[1] He was born around 1646 in Bragar, Lewis and educated in Inverness, but he also learned to play the clàrsach (Celtic harp) as a profession.
[2] The 1951 Edinburgh People's Festival Ceilidh brought Scottish traditional music to a large public stage for the first time inside Edinburgh's Oddfellows Hall and continued long afterwards at St. Columba's Church Hall in August 1951.
The Scottish Gàidhealtachd was represented at the Celidh by Flora MacNeil, fellow Barra native Calum Johnston, and John Burgess.
Towards the end of the Ceilidh, master of ceremonies Hamish Henderson announced that Calum Johnston would be performing Roderick Morison's Òran do Mhac Leoid Dhun Bheagain ("A Song to MacLeod of Dunvegan").
Instead of patronizing the Bards and holding feasts at Dunvegan Castle for his clansmen, the Chief had become an absentee landlord in London, who, "spent his money on foppish clothes".