Hugh Cameron Gillies | Eoghan Camashron Mac Ghilliosa (1856, Sunart, Argyllshire –1925) studied at Glasgow University and became a doctor of medicine. In 1895–1900, he served as Lecturer in Gaelic at King’s College, London. William Gillies described him as ‘a leading light in the Gaelic circles in London’ in the 1890s (1990, p. 516).
He compiled a number of educational Gaelic materials, including Gaelic Texts for Schools, The Elements of Gaelic Grammar, and A Class Book of the Gaelic Language. In 1880, he published an edition of the Gaelic songs by Dr John MacLachlan, Rahoy. He used his double expertise in medicine and Gaelic to publish on Gaelic medical manuscripts from the sixteenth and seventeenth century and a treatise on ‘The Gaelic Names of Disease and Diseased States’. His diverse interests included toponymy, reflected in The Place Names of Argyll (1906). In Erskine’s periodicals, he also published using the initials ‘E. C. M.’
Publications in Erskine’s Periodicals
- ‘The Gaelic Measure of Man’ [essay, ENG], Volume I, Issue 2 (June 1901)
- ‘Na Speuran – aig an Àm’ [essay, GD], Volume VIII, Issue 4 (Autumn 1911)
- ‘Na Speuran – mu’n Bhliadhn’ Ùir’ [essay, GD], Volume IX, Issue 1 (Winter 1912)
- ‘Na Speuran – aig an Àm’ [essay, GD], Volume IX, Issue 3 (Summer 1912)
- ‘Na Speuran Againn Fhèin’ [essay, GD], Volume X, Issue 1 (Winter 1913)
- ‘The Scottish Gaelic Academy’ [report on points adopted during a meeting on 28 June 1913; ENG], Volume X, Issue 3 (Summer 1913)
- ‘Àrd-Chomhairle na Gàidhlig’ [report, GD], Volume XI, Issue 1 (Spring 1914)
Resources
- ‘Gillies, Hugh Cameron,’ Victorian Lives, King’s College London
- H. Cameron Gillies, ‘The Gaelic Concepts of Life and Death’ [paper based on a lecture delivered to the Dundee Highland Society on 20 January 1913], available via Electric Scotland
- William Gillies, ‘Liam MacGill’Iosa: A Friend of the Gael,’ Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness LVI (1990).