Bateman, M (2003)

"Cruth na Tìre ann am Bàrdachd Ghàidhlig an 18mh Linn" ann an Cruth na Tìre, dd. 75-76, 79-80

Chunnacas "Cumha Coire a' Cheathaich" le neach-deasachaidh Dhonnchaidh Bhàin, Aonghas MacLeòid, mar aoir air "Òran Coire a' Cheathaich" far a bheil am moladh ga chur bun os cionn, ach saoilidh mi gu bheil barrachd an seo is gnàthas bàrdachd. Saoilidh mi gu robh tuigse aig Donnchadh bàn air an rud ris an can sinn an-diugh eag-eòlas (ecology). Rinn e an ceangal eadar an coire a bhith gun duine aig a bheil cas dheth agus sgrios na h-àrainneachd do bheathaichean agus do dhaoine:

Tha an aon phuing ga dhèanamh aige ann an "Cead Deireannach nam Beann" agus "Oran nam Balgairean". Tha na caoraich air àiteachas na Gàidhealtachd a mhilleadh is na fuadaichean adhbharachadh. 'S e an cultar cho mat ris na daoine a tha am bàrd a' caoidh, agus 's e "mì-nàdarrach" am facal a chleachdas e mun Ghàidhealtachd a bhith gun daoine. Mar sin, tha "nàdar" a' ciallachadh dhàsan, agus dhan tradisean bhon tàinig e, am fearann, agus na lusan, na beathaichean, na daoine agus an cultar aca air fad.

Gillies, W. (1977)

"The Poem in Praise of Ben Dobhrainn", Lines Review, 63, t.d. 63

The older anthologies and handbooks of Gaelic literature praised Duncan ban's fluency, copiousness, mellifluousness or the like; more modern critics have found robustness, vigour, rhythmic vitality to commend; both sorts tend to heap praise on the verbal and musical accomplishment, but tend to be reticent or even dismissive about the mind that conceived and produced "Moladh Beinn Dobhrain". They decry what they term a lack of mental effort, an absence of philosophy or of the sense of crisis which might (as it were) have forced great verse out of him; and there is a tendency to regard his longer poems merely as tours de force. I feel myself that this approach is misguided: partly, no doubt, it is a case of hyper-literates over-estimating the remarkableness of linguistic virtuosity in an illiterate; but it also involves an under-estimate of the amount of effort and muscle in "Moladh Beinn Dobhrain." (Similarly I object to the judgement sometimes made that Duncan Ban's mental powers were second-rate, in that it fails him on tests he was never trained to take...) In general I believe that one can with profit pitch one's critical tent far nearer to "Misty Corrie" than the appraisals I have most recently read contrive to do...

Macintyre, D. (1952)

The Songs of Duncan Ban Macintyre, dd. xxxviii – xl

Macintyre was known, not without reason, as Donnchadh bàn nan òran – a maker of songs to sing. His poems were composed in general to tunes known to the poet; his language was the speech of the people; his style was simple and direct, and his verse singable. So did Burns compose or rewrite songs to old tunes, not necessarily great poetry set to great music. Macintyre's songs, once they are heard sung to their special air, lose part of their appeal when recited. But all his poetry does not depend on a tune for its effect; his art can set the verse swaying to its own inherent music.

...

He seems sometimes to be carried away on the stream of his copious vocabulary. The stream purls and wimples softly, sometimes chatters, and not infrequently cascades melodiously. And yet we are not satisfied, haunting though the word music may be. The poet himself does not emerge from the mass of his work with any system of philosophy; he can describe objectively with all the precision of Celtic ornamentation; but he does not play with ideas, nor do we find evidence of "capacity for pain" in any of his composition. Hence, if in poetry we require sublimity of thought, a philosophy of life or compelling emotion ,we shall find Duncan Macintyre wanting. If we look for a revolutionary, a zealot or a visionary, we shall be disappointed in the bard of Glen Orchy.

We must accept him as he was – a peasant who could not read but had a wonderful memory and a wide knowledge of Gaelic poetry; a poet who could compose readily about people and places and objects; one whose thought was not deep but who rose to great heights in descriptive composition. No other Gaelic poet has so many editions published, and he is certainly the best known of the eighteenth-century group.

Smith, I. C. (1986)

"Duncan Ban Macintyre (Written on the 250th of his birth) ann an Towards the Human, dd. 133-135

It is clear that the poet was not a sophisticated political analyst, and that he was in no sense an intellectual. He lacks utterly the fierce strength of Alexander MacDonald's mind (that surrealistic darkness which for instance created the fantastic storm in the "Birlinn"), the resonance of William Ross, the incisive natural intelligence and biting wit of Rob Donn.

Why, therefore, is he remembered? Quite simply because as a nature poet he is unmatchable. It must have happened that when he was gamekeeper the circumstances for producing great nature poetry were ideal, without a shadow and without grief. Once or twice we see this happening to poets: this exact moment made Macintyre a genius. Never again, of course, would he ever recapture that extraordinary magic, in no other place would he look and see with such apparently effortless intensity, in no other poetry of his would music and observation be so fruitfully married.

...

It is clear why Macintyre is regarded as a great Gaelic poet. Nowhere else in Scottish poetry do we have a poem of such sunniness and grace and exactitude maintained for such a length, with such a wealth of varied music and teeming richness of language (as in Beinn Dorain). The whole poem has about it the authentic feel of authoritative genius. The devoted obsession, the richly concentrated gaze, the loving scrutiny, undiverted by philosophical analysis, has created a particular world, joyously exhausting area after area as the Celtic months exhausted page after page of the Book of Kells, And indeed it is that splendid word "illumination" we should be using about this poem.

Thomson, D. S. (1974)

An Introduction to Gaelic Poetry, dd. 181, 186

The poetic gift which Donnchadh Bàn was perhaps best endowed with was that of observation. His observation was not confined to one field, but there is no doubt that it was in the deer-forest, in those varied hills and mountains of the Perthshire-Argyllshire border, that it was exercised most lovingly. The highly factual nature of much of the description need not entirely obscure the emotion that underlies it, but perhaps it is when we contrast the poetry of his rural period with that of the later years that we realize most clearly that he needed this physical background of nature to sustain his poetry. There might well be other, more prosaic explanations of the change of tone and talent, but this one is also supported by those few poem of his later period in which he returns, in person or in imagination, to the scenes of his youth. And above all his eye and his imagination open when he is within sight of the deer. There is not a hint of sentimentality in his attitude: he describes in an equally loving way the antics of the hind or the fawn, and the process of stalking or taking aim at or shooting the stag. Nor is there any attempt to philosophize. He does not question the workings of nature, nor attempt to draw from them lessons for Man. There is no overt intellectual curiosity displayed at all. The close and detailed observation implies a strong and effective concentration, evidenced again in the transfer of that observation to verse that is tightly constructed metrically. But it may leave us with the impression of an artefact to be admired for the moment, rather than a work of art whose reverberations are unpredictable.