Singing the Psalms in Gaelic is a tradition dating back to the seventeenth century and earlier, especially in the Western Isles of Scotland. It was, says Rob, a community event.

It’s a chilly afternoon in the Borders, with icing-sugar snow sprinkled on the Pentland Hills outside the window, and I’m sitting by a log fire singing Psalm 13 in Gaelic, with precentor Rob MacNeacail. “Ciafhad a dhearmadar mi leat, / a Dhia, an anngu bràth? Cia fhad a cheileas tu do ghnùis / om anam truagh gach tràth?”; “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” It’s one of Rob’s favourite psalms, and happily he’s given me a quick lesson in pronunciation. Scottish Gaelic (there’s Irish Gaelic as well, which is different) isn’t the most phonetic of languages, and it’s not the most used either. In fact it’s been on the wane for centuries, and today fewer than two per cent of Scotland’s population can speak it

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