Beyond the cailleach: The re-writing of women's ageing in Iain Mac a' Ghobhainn's Gaelic poetry

In the Gaelic literary tradition, the figure of the cailleach — meaning old woman or hag in modern Scottish Gaelic — has been present in literature since the early Irish period, in poems like the ‘Lament of the Old Woman of Beare’ (Old Irish: ‘Caillech Bérri’), where the poetic voice expresses a deep sense of decay and desolation. In the second half of the twentieth century, that legacy is to be seen in the works of Scottish Gaelic writer Iain Mac a’ Ghobhainn (Iain Crichton Smith), in which the character of the cailleach is common. In his writing, the old woman bears characteristics of the ‘old hag’, associated with death and decay, but also with religious dogmatism. Indeed, the trope of the ‘disapproving, religious cailleach, [is] a familiar character-type’ in Mac a’ Ghobhainn’s works, writes Kevin MacNeil (2001, 30). However, despite the association of the old woman with judgment and close-mindedness, Mac a’ Ghobhainn often presents a more nuanced view of old women in his writing. In this article, I examine to what extent Mac a’ Ghobhainn subverts the trope of the judgmental cailleach, as he redefines the representation of female ageing in his poetry.