Psalms Of The People

Language, land and religion – they’re difficult things to separate. Not the specifics of religion so much as the community spirit of it, the coming together in service of something bigger. Even atheists are welcome in the psalm group founded by Rob McNeacail’s celebrated father, the poet Aonghas ‘Dubh’ McNeacail. It’s in the moment, in the process, in the commingling of voices that something divine is found.

Gaelic psalm singing is an ancient tradition, once widespread in Scotland, clinging on at the margins for the past century or so. This, however, is not a documentary about history, tragedy and loss. It’s something very much focused on the now. The finest music is the music of what happens, they say: the immediate, the instinctive. A wild rabbit relaxes in the grass beside the tiny church in Carlops, like a Disney animal. Nearby, Rob sits amongst the roots of a tree, playing a flute. A sound designer amongst other things, he likes to capture natural sounds just as he likes music, and he finds a natural connection between the two.

Jack Archer’s film opens with birds in a dawn sky, briefly flipped over as we see them reflected in a loch. Migrating geese, they too follow ancient traditional lines, supporting one another and taking turns to lead. Rob shows us around the Garvald care community for adults with learning disabilities, where he works; introduces his sister Galina, who is a resident there. We encounter an amazingly eclectic collection of instruments. He explains, slightly shyly, that likes a bit of bluegrass too, but it’s clear that the psalm signing has his heart. He’s thrilled to be invited to the Isle of Lewis by Calum Martin, the world’s leading expert on the subject, and still more so to have the opportunity to lead a song at the Free Church. It’s a rare chance to see this small community portrayed in a positive light, concerned not with the threat of hellfire but with finding mutual joy.

This is one of several journeys in a film which takes us around the Gaelic and Gaelic speaking world (the difference there being in the pronunciation). In East Belfast, we visit a workshop where a man makes chanters. Loyalist paramilitary murals are all over the streets but psalm singing brings people together regardless of creed. In County Cork, Rob attends a laoch, sees his father’s picture in pride of place on the wall. In Argyll, he will visit the poet’s grave for a quietly observed, intimate moment in the rain.

Though its mood changes, the film always feels personal, and as such gives viewers a sense of connection to the psalms themselves. Different people old and young, discuss them with Rob, or share their own personal moments. Children try leading their groups in song for the first time. The mists and dreich hillsides typically associated with the Celtic are replaced with bright, welcoming spaces. The Western Isles are jewels in a sparkling sea.

“I think Calum wants me to make Gaelic cool,” says Rob, sitting on the grass in his green knitted jumper with brown elbow patches. He’s not sure that cool is something he knows how to be, but he is effortlessly charismatic, so much at ease in his surroundings. psalms Of The people invites viewers from English-speaking communities to enter into an adjacent world with which they may barely have interacted; one thinks of that image of the geese, and the old Celtic idea of another world glimpsed into the surface of the water where events run parallel but with subtle differences. For Gaelic audiences, who see too little of their world onscreen, it’s film full of humour and good company, lifted up by all those glorious voices, a delight both to watch and to listen to.

Psalms Of The People screened as part of the 2026 Glasgow Film Festival.

Reviewed on: 10 Mar 2026