GAELIC SOCIETY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3743, 8 December 1925, Page 30

GAELIC SOCIETY.

The monthly meeting of the Gaelic Society was held on Friday evening in the Oddfellows’ Hall, Stuart street, Chieftains Roderick M‘Kenzie and W. H. M‘Leod presiding. * Chieftain Roderick M‘Kenzie read apologies received from Chief John M‘Kenzie and Chieftain Sir Thomas Mackenzie, who will leave Wellington for a trip Home. The chieftain also welcomed two old members of the society, Dr Gordon Macdonald and Bard M'Fadyen. The musical programme was highly entertaining and was enjoyed by the audience. The first item on the programme was a Gaelic tong by Bard M‘Fadyen. Other contributions were rendered by Mrs Gordon Macdonald, “Blue Bonnets Over the Border,” and, to an encore, “Caller Herrin’ ” ; Mr Miller, “Come Back, Nanny” and “Yorkshire Puddin’”; Piper George Munro, a pipe selection; Mrs Carmichael, “Cam’ Ye By Athol” and “Will Ye No Come Back Again?”; Miss Kennedy. Gaelio eong, “Hi horo s ’no horo eile,” “Fal il o agus horo eile”; Mr 9 Frood, “Scotland Yet”; Mr Gibson, “My Native Highland Home” and “The Wee Thing That Jagged Them A’.” Piper George Munro supplied the national music, and Mr Alexander M'Kenzie was M.C. During the evening Dr Gordon Macdonald gave a brief account of the origin, rise, and fall of the Stuart dynasty. Tn the course of his remarks he referred to a letter in the British section of the Exhibition, purporting to be from John Knox, the Scottish reformer, to Sir William Cecil in England, said to he covertly suggesting the execution of Queen Mary of Scotland. He also referred to the tale circulated in seafaring circles in Otago, that a French ship in the early forties marooned a female passenger on the M'Quarrie Islands. He said the femnle was supposed to be the illegitimate daughter of Prince Charlie, and hence the henther growing upon that lone isle. Captain Duncan Cameron, formerly of the Union Steam Ship Company, visited the island, saw her abode, her grave, and the heather, and has a specimen of the latter growing in his warden. He also referred to Prince Rupert of Bavaria ns a possible claimant to the Stuart succession; also to the fact that Mr Donald Munro. of Port Chalmers, had in his possession a silver medal secured by a returned soldier on the battlefields of France, the silver medal having been cast bv Prince Rupert’s mother, who was a Slnart. Finally, he gnve the origin and niennine of the prenomens Fitz, Mac, and O’ in British names.