Seaweed History with Alasdair White

Alasdair Whyte – Gaelic Seaweed Workshop

As part of our learning about seaweed, we were so grateful to Alasdair Whyte for taking time out of his busy schedule to come and share his extensive Gaelic and Local History knowledge with the children.

He talked the children through a number of Gaelic names for familiar seaweeds, explaining the meaning behind them when translated.  One of our favourites was for Serrated Wrack, which in Gaelic is known as Chriein.  The Gaelic word cìrean means ‘a wee comb’. It is also the word used for a cockscomb: the fleshy bit on the top of the head of some birds like domestic cockerels. In the name of this type of seaweed, it describes the seaweed’s ‘serrated’ or ‘jagged’ or comb-like shape. The Gaelic name means ‘the comb-seaweed’ or ‘the seaweed that looks like a comb’.

The children learned some Gaelic phrases which include seaweed in them, for example,

Tha an uiread aig Mrs Carmichael ri dhèanadh eadar duileasg is maorach.

(‘Mrs Carmichael has so much to do between harvesting dulse and shellfish.’)

This highlighted to the children that seaweed was clearly playing a big part in daily life on the islands, for there to have been phrases created including it.

Another highlight for the children was finding out there is a tiny island off the coast of the south of Mull which in English is called Dulse Island and in Gaelic is called Eilean Duilisg!  The seaweed must have been important to this community to name an island after the seaweed that was growing around its waters.