North Uist in History and Legend E-Book

Bill Lawson

• Herausgeber: John Donald
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 400

Beschreibung

Like all the Hebrides, North Uist has a fascinating history and a landscape scattered with historic sites, from Neolithic burial chambers, Iron Age forts and medieval churches to battle-sites and townships forged in the days of kelp trade and deserted during the subsequent traumas of clearance and emigration. In this informative book, Bill Lawson writes about the island and its people, drawing on recorded history and also the rich tradition of story and song in which the informal history of the people was passed down. He also incorporates many personal reminiscences of his travels through the island.

Leseprobe

NORTH UIST IN HISTORY AND LEGEND

NORTH UIST IN HISTORY AND LEGEND

BILL LAWSON

First published in 2004 by

John Donald Publishers,

an imprint of

Birlinn Limited

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh EH9 IQS

www.birlinn.co.uk

Copyright © Bill Lawson 2004

The moral right of Bill Lawson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978 1 78885 274 6

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library

Typeset by Koinonia, Bury

Printed and bound by GraphyCems, Spain

CONTENTS

Prologue

Part One – Na Machraichean (The Machairs)

Part Two – Na Cladaichean (The Shores)

Part Three – Na Lochan (The Lochs)

Part Four – Sgire Shannda (Sannd District)

Part Five – Sgire Sholais (Solas District)

Epilogue

Appendix

References

Picture Credits

Maps

Index of Persons

Index of Main Topics

Index of Places

PROLOGUE

On a slight hillock, near the road between Baile Loin and Scolpaig, is an ancient cross, mounted on a more recent pedestal of rock. This is the cross of Cille Pheadair, all that remains of the church-site of that name. The prefix Cille- usually points to an origin before the days of the Vikings, so the church-yard probably dates to between 500 and 800, though the present site of the cross dates back only to about 1820, when it was re-erected on its pillar by Dr Alexander MacLeod of Baile Loin.

The cross has watched over much of the history of North Uist, but it is conscious that it is a relative youngster in this area. A few miles to the north, at Foisigearraidh, near Griminis, there are shell-middens with pottery shards which go back to the time of the Beaker people, who made their homes on the island about 5,000 years ago. Then came the Bronze Age, and after it the Iron Age – the time of the building of the duns, or forts. Some of these duns are on headlands, where a fire message could be passed from dun to dun in times of danger. But in North Uist duns were typically built on islands in lochs: Dun an Sticir at Baile mhic Phail, Dun Aonghais at Ath Mhor and many other examples – indeed there are few lochs of any consequence which do not have their island dun.

1. View from Cille Pheadair Cross

The cross’s own day came with the arrival, somewhere about the year 500, of the first Christian missionaries, who made their way up the west coast from Iona and Lismore. Cille Pheadair, Cille Mhuire and Cille Chalamain on the shore near Huna are all names that bear witness to churches set up at this time.

The peace of the churches did not last long; from the north and west swept the raiding galleys of the Vikings. The clerics of the Hebrides had no shelter against them except the sea, which at its wildest could daunt even a Viking. There is a marginal note in a Gaelic grammar preserved in the monastery of St Gall in Switzerland:

Is acher ingaith innocht fufuasna fairge findfolt

No agor reimm mora minn dondlaechriad lain us lothlind

Sharp is the wind tonight, and white tresses rise on the ocean; / I need not fear the calm sea, bringing the fierce warriors of Norway.1

The Vikings did not settle the Uists as completely as they did the islands farther north, but they ruled them for long enough to give their names to the most important hills along the west coast – Cleitreabhal, Unabhal and Craonabhal – and to islands like Boirearaigh, Orasaigh and Bhalaigh. The churches in particular were the subject of the Viking raids, and there are many stories of church treasures being hidden on the approach of the raiders – and of gilded letters from missals and psalters appearing as ornaments on the Norse women when their menfolk returned home.

Though the Vikings had destroyed the church buildings, the sanctified ground still remained, and new churches were built on it; Speed’s map of North Uist in 1610 shows St Patricius, presumably a rebuilding of the older Cille Pheadair.

In 1266, after the Battle of Largs, the islands were formally ceded to the Scottish crown, and a half-Norse, half-Scottish lordship arose there under the leadership of Somerled macGhillebrighde – the Lordship of the Isles. The Lordship had its own court and its own judges and bards; it became a centre of Gaelic power and culture separate from the Scottish court, and often in conflict with it. As the Scottish kings consolidated their power in their mainland possessions, they were unwilling to allow too powerful and independent a Lordship. When the then Lord of the Isles entered into the Treaty of Ardtornish, by which he and the English king were to divide Scotland between them, the struggle for power between the Scottish Crown and the Lordship entered its final stage, resulting in the downfall and destruction of the latter.

