A Scottish scholar and his American wife bought an island, spent decades preserving Gaelic culture

Scottish Gaelic scholar John Lorne Campbell and American musician Margaret Fay Shaw bought the remote islands of Canna and Sanday in 1938 and made Canna House their home. For decades, they collected Gaelic songs, stories, photographs and historical records. In 1981, Campbell gifted Canna, their home and their extensive collections to the National Trust for Scotland, preserving their life’s work for future generations.