Song by Iain MacMhurchaidh (John MacRae) (born mid 18th c - died 1776) in 1770
Kintail Bard

The song ‘O Thoir A-nall Am Botal’ is ascribed to Iain MacMhurchaidh, in 1770, the year of the "sneachda buidhe" (yellow snow), when the snow lay so long on the ground that it turned yellow. People lost their cattle and everything else, and the bottle was their only comfort.

Iain mac Mhurchaidh, was born in Lianag a’ Chùl Doire in Kintail in the mid 18th century. As the son of Murdo, son of Farquhar, 4th son of Alasdair MacRae of Inverinate, he belonged to the MacRae nobility and was employed by the Earl of Seaforth as his ground officer, deer stalker and forester in Kintail and Lochalsh.  After the Jacobite rebellion of 1745-6 and the crushing defeat at Culloden and its bloody aftermath, the relationship between Clan chiefs and their people began to change, leading to increased rents for tacksmen such as Iain mac Mhurchaidh. In the spring of 1770, Bliadhna an t-Sneachda Bhuidhe,(the Year of the Yellow Snow) he lost many cattle in a severe blizzard. Perhaps unable to see a secure future for himself and his family in Kintail, he emigrated to North Carolina around 1774. When the American War of Independence began in 1775 he and his son Murdo joined the loyalist army, fighting with the Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment. He fought at the battle of Moore’s Creek on the 27th of February, 1776. The loyalists lost and as he relates in the song, Tha mi sgith ’n fhògar seo, he became an outlaw who was eventually captured and imprisoned. It was said that, because his songs were so influential among the Carolina Gaels, he was dealt with in a particularly harsh way. According to tradition he suffered an excruciating death at the hands of the rebels.

According to tradition his Carolina songs were brought back to Scotland by another John MacRae, Iain mac a’ Ghobha of Bundaloch, Dornie. Some of Iain mac Mhurchaidh’s songs were published in the Celtic Magazine in 1882.