Abstract
Discusses the treatment of the central character, the Gaelic-speaking minister Maighstir Sachairi, in And the Cock Crew (1945), by Fionn Mac Colla (Thomas Donaldson, 1906-1975), a historical novel about the Highland clearances(the evictions of the local crofting inhabitants in the north of Scotland to make way for sheep-farming), and argues (1) that, although the novel condemns the Presbyterian clergy for colluding in the evictions and preaching submission to those evicted, Mac Colla's novel is deeply imbued with the Calvinism it might seem to reject, and (2) that the central scene, a debate between Sachairi and a Gaelic bard, is structured around the Scottish Catechism, inverting the conventional power-relationship between the minister and the his parishioner.
Recommended Citation
Mitchell, Brooke McLaughlin
(2019)
"A Revision of Power: Religion in Fionn Mac Colla’s And the Cock Crew,"
Studies in Scottish Literature:
Vol. 45:
Iss.
2, 47–56.
Available at:
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol45/iss2/8