Tha Mark Wringe a' cur an aithne Essie Stiùbhairt aig Fèis Leabhraichean Ulapuil

'S e seanchaidh traidiseanta à Cataibh a th' ann an Essie Stiùbhairt agus 's i tè na daoine mu dheireadh a bha an sàs sa 'Choiseachd Shamhraidh' a bhiodh aig an luchd-taisteil. 'S e ban-ogha aig Ailidh Dall Stiùbhart (1882-1968) a th' innte, agus bha e-fhèin am measg nan seanchaidhean Gàidhlig a b' fheàrr a bh' ann. Tha Essie ag innse a sgeulachdan san dà chuid, Beurla is Gàidhlig.<br /> <br /> Sa chuibhreann chlaistinneach seo, air a chlàradh aig Fèis Leabhraichean Ulapuil ann an 2008, tha Mark Wringe, a tha na òraidiche aig Colaiste na Gàidhlig, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig san Eilean Sgitheanach, a' cur Essie an aithne an luchd-èisteachd.<br /> <br /> 'You're very welcome to this bilingual session, in Gaelic and English this morning with Essie Stewart. My name is Mark Wringe and I'm going to be doing very little speaking. Essie Stewart, I think, probably most of you will know; you've all come here because you wanted to hear Essie, and many of you will have heard Essie before in both Gaelic and English. Essie's stories are, of course, originally in Gaelic and she can tell them in both languages and they are the stories of her grandfather, Ailidh Dall, and the stories that she absorbed for many years on the roads of the north of Scotland, Sutherland in particular, her home county, and Essie is just, in the last couple of years, back home in Sutherland. A very different place now to what it was when - <br /> <br /> Essie: Definitely.<br /> <br /> Ailidh Dall and yourself were on the road?<br /> <br /> Essie: Oh yes, definitely.<br /> <br /> And I think Essie might say a little bit about that later on. And we're going to hear a sort of a middling sized story, I think, yes? [laughter] In English first, and a kind of summary of it in Gaelic after that. [] Those of you who are not Gaelic speakers will, I think, already appreciate what a very rare and wonderful thing it is to hear these stories these days. It's an extremely rare opportunity to hear them. For those of you who are Gaelic speakers there's also another really special and rare thing about hearing them and that's hearing the sound of Essie's Gaelic - a type of Gaelic, a dialect of Gaelic, which has gone out of existence really now, and Essie is one of the last people to have that particular mainland with strong Perthshire elements in it, and Essie might explain that later. So, please would you welcome in the normal way, Essie Stewart. <br /> <br /> [Applause]<br /> <br /> Moran taing, Mark. Madain mhath a chàirdean. Good morning everybody. It's my pleasure to be with you here in Ullapool at the Ullapool Book Festival.'