What on earth is a Bernera girl doing in a Carloway choir, you may well ask?

I was fortunate enough to be invited along by our lovely Angela from Lundale, who had been in the choir for a few years, when I moved back home from Inverness after 31 years living away. I had been thinking about doing something singing related but hadn’t found the courage to put myself forward; Luckily Angela took it out of my hands!

Carloway Gaelic choir was set up in 2011, with 14 Members. Today it has grown to a choir of 27, full of very talented individuals who have won Gold & Silver medals at the much loved, annual National Mod.
The rest, as they say, is history! I found the most wonderful choir with the loveliest, funniest people I could ever wish to meet! Our conductor Màiri is exceptionally talented, able to play two parts on the piano, whilst singing another part, and has the patience of a saint!
Then there’s our Gaelic advisor Iain, who is extremely patient and loves to give us praise when we get things right, though we are always waiting for the inevitable ’but!..’ He keeps us grounded and gives us a laugh. Laughter is the thing that makes our choir so special. We have so much fun learning our songs and words, which can be pretty challenging a lot of the time, so a bit of light hearted banter makes it far more enjoyable and seems to help the words stick.

And so to present day. We have launched a Justgiving fundraiser with our remotely recorded song ‘Càrlabhagh’, going live on Youtube which at time of writing had 21.5k views, £1295 raised and numerous shares on social media. Amazing to think of this all from a little idea Màiri had while relaxing in her bath on April 11th!

The entire choir is in shock, we can’t believe how generous and kind people have been and the comments about the video are so heartwarming. Thank you from every single one of us, we are truly humbled️. Màiri’s response to how she feels about doing innovative things is, “At first I was worried that such a thing could work but now I’m just embracing it! Roll on the next song!”

I have a feeling my Great, Great Grandfather would have approved too and this is why it’s so fitting that I should end up in the wonderful Carloway choir. You see, he was ‘An Taillear’ and he originated from Carloway, so I immediately had such a strong affinity with these wonderful people. The fact they’re completely bonkers helps too…

Ps…there’s no place like home…Bearnaraigh – ️Àite Mo Ghaoil.

My Mum and I also thought it would be good fun to pen a Bernera verse..and she did! If anyone would like to see it, let us know… Catriona Davis, songwriter, who knew?!!

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/coisirghaidhlig-charlabhaigh