Here's a message from Craig Cockburn:

Trying to add a message here:
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=103655
but the message isn't appearing.

Here it is

This is my story on the song (came across this page trying to see if the story is authentic or not so can't vouch for its authenticity!)

In 1995 I was in Sutherland (Rogart) attending a Gaelic course and met
up with some students from the Dept of Celtic at Edinburgh University.
One was doing field recordings, the other was a piper. We went out one
night to do some recordings from an old man living in a home. I think
the visit is referred to in this paper:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/40732058 I guess he would have been in his mid 80s or so. He used to play the pipes. In return for telling us his
stories which were recorded, the student who played the pipes played a
tune as a thank you which I instantly recognised as "gad chuimhneachadh" http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/tbh/aigcridhearciuil/facail/gaol/page09.shtml
from the singing of Art Cormack. At that point the old man (OK, let's
call him a bodach in the nicest sense of the word) said, oh thank you
for playing that, I composed it. Which is an astonishing coincidence
considering it was picked by the piper at random. So my theory is that
it was a pipe tune first, maybe pre WW2, then became a Gaelic song and
finally and English song. Of course none of this can probably be
verified, but it's a lovely story.


--
Craig Cockburn ("coburn"). Director, Siliconglen.com Ltd
Web project and programme manager. M.Sc., CITP, C.Eng
http://www.CraigCockburn.com