Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/MacDougall, Allan
MACDOUGALL, ALLAN (1750?–1829), Gaelic poet, known as Blind Allan, was born in Glencoe, Argyllshire, about 1750. At an early age he was apprenticed to an itinerant tailor, and during his wanderings he committed to memory many lines of Gaelic poetry, then orally preserved, and he thus quickened a natural aptitude for composing satirical verse. One day while at work he quarrelled with a fellow-tailor, who pierced his eye with a needle, and the wound rendered him totally blind. He afterwards made a living as a strolling musician, attending country feasts with his fiddle, and reciting his own compositions. In 1790, having received a house and a plot of land at Inverlochy, near Fort William, he retired thither, and, with the assistance of Ewan Maclachlan [q. v.], himself a poet, made arrangements for publishing his Gaelic verses, which duly appeared at Edinburgh in 1798, and included some work by Maclachlan. Colonel MacDonald, laird of Glengarry, subsequently took MacDougall under his care, and appointed him his family bard. In 1828 the poet travelled over the Western Highlands, soliciting subscriptions for a new edition of his book, but before it was issued he died, in 1829. He is buried at Kilfinan, Argyllshire.
[Reid's Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica; Mackenzie's Beauties of Gaelic Poetry.]