Mairearad Green and Rachel Newton are both well established and celebrated Scottish musicians. They are also cousins, their mothers hailing from Achnahaird, Coigach in the Northwest Highlands, where Mairearad was also brought up. Despite having played music together both informally and professionally over the years as part of various groups and projects, this is the first piece of work they’ve made as a duo.
They have come together to celebrate and remember their Great-Great-Grandmother Anna Bhàn’s involvement in the successful women-led Coigach resistance* of 1852/53 during the Highland Clearances. Inspired by recent community plans to build a sculpture in honour of these women in the area, they composed a body of work together in Coigach in the summer of 2023 and together with producer Andy Bell, have recorded an album, due for release in the Autumn of 2024.
With songs in both Gaelic and English and featuring pipes, accordion, harp, piano and viola, Mairearad and Rachel’s award-winning compositional styles merge to create something truly unique and personal, that both reflects their response to the events of the past and their relationship with the place and the people of Coigach in the present day.
Mairearad is also a visual artist and wherever possible, enjoys combining her two passions – art and music. Her impressionistic painting style is very much a visceral response to the land she grew up in and for this album she has created a unique series of ten mixed media artworks to accompany each track.
Mairearad and Rachel are embarking on a tour to promote the album and share their newly composed music across Scotland. They are particularly excited to be launching the album with a performance at Coigach Community Hall, close to where some of the events that inspired the album took place.
‘Our great great Grandmother, known as Anna Bhàn, was one of a group of young women who were at the forefront of the Coigach Resistance of 1852/53. The events that formed the resistance were among only a few that were successful during the Highland Clearances in the lead up to the Napier Commission and the Crofting Act of 1886. We’ve always been aware of the story, but the recent plans of Coigach Heritage to commission a sculpture by Will Maclean RSA and Marian Leven RSA in honour of these women galvanised us to come together to make music and art that celebrates and remembers Anna Bhàn and the rest of the community.’
*Coigach Resistance: during the second wave of Clearances in 1852-3, the people of Coigach – primarily (for various reasons) women – resisted repeated efforts by the landlord to move: they stripped a sheriff officer of his clothes, burned the writ and put him back in the boat.
To find out more about the history and the sculpture, visit https://www.coigach-heritage.org/lorg-na-coigich
Artists’ websites: www.mairearadgreen.co.uk www.rachelnewtonmusic.com
Tour Dates
Saturday 28th September – Tolbooth, STIRLING
Sunday 29th September – Glad Cafe, GLASGOW
Friday 4th October – Coigach Community Hall, ACHILTIBUIE
Saturday 5th October – Applecross Community Hall, APPLECROSS
Sunday 6th October – An Talla Mòr, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, SKYE
Tuesday 8th October – Perth Theatre, PERTH
Thursday 10th October – Lyth Arts Centre, WICK
Friday 11th October – Ardross Village Hall, ARDROSS
Saturday 12th October – Barn Arts, BANCHORY
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