Gaelic Speaker
Little is known about Coll’s early years but we do know
that he was a native speaker of Scottish Gaelic. No doubt
a legacy of both his Highland upbringing and the influence
of his father, Hugh Macdonald. My father would relate
that his grandfather, Coll Reginald Macdonald, when
visiting his married daughter in Ireland, would take
himself off to the west of Ireland where he could speak
Gaelic with the local speakers of the language; there
being a close linguistic relationship between the Gaelic of
Scotland and Ireland.
2
Doctor of Medicine
What we do know is that Coll Macdonald completed his Doctor of
Medicine (MD) and Master of Surgery (CM) at the University of
Aberdeen and after graduation established his medical practice in the
country town of Beith, south west of Glasgow, in the county of
Ayrshire. Later, he was awarded a Diploma of Public Health by the
University of Cambridge.
Doctor Macdonald was obviously a man of some learning and
curiosity: while managing his practice at Beith, he still found time to
write an article for the British Medical Journal of 1886, which shows a
scholarly interest in the diseases on St Kilda, a remote island on the
lonely expanse of the north Atlantic, west of Scotland. He also appears
to have been an active and long-standing member of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland.
39
The Clan Donald: Macdonald, Angus