Metagama: An Atlantic Odyssey

In April 1923 the SS Metagama left Stornoway with over 300 young islanders onboard, bound for Canada. Within a year, nearly 1500 young people had left the Hebrides on the ships Marloch, Canada and Metagama. Coming on the back of WWI and the Iolaire disaster, this mass emigration would have a devastating impact on the Western Isles, still felt today.

This centenary concert celebrates the lives and stories of those emigrants, many of whom journeyed south to the USA, working in car factories and construction. Some returned home during the Great Depression, but many stayed to establish new lives in the New World.

An ensemble of acclaimed musicians and singers will carry you aboard the Metagama, a journey that will take you to the lakes and plains of Canada, to 1920s Detroit and Prohibition, through the ebb and flow of fortunes on both sides of the Atlantic.

Join award-winning writer Donald S Murray, musician Liza Mulholland, actor and 7:84 Theatre founding player Dolina MacLennan, Gaelic singer and piper Calum Alex Macmillan, fiddler Charlie Mackerron of Capercaillie, singer-songwriter Willie Campbell, cellist Christine Hanson, and visual artist Doug Robertson, in marking this historic event with an evening of music, song and story.

The ensemble toured this show to great acclaim and capacity audiences in the Highlands & Islands in 2023 and followed this with a sell-out show at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections Festival in January 2024. With support from Creative Scotland, Harris Tweed Hebrides, Charlie Barleys and Crowdfunder supporters, the ensemble recently recorded an album of the show’s music and song, and are touring the show throughout Scotland in Autumn 2025.