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Robert Tannahill was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 poet

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

. Known as the 'Weaver Poet', his music and poetry is contemporaneous with that of Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

.

He was born at Castle Street in Paisley on 3 June 1774, the fourth son in a family of seven. Soon after his birth the family moved to a newly built cottage in nearby Queen Street, which became both family home and weaving shop. Robert had a delicate constitution and a limp, due to a slight deformity in his right leg. On leaving school at age twelve, he was apprenticed to his father as a handloom weaver. It was during this apprenticeship that Tannahill began to show a real talent for poetry.

His mother was Janet Pollock from Boghall Farm

Gateside, North Ayrshire

Gateside is a small village in North Ayrshire, Scotland about half a mile east of Beith on the B777.-The village:Gateside Primary School, headteacher Ms Fiona Dunlop, was opened in 1903, and nowadays it has 74 pupils...

 near Beith

Beith

Beith is a small town situated in the Garnock Valley in North Ayrshire, Scotland approximately 20-miles south-west of Glasgow. The town is situated on the crest of a hill and was known originally as the "Hill o' Beith" after its Court Hill.-History:-Name:Beith's name is thought to emanate from...

 and his father was James Tannahill from Kilmarnmock. After a short period of working in Bolton, Lancashire

Bolton

Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 around 1800, Tannahill returned to Paisley to support the family in time of illness. In the years which followed, his interest in poetry and music blossomed and his writings began to appear in such publications as The Scots Magazine

The Scots Magazine

The Scots Magazine is a magazine containing articles on subjects of Scottish interest. It is the oldest magazine in the world still in publication although there have been several gaps in its publication history...

. In 1810, following the rejection of some of his work by the Edinburgh publisher Archibald Constable

Archibald Constable

Archibald Constable was a Scottish publisher, bookseller and stationer.He was born at Carnbee, Fife, as the son of the land steward to the Earl of Kellie. In 1788 Archibald was apprenticed to Peter Hill, an Edinburgh bookseller, but in 1795 he started in business for himself as a dealer in rare...

, he died by his own hand, drowned in a culverted stream under the Paisley Canal

Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal

The Glasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal was a canal in the west of Scotland, running between Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone which later became a railway. Despite the name, the canal was never completed down to Ardrossan, the termini being Port Eglinton in Glasgow and Thorn Brae in Johnstone...

.

Tannahill's grave is situated in Castlehead Cemetery, on Canal Street in Paisley.

Music

In 2006 Brechin All Records

Brechin All Records

Brechin All Records is a small independent record label based in Edinburgh, Scotland and specialises in Scottish traditional music.It was founded by Sandy Brechin in 1996....

 released The Complete Songs of Robert Tannahill Volume 1. Volume 2 was released in 2010, two hundred years after Robert Tannahill's death.

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of Robert Tannahill is his song "The Braes of Balquhidder" – the basis for the ballad "Wild Mountain Thyme

Wild Mountain Thyme

"Wild Mountain Thyme", also known as "Purple Heather" and "Will You Go Lassie, Go", is a folk song, rewritten by Francis McPeake, a native of Belfast, Northern Ireland...

," which has the chorus "Will Ye Go Lassie, Go." In it he refers to a story from his nursemaid Mary McIntyre of Balquhither parish, wherein she and her mother had baked bannock

Bannock

Bannock has more than one meaning:* Bannock , a kind of bread, usually prepared by pan-frying* Bannock , a Native American people of what is now southeastern Oregon and western Idaho* Bannock County, Idaho* Bannock, Ohio...

 for the army of Charles Edward Stuart

Charles Edward Stuart

Prince Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or The Young Pretender was the second Jacobite pretender to the thrones of Great Britain , and Ireland...

, marching to Culloden

Culloden

Culloden may refer to any of the following:*Culloden, Highland, a village in Scotland**The Battle of Culloden, a battle which took place there in 1746...

.

See also

• Scottish literature
  Scottish literature
  Scottish literature is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers. It includes literature written in English, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Brythonic, French, Latin and any other language in which a piece of literature was ever written within the boundaries of modern Scotland.The earliest...
  
  
• "Famous Scots Series". A biography of Robert Tannahill appears in the book, James Hogg by Sir George Douglas (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1899).