John was one of ‘the’ voices of Gaelic Glasgow the late 19th Century, a Muileach who moved to the city and spent his life there as a railwayman on the southside. He was the star turn at the Penny Readings, organised by the Gaelic church in the city to try and keep the young men out of the pubs. A small man, he could still hold a crowd in the palm of his hand as he performed his latest songs, summing up the experience of the arrival Highland exile with empathy, wit, and sometimes self-deprecation.

The 12-strong fleet of Clutha ferries plied their trade between the Broomielaw and Whiteinch over twenty years or so in the late 19th Century. A trip to the city to see a girlfriend takes the hero past various wonders of the time: the Bonanza warehouse on Argyle Street; MacLeod’s waxworks at the Trongate; the horse-drawn Tramway, and the ferries, the ‘Penny Liners’ themselves. The couple jump aboard, and the journey is elevated to a great mock-heroic voyage with a New Year party at the end, Gaels on board and an Irishwoman playing the pipes.

This quite possibly hasn’t been sung in a century or more, and I went looking for the original melody. ‘Poltalloch House’ was written by John MacLachlan, piper to the laird of Poltalloch, to mark the contruction of the fantastical Argyllshire mansion built on the proceeds of the slave trade. It now lies in ruins.

This was recorded live in the studio in Belfast with The Wiyos, a wonderful New York-based trio with their roots in street music and vaudeville whom I met first at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow.