNE at 3.30

FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS AND GAELIC LEARNERS

TALES FOR CHILDREN
Paraig will provide a session of interactive stories together with simple songs and rhymes accompanied with a trumb (Jew's Harp).

Paraig MacNeil was born in 1955 and brought up in a Highland family in Perthshire.. His great-uncle was a seanchaidh (a reciter of tales) and he has early memories of being bivouacked on the floor during family ceilidhs.

Since 1988 Paraig has been committed to the lore and language of the Highlands and to his vocation as a traditional storyteller. He tells stories in English, Scots and Gaelic – or a mixture of all three; epic tales, clan legends, histories and genealogies, wonder tales, tales of seal-folk and the sea, comic tales of wise fools, place name stories, stories of emigration, Jacobites and the Wars of Independence.

A natural entertainer, combining seriousness with humour, he is an Equity member, and has featured on radio and appeared on television.

His storytelling is interwoven with Gaelic song and poetry of which he is a passionate exponent. Keen to keep the tradition alive, he also writes songs in Scots, Gaelic and English.

Paraig has told his stories in schools, libraries, community venues, festivals, country house hotels and castles.

His wearing of the ancient belted-plaid gives him a dramatic on-stage presence.