Photo: Andrew Robertson
Andrew Robertson's first words were Gaelic. Quite a few of his first songs were too.
Robertson grew up on the western Scottish island of Barra with his Gaelic-speaking mother.
These days, he produces Jim Mora on RNZ National, but before he moved to Aotearoa, he worked on the BBC Gaelic language service, BBC Alba.
They sing Gaelic here... Photo: AFP
His contacts there meant he knew where to go to find the latest recordings of the Royal National Mòd, the annual festival and competition of, and for, all things Gaelic from sport through to music.
Robertson joined RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump to share some of the highlights of this year's festival in Lochabar in the Scottish Highlands, and talk about his own Gaelic singing and speaking.
They sing it here too. Photo: Adam Wilson / Unsplash
Like many indigenous languages, Gaelic has struggled in the face of the English language's dominance of modern media and communications.
And like many older Māori speakers, Robertson's mother was actively discouraged from speaking Gaelic at school.
He says while for decades Gaelic held out most strongly in isolated parts of Scotland, in the 21st century it's urban areas where the revival is stronger, as city folk attempt to reconnect with the their native culture.
Two of the songs he shared on RNZ Concert were sung by the The Glasgow Gaelic Musical Association, this year's winner of the main competition: the Lovat and Tullibardine Shield.
Robertson says the way people are setting Gaelic to music is also changing; where once a choir might sing a Gaelic piece in an English choral style, in the 2020s a choir's more likely to use the Gaelic words as the springboard for the music's rhythm and phrasing.
The best rural choir of 2025 was from Robertson's home island, the Barra Gaelic Choir (which his mother was part of).
“Gruagach Og An Fhuilt Bhain” was written by Donald Allan MacDonald, who had a crush on Morag MacAuley from Castlebay in Barra. They met once, at the evening dance following the Uist Highland Games in 1930. They liked each other and Donald Allan asked to walk Morag home.
But after he had been on the drams with the other boys, he stood the lovely Morag up and blew his chance.
Robertson doesn't know who Morag settled down with, but as she lived just down the road from his mother, she might know.
Robertson's own Gaelic lapsed somewhat when he moved to the mainland, but he resolved to re-learn it as a young adult, "because it was me".
That led to a job on BBC Alba, and that broadcasting experience eventually got him a job at RNZ.
Robertson still gets a chance to speak Gaelic in New Zealand - his multilingual Kiwi partner learned the language after they met.
These days they don't speak it much in the home, but it comes in handy in social situations when they want to keep whatever they're talking about to themselves.
