Johnnie Grant's father and grandfather were both fluent Gaelic speakers. It was thought so important that his father spoke Gaelic that when he was 4 he was sent to live with his nanny in Drumnadrochit on the shores of Loch Ness, to learn Gaelic.

One of Johnnie Grant’s ancestors was a competent Gaelic poet. James, the 5th Laird was born around 1592 and died in 1678 and only one of his compositions survives, Oran Broin air Tighearna Ghrannda, composed in 1719. Colonel John Roy Stuart, one of the two principle Gaelic poets of the 1745 rising had strong Rothiemurchus connections. He was born in 1700 in Kincardine, just 3 miles to the east of Rothiemurchus, his mother came from Guislich in Rothiemurchus and he composed poetry to the Grants of Rothiemurchus family.