Gaelic Tree Alphabet

Why the Gaelic Tree Alphabet? It started last year on a rewilding retreat with Scotland the Big Picture in the Cairngorms. It started with a conversation amongst the participants and our guide Malcolm. Malcolm spoke about his children learning Gaelic and the way the Gaelic tree alphabet was used to learn the A, B C’s; it carried on when we visited the community garden in Carrbridge where there are benches carved with the trees of the Gaelic alphabet. Our visit to the Trees for Life HQ at Dundreggan gave further introduction to the Gaelic language and the way it was used to name places. The Gaelic language, while not formally banned was largely supressed following the battle of Culloden in 1746 and the subsequent Highland Clearances. With Gaelic spoken in fewer and fewer places English and Scots became the dominant language in the cities and lowlands of Scotland while Gaelic was confined to the Highlands and Islands. The Education act passed in 1872 ensured that English was the only language taught in schools and those children in Gaelic speaking regions had no opportunity to pursue their formal education in their native tongue. Think about that less than 100 years ago children speaking Gaelic in schools were beaten into speaking English. Yet, despite over 200 years of repression, the Gaelic language has remained important in Scottish folklore, writing and music - think Runrig, Skerryvore, Skipinish, Tidelines and Julie Fowlis to name but a few; and despite Gaelic speakers dropping to less than 1% of the population in 2011, Gaelic language learning has returned to schools and there is now a Gaelic TV channel BBC Alba. All of this piqued an interest in me, and I wondered if creating a visual photo resource would make an ideal Big Project. I began to research and found a very helpful website (https://silvotherapy.co.uk/gaelic-tree-alphabet) which not only gave me the names of the trees but help in pronunciation and the folklore associated with each tree. Did I face challenges? Yes, for sure, where the heck will I find an elm? What’s the difference between an ash and a rowan or the difference between a silver birch and a downy birch. I needn’t have worried I found all the trees in the alphabet within 10miles of my home, in fact I found we had 10 of the 18 trees in our garden! I was delighted to find not one but several wych elms in our local park, while a bit of research told me downy birches preferred boggy land, and I was able to find some in the wetland area of a local woodland. My next decision was should I make the images all in one season. In the end I decided not to do this but instead to use the best photographs of each of the tree species. I may return to the project and make more than one version of the project I may even do a version that includes the folklore attached to each of the trees. Whatever I decide to do I have loved this project; it has enhanced my tree identification skills greatly; I can now easily tell the difference between an Ash and a Rowan using their leaves, their flowers and their fruiting bodies, I easily recognise alder and elder and elm which I’d long forgotten. I also found that as a photographer I like to tell stories with my images I like them to have a bit of background for me to get my teeth into so to speak, and I discovered I’m quite a documentary type pf photographer, I’m OK with that but sometimes I might dabble in something a bit leas literal…. We shall see. In the meantime, what stories can I tell in my project next year.