If it's okay with @AbiLightbody I thought I'd sharethis in English re: #Gàidhlig in #Stirlingshire,exciting plans here for a museum in Fionn Treabh (Fintry) that will hopefully include Gaelic!

Though Gaelic was spoken across Stirlingshire it was latterly concentrated in the West https://twitter.com/AbiLightbody/status/1265631581160513536

We know that Stirlingshire's #Gàidhlig strongholds were Buchanan parish (by Loch Lomond) and Drymen. Nearly all records relating to Gaelic in Stirlingshire from about the 1600s onward refer to either Buchanan or Drymen. However, you may notice the red dot at Killearn

Killearn to Kippen is paler green as we know Gaelic was spoken directly north of Kippen in Port of Menteith parish, Perthshire c.18th C, and the red dot is the great Scots intellectual & Latin bard Seòras Bochanan (George Buchanan), a native #Gàidhlig speaker from Killearn

There is frustratingly little information from a #Gàidhlig perspective in terms of culture or history in areas like Balfron now, though a former teacher of mine was from Balfron herself & said she remembered a sense that they were "on the Highland border" & Gaelic re: placenames

It's important to note that Stirlingshire is composed of a number of units, but it does include part of Leamhnachd - the Lennox, I think that would be Buchanan & Drymen here as well as Dunbartonshire, though it may also include part of the old province of Menteith.

So when studying #Gàidhlig in this particular area you will prob. come across studies of both "The Lennox" and "Menteith" like Bho Chluaidh gu Calasraid - prob. the best book written on Gaelic culture & history in this area

I have added question marks to the parishes as far as the Lennox Hills as, due to the upland & rural quality of the country there, it seems to form a natural border between East & West Stirlingshire, and presumably would be a point where the #Gàidhlig language would ebb and flow

It's quite funny as nowadays there can be some friction as Perthshire folk in areas like Callander complain (quite rightly IMO) that they are now under the Stirling local authority, but once upon a time they were in Menteith which transcended modern borders, as did the Lennox

I think Dr. Michael Newton who wrote Bho Chluaidh gu Calasraid suggested Flanders Moss as a kind of linguistic border. I shall post some pictures of his maps

According to C.W.J. Withers, in 1698 the Church of Scotland (established) judged Drymen & Buchanan (also Port of Menteith) to be "Highland Parishes" in need of "Irish language services". People in these parishes, if they couldn't get Gaelic-language services would travel for them

From the OSA (Old Statistical Accounts) for Stirlingshire:

Buchanan parish, 1793:

"The people on the south side of the Grampian Hills, speak nothing but English; on the north side, such as have been born and brought up here, speak the English and Gaelic. (...)"

"Of late years, several tenants from the south side, have removed to farms on the north side; these speak English only."

Drymen parish, 1793:

"A considerable number speak the Gaelic language; and there are 3 or 4 who do not understand English"

Buchanan, 1838/41:

"As the parish is on the Highland border, a part of the inhabitants still retain the Gaelic language. There are few, however, that do not understand English."

Drymen, 1838/41:

"(A note about parishioners availing themselves of the Gaelic services in the churches of Aberfoyle and Gartmore)"

Stirling parish (i.e. the town/city), 1841:

"The people are not peculiar in respect of language, customs, domestic habits or comforts. In all these respects, they partake of the character of that part of the lowlands of Scotland which borders on the Highlands (...)"

"(...) from which, immigrations taking place of individuals and families, who for a time retain their peculiarities, until they gradually assume the general character of the population"

There is a really pervasive sense of Stirling as far as the city itself being"border country"

Which is why it can seem odd to some people that Stirling itself would be considered "a gateway to the Highlands" - considering Perth is above it, but at one point it really was the gateway to Scotland above the forth & the Highlands, with the all-important bridge

Though the tales have not survived, there are some 18th century notes -

From Bho Chluaidh gu Calasraid:

"The Rev. Duncan MacFarlane wrote in the year 1763 that there were still a few people in the parish of Drymen who remembered fragments of the lore of the Fianna"

"Likewise, the Rev. Patrick Graham wrote in the year 1798 that there was one old man in the parish of Drymen, Robert MacNeil, who knew tales of the Fianna."

There was a woman recorded in Stirlingshire in Buchanan parish in I believe either the GLS survey in the 50s, or even as late as the 1970s, but I do not have the recordings to hand - they are all at the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh but can be listened to by the public

So there are indeed records of people speaking fluent #Stirlingshire #Gàidhlig, as there are of more people on the borders of Stirlingshire such as in Brig o Turk, Perthshire

I also believe the Grahams of Stirlingshire would be Greumaich nan Cearc (Grahams of the Hens?) and it would be from this family that the Grahams of Montrose sprang