(Scottish Gael.: ‘a visit’; Irish Gael. céili).
Traditionally, in Gaelic Scotland, Ireland and emigrant communities overseas, it denoted any household gathering of family and friends, pre-arranged or impromptu, including neighbourly ‘dropping in’. Céilidhean, now anglicized in the plural to ‘céilidhs’, usually took place after dusk, generally between Hallowe’en and Easter, when limited daylight restricted the time for outdoor work. The long evenings were spent around the fire, which, till the 1920s was in the middle of the floor of most cottages.
Every neighbourhood had homes known as taighean céilidh, ‘céilidh houses’ (sing. taigh céilidh) whose occupants were tradition-bearers, storytellers, singers or custodians of traditional knowledge. The céilidh was not only the Gaels’ main source of entertainment, but more importantly, was the setting in which every aspect of oral tradition was handed down from one generation to the next. Participants could expect songs, stories, music on the pipes, fiddle, accordion or trump and dancing; exchanges of proverbs, riddles, jokes, pranks, tongue-twisters and folk-etymology; discussions about placelore, customs, beliefs, traditional knowledge of medicine (human and veterinary), plant-lore, weather-lore, animal husbandry, hunting, fishing, navigation and craft-lore of every kind. A strict code of conduct was observed in the taigh céilidh: performers expected silence and complete attention, though hands were frequently occupied knitting, carding, twisting rope or any craft that could be done in dim light and restricted space.
With the migration of Gaels to cities, the céilidh was adopted in urban areas to mean a social gathering for songs, music and dance, and, though originally held in homes, it shifted to the more formal setting of halls. By the 1920s céilidhs were re-imported to Gaeldom, denoting village-hall concerts in Scotland and dances in Ireland. The revised usage became more confused by increased movement between Scotland and Ireland, until eventually, the expectations of a céilidh in lowland Scotland became dancing. A new phrase ‘céilidh dancing’, is rapidly replacing ‘village hall dancing’ (couple dances, sets of reels, strathspeys or jigs), or ‘country dancing’ as popular trend reclaims for ‘ordinary people’ their own dances which, since 1923, have been standardized by the Royal Society of Scottish Country Dancing. Today, with the advent of television, the taigh céilidh is virtually extinct though Gaels still use céilidh simply to mean a visit.
P. Kennedy: The Banks of the Boro (London, 1867)
P. Kennedy: Evenings in the Duffrey (London, 1869)
D. Hyde: Beside the Fire (London, 1899)
A. MacDonald: Story and Song from Loch Ness-Side (Inverness, 1914)
K.H. Jackson: ‘Folktale in Gaelic Scotland’, Proceedings of the Scottish Anthropological and Folklore Society, iv (1952), 123–36
C.W. Dunn: Highland Settler: a Portrait of the Scottish Gael in Nova Scotia (Toronto, 1953)
D.S. Thompson: ‘The Gaelic Oral Tradition’, Proceedings of the Scottish Anthropological and Folklore Society, v (1954), 1–17
M. Bennett: ‘Céilidh air Ailein MacArtair: a Céilidh with Allan MacArthur’, chapter 3 in The Last Stronghold: Scottish Gaelic Traditions of Newfoundland (St John’s and Edinburgh, 1989), 55–81
M.E. Cohane and K.S. Goldstein: ‘Folksongs and the Ethnography of Singing in Patrick Kennedy’s The Banks of the Boro’, Journal of American Folklore, cix (1996), 425–36
M. Bennett: ‘Traditions of the Taigh Céilidh’, chapter 6 in Oatmeal and the Catechism: the Story of Scottish Gaelic Settlers in Quebec (Edinburgh, 1997)
T.A. McKean: Hebridean Song-Maker: Iain MacNeacail of the Isle of Skye (Edinburgh, 1997)
MARGARET BENNETT