This weekend, Camanachd Leòdhais break new ground with a new opponent and a new city with the club’s first ever game in Edinburgh, a Chieftain’s Cup quarter final against Tayforth.
Once based in Perth, Tayforth have made Edinburgh their home for over the last decade. However, the club has had some connections over the years with Sean MacLeod having been a popular player when he turned out for Tayforth back in 2012, and then in subsequent years, former goalkeeper Euan Gilmour turning out regularly for the Edinburgh based side between the sticks.
There are other Lewis & Harris links to shinty in the Capital. Edinburgh was traditionally a hotbed of shinty in the Victorian era, and perhaps any islanders in the capital who knew shinty would turn out for clubs such as Edinburgh Camanachd and Edinburgh Northern Counties, but it was eventually just Edinburgh University who were left to keep the shinty flag flying for most of the 20th century.
Over the years several players from the island would play for Edinburgh University and it was quite a Hearach slant that the personnel took.. Perhaps the first recorded player is Murdo MacKenzie MacSween of Harris (1905-1973) who was an important part of their playing squad (SYB 1975-76, P11 – front row furthest left) Murdo would later on be a Church of Scotland minister in Lochalsh and Stromeferry but the highlight of his university career was winning the Littlejohn Vase in 1927.
Murdo would be followed by a fellow Hearach, Kenneth Campbell of Finsbay. Kenneth was boarded out to Kingussie High School where he picked up the caman, and then became a right wing forward for the University in the early 1930s. He became a teacher, in Portree then Teanassie, before moving to Beauly where he subsequently took on a great deal of administration for the Priory town club. He was their president when the club when a famous MacGillvray League title in 1973/74.
After the second world war, a man with the same name, this time the famous Kenny Campbell of Scalpay would win the Littlejohn before embarking on a veterinary career that saw him promote shinty in Taynuilt with Cruachanside, via the shinty yearbook then latterly in Skye and, finally, at a distance, Lewis. Years later his nephew Kenny (son of his brother Neil, who was not a shinty player, but gave great encouragement to shinty whilst headteacher of Tomnacross Primary School in Kiltarlity) would be an Edinburgh University and Tayforth player. Young Kenny has also made some cameos at Craig Morrison tournaments from time to time.
In the 1950s, Gaelic renaissance man John Alex MacPherson (born in Stornoway but raised in Tigharry) was secretary of the University but it seems that there are no other known direct Leòdhasach or Hearach connections to shinty in Edinburgh (other than the aforementioned Kenny Junior, and Eoghan Stewart making some pre-Lewis appearances for Edinburgh East Lothian and Edinburgh Uni) until Alasdair Lamont took up the sport again in the early 2010s.
Ally had drifted away from shinty in upper secondary and was focused on football whilst training as a PE teacher at Moray House. However, an invite to join a bunch of fellow Lewis Camanachd alumnis along with a guest or two at the St Andrews Sixes in 2012 saw Ally make a stunning return to the sport, with 5 important goals that gave “Glasgow Island” an historic victory, which saw them defeat Glenorchy in the final on penalties having knocked out a very strong Edinburgh University team led by Uist’s Lee Thompson 4-1 in the semi-finals.
However, there were no hard feelings as Ally’s performance that day led to him getting involved with the University side, who were fast re-establishing themselves as a force in student shinty and Ally would go on to lift multiple Littlejohn Vases in the rest of his time in Edinburgh, becoming the first signed Lewis Camanachd player to do so, before becoming a key goalscorer alongside his two other shinty playing brothers Donald and Innes for Lewis Camanachd.
Edinburgh was also home to perhaps two of the most important figures in Lewis shinty history. Historian and educationalist Donald Macdonald, Dòmhnall Dhòmhnaill Bhig of North Tolsta lived and worked for many years in Corstorphine. A keen shinty player from his youth in Tolsta as well as a blue with Glasgow University, Donald’s book Lewis: A History and Its People is a seminal text, one of the first histories of the island written from a native perspective and also the depository of knowledge about the shinty tradition in Lewis. It was possession of this book that led to Donna Barden reviving shinty in 1995 alongside her late husband Dr Alasdair. Which university did Dr Barden attend? Why Edinburgh of course.
When Lewis have their first ever throwup at Peffermill, Edinburgh at 4pm this Saturday in the Chieftain’s Cup, just over 19 years since they first played a cup tie in Glasgow, it’ll be a bit of history that surely those two giants of Hebridean shinty would greatly appreciate.
As we stated in last week’s article on Lewis & Harris links to shinty in Aberdeen, if you or anyone you know played for one of the Edinburgh shinty clubs but is not recorded please let us know via lewiscamanachd@hotmail.co.uk or via the sport’s social media.