John, the last Lord of the Isles, submitted to James IV of Scotland in 1494, but the MacDonald descendants of Somerled, who had been the main family in the Lordship, remained the most powerful grouping on the west coast. Had they been able to pull together, as they had under the control of the Lordship, the history of Scotland could have been very different, but the Scottish kings followed the old policy of divide and rule, setting the clans against each other and fomenting inter-clan feuds; this fatally weakened the Gaidhealtachd. The MacDonalds and the MacLeods, in particular, were set at loggerheads by the Crown grant of each clan’s lands to the other in Trotternish and other parts of Skye, leading to raids like that which led to the Battle of Carinish in 1601.

The MacDonalds did not have to contend only with outside foes; there was plenty of dissension among their own numbers. Domhnall Hearach was throttled by a trick at Dun Scolpaig, and avenged by Aonghas Fionn at the sanctuary of Cille Mhuire; Uisdean mac Ghilleasbuig Chleirich hid in the dun at Loch an Sticir at Baile mhic Phail; Siol Mhurchaidh were drowned at Hosta – there were plenty of examples, and the cross remembered well the tread of heavy feet and the clash of swords. But gradually the feuds were settled, and the farmers had been able to cultivate their lands in peace, more threatened by calamities like the great murrain or cattle disease of 1720 than by armed forces.

As there was less threat of outside danger, the clan chiefs came to place less value on the armed men they could raise from their tenants; they came to look on the tenants more as a source of income. The main farms then were along the north and west coasts, where the machair was easy to cultivate. Each township, along with its arable lands, had its common grazings, running into the foothills behind the machair. There the small black cattle which were the main produce of the land were raised. In the hills of the east was MacDonald’s deer-forest, and the long sea-lochs which provided summer fishing.

In the mid 1700s, a new industry came to the Hebrides, which led to sudden prosperity, and eventual ruin. This was the period of the French Wars, when there was an unprecedented demand for minerals, some of which, those used in the production of soap and glass, could be derived from the ash of kelp. Gathering and burning kelp was a very labour-intensive process, and more and more people were encouraged to settle in the shore townships. The land could not possibly feed them all, but that did not matter so long as the market for kelp was good. The landlord, of course, got most of the profits, but there was enough left over to buy food and pay the rents, even though these were increased to take account of the value of the kelp.

The whole system of land tenure was changed to accommodate the maximum number of potential kelp-workers on the land, and the crofting system was brought in to replace the older joint-tenancy farms.

The cross remembered when the whole machair coast of the island had been under a mist of acrid smoke as the kelp was burned in kilns. On the rocky coasts of the east, the sea-weed was cut from the rocks. So valuable was this that MacDonald fought a court-case for many years with MacLeod of Harris about the ownership of little rocks in the Sound of Harris – a case which ended with the boundary drawn so close to the Uist shore that almost every island in Caol na Hearadh was assigned to Harris.

After the wars came the inevitable crash. With continental markets open again, cheaper and better sources of minerals were available, and the price of kelp plummeted. Landlords and tenants alike lost their main source of income. Many tenants had been able to gather a little capital during the boom years, and they now used this to pay their fare to Cape Breton in Canada, and to buy land there.

Those who remained in Uist soon found themselves in financial trouble. There was no longer any serious income from kelp, though the business continued for a time, with less and less chance of any return. There was no income to pay the rents which had been increased in the boom years, and the land itself was impoverished through the diversion to the kelp-kilns of much of the sea-ware which should have been used as fertiliser on the crofts.

2. Kelp-burning

The landlords offered some reductions of rent, for example in 1827, but these were not sufficient to solve the problems of the crofters. MacDonald himself, like most of the Highland chiefs, had entered into heavy financial commitments, and was unable – and unwilling – to cut back his expenditure to any great degree.

As well as the lack of income, there was the pressure of overpopulation. The landlords had encouraged the growth of a potential work-force, and now there was no work for them. The population of North Uist had risen from 3,010 in 1801 to 4,971 in 1821. By 1832 it had dropped to 4,603, largely through the emigration of over six hundred people to Cape Breton in 1828. By 1851, numbers had again dropped to 3,918, but then they began to rise again, reaching 4,264 in 1881. After that, there was a loss of about three hundred every ten years until 1961, when the population was given as 1,925. Since then the rate of decrease has slowed, and at the census of 1991 the figure was 1,815.

