The Tannahill Songbook

Songs written by the nineteenth-century Weaver Poet, Robert Tannahill. Sung by Sam Monaghan, with music arranged or composed by Alastair MacDonald.

Robert Tannahill (1774 – 1810) spent his life composing his songs at the loom, at his cottage in Paisley – this recording was made in that very cottage. After a short period of working in Bolton in Lancashire around 1800, Tannahill returned to Paisley to support his 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. In 1810 Robert Tannhill died by his own hand, drowned in a culverted stream under the Paisley Canal.