Robert Tannahill

Poet, flautist and song-writer. Born in Paisley, the son of a silk-weaver, Tannahill received a good education for the time. At the age of 12, he became an apprentice to his father. He taught himself to play the flute and began to compose songs as he worked. Inspired by Robert Burns' work Tam o' Shanter, Tannahill walked to Alloway Kirk in 1794 and spent time visiting the localities connected with the poet. An economic down-turn caused him to move to Bolton (England) in 1799, but he returned to Paisley in 1801 on hearing of the illness of his father. In the years following his fathers death in 1802 he began to publish his poetry, in some cases as words to existing tunes, particularly Irish music. Frail and shy, his poetry was often inspired by the countryside around Paisley. Despite having a deformity in his right leg, he would go for long walks in the Gleniffer Braes above the town. Poems such as "The Braes of Gleniffer" and "The Flower O' Levern Side" were about local haunts. He set up one of the first Burns' Clubs in the town in 1805. Tannahill's first and only publication, Poems and Songs (1807), proved popular, selling out within weeks. His best known songs are perhaps "The Braes o' Balquhidder", "Braes o' Gleniffer", "O are ye sleepin, Maggie", "Will ye go Lassie go" and "Jessie the Flower o' Dunblane". Prone to depression, when a second set of poems were rejected first by a Greenock publisher and then by Archibald Constable in Edinburgh, Tannahill drowned himself in the Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal. He is remembered by a statue in his home town and the Paisley Tannahill Club still meet in the house in Queen Street where he was brought up. (Portions of this text were snipped from Gazetteer for Scotland and Rampant Scotland) Wastrel On!