Michael Nash Music.Com

During the years immediately before the outbreak of World War II the voice of the young tenor Sydney MacEwan

gave delight to millions of people throughout the English speaking world and especially to people of Scottish or Irish decent.

Born in the great industrial city of Glasgow on 19th of October 1908 he was in demand even as a boy at parish concerts in the city.

While he was studying at Glasgow University his reputation began to spread throughout Scotland,

and when he went to London to the Royal Academy of Music he was introduced to the music world by two of his chief patrons,

the famous author and music critic Compton Mac Kenzie and the great Irish tenor Count John McCormack.

He soon started to produce recordings of ballads, hymns and popular song at a phenomenal rate.

Then he went on a world tour through New Zealand, Australia, Canada and America.

He was described by Sir Compton Mackenzie as the greatest living interpreter of Celtic music.

 While he thoroughly enjoyed the experience and the fame, he never lost the ambition that he had nurtured

 since his boyhood to be a Parish Priest in his beloved Glasgow.

At the age of thirty he entered the seminary and he was ordained a priest in Glasgow on 29th June 1944.

 He spent four years in the very busy parish of St. Andrew's Cathedral.

But it became clear that because of his fame and popularity he could not have the freedom to

continue to work in the city and in 1948 he regretfully decided to find a parish in Scotland remote from the city life,

but where there was plenty of work for a priest.

Such a place was Lochgilphead in the diocese of Argyll and the Isles, and he transferred his allegiance

to the diocese in which he became a Canon in 1956.

He continued to make singing tours in America, Australia and Ireland from time to time,

and to produce gramophone records but in Scotland

he spent most of his life as a simple country Parish Priest, avoiding publicity as much as possible.

Then at the age of fifty, when his voice was at its peak, he firmly decided that he would not sing in public again.

 He spent the years of his retirement first in Gourock and then in Dunoon and died in Glasgow on 25th September 1991.

Sincere gratitude to the late Monsignor R. Macdonald, Balachulish, Argyll for his hospitality and

guidance during my many visits to Scotland researching the life of Canon MacEwan.

Ar dheis De go raibh a n-anam dflis ag an beirt acu.

Michael Nash, Limerick, Ireland.

September 2007.

Produced and compiled by Michael Nash.

Records from the collection of Peter Mallan, Myles Lawlor, Dermot McDevitt.

Remastered from original 78s by Denis Alien. Copied, printed & packaged by BK Business Services.

As most of the recordings were made in the 1930's and 1940's some surface noise may be apparent.

Cover Photo - Columba's Bay, Iona.

Tray Photo· Looking east from Balachulish over Loch Leven to the Pap of Glencoe, Scotland.

Further details from:  http://www.michaelnashmusic.com