Ályth McCormack, ahead of the Metagama Tattoo

As communities across the Western Isles come together to mark 100 years since emigrant ships left the islands bound for Canada; Ályth is preparing her first performance on home soil for several years.

Coming home to perform at Tattoo Metagama in August, Ályth, who has been touring the world as the featured singer with the Chieftains for the last 16 years, will sing in the Grand Concert in Lewis Sports Centre and at the Tattoo on Lews Castle Green.

Her performance, which will bring together musicians from Scotland, Ireland, and Canada, will focus on the tragic tale of the emigrant ship, the Annie Jane. Carrying passengers from Scotland, Ireland, England, Switzerland and a French-Canadian crew; the Annie Jane left Liverpool on September 9th, 1853, bound for Quebec. She was wrecked off Vatersay with the loss of over 350 lives including children.

Speaking from her home in Dublin just days after performing for President of the USA, Joe Biden, during his visit to Ireland, Ályth said: “We haven’t established specific songs at the moment, but I want to write new songs for it and I’m looking at it as a celebration. We have to accept that it was a terrible thing that happened, but I want to look at it as a celebration of these people’s lives. They were taking a risk, even getting on a ship on this point was a risk and sadly they didn’t make it. They really wanted to make their lives better.

“There was such a mixture of personalities on the Annie Jane, and I would like to reflect that in the music. I wanted to think of the instrumentation that could have been on that boat: fiddles and harps, whistles, Uilleann pipes and Highland pipes and want to celebrate that. The people who were working on the ship were French Canadian and I want to include that too.”

With rehearsals well underway, Ályth outlines how the performance will also include a collaboration of Irish and Highland Dancing: “There are a lot of rehearsals going on, but we are throwing around lots of ideas and then we are just going to sift them out. I just think that people will get it as it’s the west coast of Ireland and the west coast of Scotland

“We are taking over two Irish dancers because with Irish on the Annie Jane, there would have been dancing. I’m going to have two Irish dancers Mark and Nadine Conroy collaborating with two Highland dancers, Kiera Macdonald and Ellie Macpherson from the Sharon Mackinnon School of Highland Dance. They are very different disciplines and I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with. Irish dancing is so established globally and there is now much more interest in Highland Dancing, though it is still not as established as Irish dancing but schools like Sharon’s are changing this. I’m looking forward to seeing how the dancers interact.”

Commenting on the power of music in conveying a message or story, Ályth said: "A song can transport you. We are calling it ‘Tionscadal an Annie Jane/The Annie Jane Project’ because although it’s a story about emigration, it’s also a story about socialism, a story about people being treated differently and I feel though this happened in 1853, not a lot of things have changed."

As featured singer with the Chieftains for the last 16 years, Ályth speaks fondly of her time with them and pays tribute to her late friend Paddy Moloney, the founder and leader of the Chieftains. Paddy passed away in 2021 but his legacy lives on. Ályth originally went to work with the band for a year but never left and has since travelled the world collaborating with artists all around the globe.

This year’s performance for President Joe Biden was not the first time Ályth had performed for him. President Biden is known to be a huge Chieftains fan and on his visit to Westford in 2016 as Vice President, the band met and performed for him.

“The connection between the US and Ireland is off the charts,” said Ályth, “and that was very evident in Ballina the other night. I’ve never seen a President so relaxed. I think he had a really good time in Ireland.”

Aside from Presidential performances, Ályth’s career includes regular travel which has led to her making discoveries about her own family history of which she was not aware.

With relations on the other side of the Atlantic, Ályth’s late mother, Mary, believed as a child that Santa was a resident of Toronto, due to a trunk of presents that were sent over to Stornoway each year from Toronto. They were in fact from relatives whose families had emigrated from Lewis to Canada in 1912.

Ályth’s Granny’s cousin, Flora Macleod, emigrated on a ship which left from Glasgow and on the ship, she met Joe McCombe from Letterkenny. The romance of the story was that the pair were married some years later and had four children, and each year at Christmas they would send a trunk of presents to Sandwick.

Ályth said: “We knew that their address was at 5A1 Coxwell Avenue in Toronto. I was in Toronto in January, and I said to the girls I was with that I have to go there and I wanted to have my photograph taken. I had a picture of a lad called Tommy McCombe, it was 1945 and it was his homecoming after the war and so he was wearing his army uniform and is pictured with his Mum and Dad, Flora (Granny’s cousin) and Joe, and the rest of the family, their daughter Mary, brother Norman and youngest son, Jim.

“We went to the house, there was snow on the ground, and it was very cold but as my friend was taking the photo, a man walked past and I said to him ‘my family used to live in this house’ and he said: ‘No, I don’t think so, we’ve had this house since it was built.’ I replied ‘Then you must be my family then. This lad is called Robert McCombe and he is my cousin!"

Of the sliding doors moment, Ályth declares: “If I hadn’t had the photograph or if it had been five minutes later I was at the house, we would never have met.”

With just under two months until the climax of centenary events with two days of Tattoo Metagama, Ályth is continuing her preparations along with her bands and dancers and is looking forward to coming home to perform and be part of this historic event.

She will be part of the chain of events in 2023 which will also go down in the history of the Hebrides as the year that communities remembered, and celebrated, those who bravely took a risk in search of a better life.