Ossianic Informants Named by the Rev. Dr Alexander Irvine (1773–1824)

Abstract

The Rev. Alexander Irvine (1773–1824), minister of Little Dunkeld, Perthshire (1806–1824), was an acknowledged Gaelic scholar and collector of Gaelic oral and written materials. Unlike many of his predecessors, he was careful to record metadata associated with his sources. This paper, which is based for the most part on key Irvine manuscripts, provides the names and further details of twenty-three tradition bearers or informants of Ossianic material named by Irvine, one of whom was a woman.