A Storm is Brewing at the Royal Cape Breton Gaelic College

A storm is erupting over the Royal designation given to a Canadian Gaelic College by Queen Elizabeth II. Colaisde na Gàidhlig – The Gaelic College in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia is to be styled immediately as The Royal Cape Breton Gaelic College, for its contribution to preserving Gaelic and Scottish culture in Canada.

The designation has caused a huge amount of controversy in the community, resulting in the chair of the college board of governors stepping down over the issue earlier today.

The Member of the Legislative Assembly for Inverness, Nova Scotia said the addition of the word ‘royal’ doesn’t sit well with people who have a strong understanding of the history of the Gaels. Allan MacMaster, who is also the conservative critic for Gaelic Affairs, delivered a speech in the House of Assembly last week following the colleges decision to change its name.

He said you have to look at the history that brought many people to Nova Scotia, and that at one time as much as 80 per cent of the province spoke Gaelic.

“If you look, after the Battle of Culloden (in the 1700s), there were efforts made in Scotland to destroy the clan system and some of that was to try to eliminate the speaking of Gaelic in Scotland,” MacMaster said.

In the 1600s, Scottish Highland clan chiefs were required to send their heirs to other parts of the country to be educated in a different language, he said.

“All of those things emanate from England and from the Crown,” MacMaster said. “To have the Gaelic College today be given the title of royal and connecting it to the Crown, for a lot of people, they find it offensive.”

Situated in the heart of Cape Breton’s earliest Scottish settlement, the institution is the only one of its kind in North America, and was founded in 1938 by Rev. A.W.R. MacKenzie devoted to the study and preservation of the Gaelic language and Celtic arts and culture. During the first half of the 19th century, Cape Breton experienced an influx of Highland Scots numbering approximately 50,000 as a result of the Highland Clearances. Today, the descendants of the Scots dominate Cape Breton Island’s culture, particularly in rural communities. Gaelic is still the first language of a number of elderly Cape Bretoners.

The acting chair of the College, Kirk McRae, says the honour is a welcome one. He said: “It creates more awareness and things with the college,

“It’s a designation that doesn’t come easy. It’s just an honour of name, it doesn’t take away what the goals are of the college and what the goals are of our instructors, students and staff, that is to grow the Gaelic culture.”

The Royal Cape Breton Gaelic College

Alex Morrision, a retired military officer, has stepped down as his voluntary role as board chair as a result of the controversy. According to the college’s Facebook page, while Morrison contacted the Queen’s offices without consulting the members of the board, the decision to change the college’s name was not his alone, with the board voting on and accepting the name change.

The response to the name change on the Facebook page has been largely negative, however others thought people were overreacting to the name change. One commenter said: “Good Lord what a tempest in a teapot. So if the Queen provides her coat of arms to HP sauce am I not to eat it?”

MacRae said he was somewhat surprised by the amount of feedback on the name change, but said the board doesn’t plan to reverse its decision.

“There’s going to be no change,” said MacRae. “It’s wonderful the passion people have and I understand their points of view, and I respect their points of view. We (were) bestowed this, and for the board, everyone I felt genuinely thought we were going forward and it was a good thing. The name doesn’t take away from the day-to-day activities of college, and that’s to grow the Gaelic culture and language.”

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Inspired by Sir Henry Raeburn’s series of portraits of clan chiefs, photographer Julian Calder said he wanted the portrait to highlight some of the Queen’s traditional if less prominent roles. “We wanted to photograph the Queen as the Queen of Scots and I wanted to do it as a Raeburn painting. He did paintings of Scottish clan chiefs and I thought they were very romantic… We wanted to have her looking at the massed clans on the distant hills.”

The Queen is dressed in the mantle of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, the Scottish counterpart to England’s Order of the Garter. From her shoulders, held by white satin ties, hangs the Collar of the Order made of golden thistles and rue sprigs, from which hangs a tiny St Andrew and his saltire cross. The photographer had initially hoped that the Queen would wear Scotland’s Crown Jewels, known as the Honours Three. However tradition dictates that they can only be removed from Edinburgh by the Duke of Hamilton, who was unavailable. Instead the Crown Jewel cabinet in London was raided, with the Queen opting to wear the emerald-covered Vladimir Tiara. It was once owned by the Grand Duchess Vladimir, aunt of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II, and was smuggled out of Russia during the Revolution

The MacNab – one of a series of portraits of clan leaders that inspired Julian Calder’s picture of the Queen

The portrait also enforces the Scottish connections to the monarchy – Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, not of England’s Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I, who reluctantly signed Mary’s death warrant. The Queen’s great‑great‑grandmother, Queen Victoria, who bought and loved the Balmoral Estate, said she could never forgive Elizabeth I’s treatment of “my ancestor, poor Mary”. A favoured summer holiday spot for the royals since Victoria, the Queen is popularly supposed to be happier at Balmoral than anywhere else.

Calder and the book’s author Alastair Bruce spent the day beforehand scouting for locations finally opting for a remote stream called Gelder Burn, which runs into the River Dee. “It’s remote, you can seen the heather was out and everything was right about it. Creatively, the curve of the stream could mirror the curve of the cape. The dark green of the trees and the heather all worked as a composition. It had all the ingredients” Calder said.

On the day of the photo shoot, Bruce said rain threatened to disrupt plans which had been weeks in the making. “As the allotted hour approached, the skies cleared and the Queen not only agreed to go outside but also to be photographed at a spot I had picked 25 minutes away. So we drove up to Gelder Burn and passed a family out for a walk who were just astonished to see the Queen passing by in all this regalia. There was no time to set up the shot but it was this magical moment – hardly a breath of wind and no midges.”

Say cheese – On set with the Queen

Keepers celebrates the bewildering range of official titles and appointments that have evolved over more than a thousand years. Those photographed range from the Monarch and the Master of the Rolls to a vicar’s son who is the hereditary Lord High Admiral of the Wash and the Royal Falconer. The portrait is the latest in a series of recent representations of the Queen. The Welsh Rugby Union unveiled a matronly expressionist portrait by Dan Llywelyn Hall earlier this year, and HRH received rave reviews for her role alongside Daniel Craig in the London Olympics Opening Ceremony in 2012.

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