Màiri Mhòr nan Òran

Mary MacPherson (née MacDonald), known as Màiri Mhòr nan Òran (English: Great Mary of the Songs) or simply Màiri Mhòr (10 March 1821 – 7 November 1898), was a Scottish Gaelic poet from the Isle of Skye, whose contribution to Scottish Gaelic literature is focused heavily upon the Highland Clearances and the Crofters War; the Highland Land League's campaigns of rent strikes and other forms of direct action.

Her brush with the law and the feeling it aroused is recorded in Tha mi sgìth de luchd na Beurla (I'm tired of the English speakers).

[8][9] On returning to Skye she lived with a friend, Mrs MacRae of Os, until Lachlann MacDonald, laird of Skeabost provided her with a rent free cottage.

She is known to have been present at Highland Land League meetings and to have been actively involved with campaigners such as Alexander Mackenzie and her friend Fraser-Mackintosh in the run up to the Napier Commission of 1883-4 and the Crofters Act of 1886.

[10] Among other well known and frequently sung songs from her Land League period are ‘’Oran Beinn Li’’, ‘’Coinneamh nan Croitearan’’ and ‘’Eilean a’ Cheò’’ Like her contemporary Gaelic bard and activist, Mary Mackellar, Mairi Mhòr greatly admired and became friendly with Professor John Stuart Blackie.

Her last known address, at Beaumont Crescent, Portree, in the building now called the Rosedale Hotel, is commemorated today with a blue plaque.

[5] Furthermore, according to Celticist and historian of the Highland Scottish diaspora Michael Newton, "The songs of Màiri Mhòr nan Òran... were very popular in Scotland during the late nineteenth century.

"[14] Mairi's loyalty to ancient Highland tradition and her people shows in Eilean a' Cheò she tells of her hopes for her native Skye;

her imagery was too fleeting and superficial” [17] Sorley Maclean, on the other hand, wrote of her work that “Its greatness consists of the fusion of social and private passion…..with extra-ordinary vitality and ‘’ joie de vivre’’; for of all the Gaelic poets not even Alexander MacDonald (Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair) had more vitality and ‘’joie de vivre’ than Màiri Mhòr….

[18] At the same time, however, Maclean had pointed criticism of Màiri Mhòr's repeated decision in her poetry to blame the Highland Clearances upon the Isle of Skye on "the English" (Scottish Gaelic: na Sasannaich).