Remembering Oban's global singing superstar

Oban-born Jessie MacLachlan sang for Queen Victoria

A Gaelic singer who became a "global superstar" more than 100 years ago is to be remembered at next month's Royal National Mòd.

Oban-born Jessie MacLachlan sang for Queen Victoria and performed in North America, New Zealand and Australia.

She sang the first recorded Gaelic songs, but was largely forgotten following her death in 1916.

A celebration of her life will form part of an exhibition during the Mòd in Oban.

MacLachlan started singing when she was eight.

She went on to sing for Princess Louise, the Duchess of Argyll and sixth child of Queen Victoria, at the Mòd in 1892.

The performance led to her singing to Queen Victoria at Balmoral and she toured Canada, US, New Zealand and Australia.

MacLachlan, nicknamed Songbird of the Gaels, sang the first Gaelic songs to be recorded on gramophone in 1899 in Glasgow.

She was 49 when she died after taking ill during a journey home from France through Spain at the outbreak of World War One.

MacLachlan was buried at Glasgow's Cathcart Cemetery.

'Shine once more'

There has been a new effort to remember her life and work.

In 2020 her grave was restored and, from 5-20 October at Oban's CalMac ferry pier, the new exhibition will feature as part of the Mòd.

Exhibition curator and Gaelic singer and broadcaster Mary Ann Kennedy said: "Jessie was a global superstar, the first voice spoken or sung to be recorded in Gaelic.

"Her first love was her mother-tongue Gaelic language and the Gaelic people who she crossed oceans to visit and sing for."

She added: "Her star waned through a combination of the horrors of the Great War, her relatively young age, and a general lack throughout history of affording great women their place, but I feel like we've allowed it to shine once more."