Fr. Allan MacDonald was a priest-poet who served the poorest of the poor in the remotest parts of his native land of Scotland.
The words of “Flower of Scotland,” with which we began the previous essay in this series, evoke the victory of the Scots over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. The words with which we begin this essay are from “The Skye Boat Song,” which evokes the escape of Bonnie Prince Charlie “over the sea to Skye” following the defeat of the Jacobite army at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
