Fiona J Mackenzie
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Thig crioch air an t-saoghal ach mairidh gaol is ceòl...... The world will end, but love and music will endure
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Scottish Gaelic Singer from the Highlands of Scotland,
but with the Isle of Canna at her heart
"If you want an author who really, deeply, knows her subject then this book ticks that box with consummate ease" Undisclosed Scotland Oct 25
"Addictive and Entrancing" - Sunday Post, Oct '25.
The Book "such a great life deserved a great biography.
Fiona Mackenzie has given us one"..
R Hutchison, West Highland Free Press oct 2 '25
I began researching Margaret Fay Shaw Campbell almost 30 years ago when I bought her book " Folksongs and Folklore of South Uist". It entranced me with the images and songs of a landscape which I also loved. That book became my "Bible" of Gaelic folklore and culture. When I became the Archivist in Canna House in 2015, I began squirreling away snippets of information in my diaries, to be used at some later date. Margaret's diaries are an endless source of information and inspiration and I was able to access them in a way which up to then, noone had really done- because I had Gaelic. When I left Canna in 2023, it was then that I started to truly write the story of Margaret's life, using all the knowledge I had acquired- a real labour of love. Margaret had a long life to cover- she was 101 when she died in 2004.
"The Cadence of a Song" is the culmination of that journey with Margaret and I hope that readers will be as entranced by her life as I was - and am still.
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You can listen to more of my journey in Dr Miranda Melcher's podcast interview with me, for the new Books Network series
https://megaphone.link/NBNK1202823775
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Purchase "The Cadence of Song "here
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"To summarise, there's something really rather wonderful about a biography that feels to the reader as if it has to be the best book about its subject that can ever be written. "The Cadence of a Song: The Life of Margaret Fay Shaw" by Fiona J. Mackenzie is one of those all-too rare books. No one else is ever going to be able to write about Margaret Fay Shaw without referring to this book. It really is that good. If you have any interest at all in the Highlands and (especially) Islands of Scotland or in Scottish folklore and song, or in the preservation and revival of the Gaelic language, then this is a book you have to read." Undiscovered Scotland, Oct 2025 The Cadence of a Song: The Life of Margaret Fay Shaw by Fiona J. Mackenzie: Undiscovered Scotland Book Review