The remedy, from the landlords’ point of view, was in the new sheep industry. Sheep-farmers on the mainland were running out of new land for their flocks, and could offer higher rents than the crofters could pay. In the 1820s and 1830s most of the district of Sannd in the northeast of the island was cleared to make sheep-farms; the former tenants were squeezed in among the already overcrowded townships elsewhere on the island, or sent to join the pioneers in Cape Breton. Whole areas of Cape Breton, around the River and Lake of Mira, were settled from North Uist, along with shore lands around Gabarus and Catalone. As these better lands were taken up, immigrants had to settle on the higher, poorer, land, in areas such as Trout Brook and New Boston.

Griminis had been cleared then too. The cross could remember the Griminis crofters coming past with their carts laden, making their way to the new lands found for them at Hosta, but they at least had been able to stay on in Uist. It was about this time too that the cross was taken from its ancient home in the old graveyard and re-erected in its present position – it was said that most of the other stones in the graveyard had been used in building the new farm-house at Cille Pheadair, but now that had crumbled into ruin as well.

In the 1840s disaster struck in the form of potato blight, wiping out in successive years the whole potato crop on which the overcrowded townships had come to rely as their main food source. What little cash there was was soon spent on food, and rent arrears accumulated, providing the estate with another excuse for evicting tenants from townships, such as Solas, which had potential as farms.

If potato blight was bad in Uist, it was just as bad in Cape Breton, so there was no longer any point in going there. Lord MacDonald arranged for some families to emigrate to Middlesex County in Ontario, but most of the emigrants of this period went to Australia, with the financial assistance of the Highlands and Island Emigration Society.

Eventually, the government was forced to pay attention to the distress of the crofters, and the Napier Commission was set up to take evidence on the causes and possible cures of this distress. The commission visited North Uist in 1883, and the evidence given before it is a valuable source for the history of North Uist. The commission recommended a limited degree of security of tenure for the crofters, and much of the potential for the harassment of tenants by the estate was removed.

There were still more people squeezed into the crofting townships than they could support, and, although the crofters now had protection, there was still the problem of the landless cottars. Gradually, under pressure from the government agencies, many of the farms were broken up once more into crofts, with the assistance of the Board for Congested Districts. Solas and Greinetobht were crofted again, and the villages in Sannd – and even Loch Portain grazings were made into crofts again, even if they were let mainly to strangers from Harris!

3. ‘Golf Ball’ on Cleitreabhal

Communications improved: new roads and harbours were built – and the cross could remember the first time a plane had come low overhead, on its way to the new landing strip at Solas! Other things came too; barely two miles to the south and east of the cross, on top of the hill of Cleitreabhal, a huge ‘golf-ball’ was built, part of the radar installations for the base at Baile a’ Mhanaich in neighbouring Benbecula, and beside it a litter of masts and aerials.

Still, mused the cross, at least the hill of Carra Crom hid it from immediate view, and it was still possible to gaze to the sea and turn one’s back on the hill. And, just to the south of the top of Cleitreabhal there are the ruins of prehistoric cairns and a standing stone. They have almost disappeared, swallowed up by the peat and the centuries, and no doubt the ‘golf-ball’ will go too, to become just another chapter in the stories of the different townships which go to make up the history of the Isle of North Uist.

4. Cille Pheadair Cross

Eilean Uibhist mo ruin,

Eilean cubhraidh nam beann

Eilean Uibhist mo ruin,

B’e mo dhurachd bhith ann

An Eilean Uibhist mo ruin.

Far am faic mi luchd m’eolais

Sean is og dhiubh na th’ ann

Bhiodh coibhneas, bhiodh coiread

Pailt a dortadh mum cheann

An Eilean Uibhist mo ruin

Eilean Uibhist mo ruin,

Eilean cubhraidh nam beann

Eilean Uibhist mo ruin,

B’e mo dhurachd bhith ann

An Eilean Uibhist mo ruin.2

Angus MacLellan (Aonghas Lachlainn), Taigh Ghearraidh

PART ONE – NA MACHRAICHEAN (THE MACHAIRS)

Cille Pheadair (Kilpheder)

We can begin our historical tour of North Uist under the shadow of the cross of Cille Pheadair. We are in the north-west corner of the island; behind us are the rock promontories of Scolpaig, and before us the machairs of the west coast. Below us lies the farm of Cille Pheadair and below that again the site of the old church of Cille Pheadair itself, from which the cross was taken in the 1820s to be raised on its present pedestal.

