14th May 1724

Poet Duncan Ban MacIntyre dies in Edinburgh

Duncan Ban MacIntyre was one of Scotland’s great poets, despite never having learned to write. Initially, he kept his poems in his head, but they were later committed to paper by Donald MacNicol, a minister, and subsequently translated into English. Much of the work concerns itself with the nature of Scotland itself and it found itself a large audience during his lifetime.

Upon his death in Edinburgh in 1812, a fund was started in his memory and two memorials to him were later erected. The second of these was the Dalmally Ban Monument that overlooks Loch Awe, and wasn’t completed until 50 years after his death.

Monument erected

The Inverness Courier of 1 February 1855 reports on a meeting “to further the movement for the erection of a monument to the distinguished Gaelic bard, Duncan Ban Macintyre”. A Colin Campbell, speaking at the meeting explained that MacIntyre’s poetry “is every way calculated to excite and to perpetuate the patriotism and the heroism which characterised the ancient clans of Scotland, and which, happily for their country, still characterise their glorious descendants and representatives, the Highland regiments, not at seat of war.”

The war to which he was referring was the Crimean War in which the United Kingdom was fighting Russia alongside the Ottoman Empire, France and Sardinia.

The monument’s foundation stone was laid in September 1859 and it was completed in September 1862. The Edinburgh Evening Courant of 16 September 1862 told readers that “it is a plain but rather neat piece of architecture. It occupies a very prominent position, and will be an object of interest to the numerous tourists who pass this beautiful glen [Glenorchy]”.