He related the courage and leadership shown upon the battlefield by Iain Dubh MacDhòmhnaill at Boloyne in 1554, by his descendants at the Battle of Mulroy against Clan MacIntosh in 1688, as Royalists during the English Civil War, and as warriors for the House of Stuart during the Jacobite risings.
[9] According to Effie Rankin, even though the clan system had been completely destroyed following the Battle of Culloden, Ailean a' Ridse saw it as his duty as a Bard as to remind his people of their proud warrior past to urge them on in the fight to preserve the Gaelic language and what remained of their traditions and culture.
[12] Alasdair Ruadh MacDhòmhnaill (d. 17, June 1831)[13] was a cattle drover who resided at Ach nan Comhaichean, on the south banks of the River Spean.
[19] Until the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, however, demand for beef was very high and Alasdair Ruadh MacDhòmhnaill, as a cattle drover in Glen Spean, would have been fairly well off compared to other Lochaber Gaels.
In addition to the constant threat of eviction by the landlord, however, the economic downturn that followed the Battle of Waterloo, however, would have been financially devastating to the MacDhòmhnaill family; particularly as large numbers of demobilized soldiers returned to Lochaber and became their competitors for food, land, and employment.
[28] As other Roman Catholic Gaels from Lochaber had been doing since at least 1800,[29] the MacDonald family settled on a homestead upon the Southwest Ridge near Mabou, Nova Scotia (Scottish Gaelic: Màbu, An Drochaid).
He mockingly added that neither Cuchulain, William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, The Great Montrose, nor even Fionn Mac Cumhail and his Fianna would ever match Dòmhnaill Mòr in a fight.
The Bard then described Dòmhnaill Mòr as a man of great physical attractiveness and who was worshipped and adored by the local women, and who was, "equally comely below the rump.
Modeling the poem that followed upon the well-established "rat satire" tradition in Scottish Gaelic literature, which was believed to drive away other kinds of vermin, Ailean called down a curse upon the bears for their thievery and banished them from Mabou to the United States.
He urged the bears to steal everything they could possibly get from the Yankees (Scottish Gaelic: Geancaidh) of New England, "and the ritual crossing of water is invoked to ensure success.
Although a great number of bear songs exist throughout Nova Scotia, Òran a' Mhathain appears to surpass them all in sheer vituperative vocabulary.
[40] In 1846, following a series of bad harvests caused by the same blight as the Great Irish and Highland potato famines, Ailean was clearing the land and burning brush when the form of a horse, or riochd eich, briefly became visible in the smoke.
[41] As seeing a vision of a horse or headless rider is traditionally regarded in Cape Breton as an omen of an imminent death within the family,[42] Ailean and Catriona MacDonald joined an exodus of local Gaels from Mabou to Antigonish County (Scottish Gaelic: Siorramachd Antaiginis).
[45] Despite his devotion to the Catholic Faith, Ailean a' Ridse sharply opposed Bishop William Fraser's decision to institute the Total Abstinence Pledge in the Diocese of Arichat in 1841.
[46] According to Effie Rankin, Ailean a' Ridse saw the Catholic temperance movement, "as something that had its genesis in an alien culture and which was now posing a threat to traditional Gaelic values.
In his Òran dhan Uisge Bheatha, Donald McLellan the Broad Cove blacksmith cites Scriptures when he condemns those who would outlaw whiskey, for Christ Himself created quantities of fine wine at the wedding of Cana; Noah was allowed to celebrate his survival from the Flood, free from the censure of angels and prophets.
In response, Ailean a' Ridse composed the poem Cumha do' n Easguig Friseal ("Lament for Bishop Fraser"), which he set to the air A' bliadhna leum dar milleadh.
Their oldest son, Alasdair a' Ridse MacDhòmhnaill, was born on the Ridge of Mabou on 27 February 1823[55] and went on to become a prolific Canadian Gaelic poet, Traditional singer, and Seanchaidh in his own right.
During his last illness, Ailean a' Ridse awoke from a dream in which he and his close friend, kinsman, fellow poet, and protege were together singing the Gaelic song, An cluinn thu mis' a charaide?
Unlike John The Bard MacLean, however, who both wrote his own poetry down and successfully sought publishers for it, Allan The Ridge MacDonald was well known as a poet and Seanchaidh, "but he was not a compiler of manuscripts."
Beginning in 1937, Angus The Ridge MacDonald's repertoire of Gaelic songs, folklore, and oral literature from Lochaber and Nova Scotia was recorded by John Lorne Campbell, Margaret Fay Shaw, Helen Creighton, Laura Bolton, and MacEdward Leach.