PS 307 – The Battle of Beach nam Brog

      Blàr Bhealach na Bròig

Primary Sources

K2 Blàr Bhealach na’m Broig / Index: Balla na Broig / The Battle of Ballach na Broig K2.39: 81
JK Ballach [n]a […] JK.15: 39

Notes on Gaelic Titles

Blàr Bhealach na Bròig Blàr Bhealach na’m Broig K2; Balla na Broig / The Battle of Ballach na Broig K2 index; Ballach [n]a…. JK; Ballach na Broig JKA. The Battle of Bealach na Bròig, or more literally ‘The field/battle of the pass of the shoe’. ‘The Battel of Beallach in broig’ is mentioned in the Wardlaw MS (c. 1680), ‘called in our Irish language Blãre Beallach in Broige’ – see W. MacKay, Chronicles of the Frasers[:] the Wardlaw Manuscript…Edinburgh (1905), p. 84. Although stories of the battle (A. Campbell,“ ‘Bealach nam Bròg’ and its origin,” Clan Munro Journal (1951) pp. 23-26 [An offprint is filed in NLS MS 22115 (f. 49)]; PS Book 9, p. 247; A.J. Haddow, The history and structure of ceol mor, M. R. Haddow [Reprinted 2004, The Piobaireachd Society], pp. 60-63) suggest the plural ‘shoes’, all sources have the spelling broig. W. MacKay reads Blair Beallach-na-Broig and translates ‘the Field of the Pass of the Shoe’.

Roderick Cannon (2009)

Archive Recording

1953 Pipe Major John D Burgess MBE
1960 Pipe Major John D. Burgess MBE
1961 Pipe Major John D Burgess MBE
1964 Calum Johnston, Robin Lorimer (canntaireachd)

Other Material

William Donaldson’s Set Tunes Notes (2003)

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