This corner of North Uist is the least populated, and also has the least shelter. I must admit I have often, when walking through this area, had the same feelings that MacCulloch the geologist had when he was walking here in 1824:

There is one advantage in a shower on this country, that you are not kept waiting in a fretful expectation, wondering how long it will be before you are wet through. The business is completed in five minutes, and you are at peace for the day. After that, whatever falls is so much rain wasted!3

But I have been there on beautiful summer days too – and very beautiful it can be.

W. F. H. Nicolaisen in his Scottish Place-names4 points out that the church names with Cille- as a prefix are usually very early sites, certainly pre-Viking, whereas the later churches tend to use the Norse kirk- as a prefix. This would suggest that these Cille- church sites could date back to the early Christian missionaries, who made their way up the west coast from centres such as Iona and Lismore. It is unlikely to be a direct Columban settlement, as Argyll and the Great Glen were his main areas of influence, but there are many dedications to Maelrubha of Applecross in the Western Isles, and it may well be that the Uist churches were set up by his followers.

Cille Pheadair is one of the better agricultural areas of North Uist, and was occupied by tacksmen – tenants on long lease – who were often relatives of the clan chiefs – in the case of North Uist, the MacDonalds of Sleat. These tacksmen formed an ‘upper-middleclass’ in the community, both exploiting their subtenants and farm-workers and protecting them from the chiefs. Originally, the tacksmen had held their land in consequence of their ability to turn out with armed men to fight for their chief, but in the more peaceful days after the end of the clan feuds it was their relationship and social prestige which gave them claim to their tenure.

In the mid-1700s, all this began to change. The clan chiefs had been encouraged to become city gentlemen in London and Edinburgh, and the expense of this made them more interested in drawing cash from their estates than in maintaining family ties. The tacksmen’s rents were increased beyond what many of them thought their land was worth; and the loss of social prestige in changing from valued relative to commercial tenant was more than they could take. Numbers of tacksmen from both the Skye and North Uist estates decided to emigrate, and at that date the target of emigration was North Carolina.

The shorelands of Carolina had already been taken up by English settlers, so the Scots headed for the pine-clad sand-hills in the centre of the state, along the Upper Cape Fear River. There had been a settlement of Argyllshire Scots here in the 1730s, so there were plenty of plantations to purchase and new land to settle. Several of the North Uist tacksmen settled in this area, among them the tacksman of Cille Pheadair, who was a MacLeod of the family of MacLeod of Rigg, though there is some doubt about his first name. With him went his son, Dr Murdoch, who opened an apothecary’s shop in Cross Creek, later re-named Fayetteville. In the 1770s, Cross Creek had a population of about 1,500, and was very much the centre of the Upper Cape Fear River community.

It was a Gaelic-speaking community, and one of the earliest Gaelic songs we have from the Americas is in the form of a lullaby, written by John MacRae from Kintail, who had settled there:

Dean cadalan samhach, a chuilean mo ruin;

Dean fuireach mar tha thu, ’s tu an drasd’ an ait’ ur

Bidh oigearan again, lan beairteis ’us cliu,

’S ma bhios tu ’nad airidh, ’s leat fear-eiginn dhiubh.

Gur ann an America tha sinn an drasd’

Fo dhubhar na coille, nach teirig gu brath

’Nuair dh’fhalbhas an dulachd ’s a thionndaidh ’s am blaths

Bithidh cnothan, bithidh ubhlan,’s bithidh an siucar a’ fas.

Sleep softly, my darling beloved, / stay as you are; now that you are

in a new land / we’ll find suitors abounding in wealth and fame/

and, if you are worthy, you shall have one of them.

We are now in America, / in the shade of the never-ending forest;/

when winter departs and warmth returns, / nuts, apples and sugar will grow.5

My wife and I visited North Carolina recently and it was fascinating to find how Scottish the Upper Cape Fear community still was, and how conscious they were of this part of their history. Many of them can trace their families back to the original emigrants, including one family of MacKeithens, who claim a North Uist origin. Obviously their name has changed in transit, but what was it originally? MacKiggan perhaps, or even MacEachan, as pronounced by a person who could not manage the Gaelic ‘ch’!

Oddly enough, there are more of the descendants of the earlier Argyll settlers around there than there are of the later tacksmen, because so many of the latter fought on the British government side in the American Revolution. We shall return to their reasons for doing so, but the end result for Dr Murdoch was that he had to leave Carolina. After a short period as an army doctor with the Loyalists in Nova Scotia, he returned to Scotland, where he took on the tack of Cille Pheadair, probably paying for it with the meagre compensation he got from the British government for his losses while fighting for them in Carolina. It was at Cille Pheadair that Dr Murdoch’s son was born – Dr Alexander, or An Dotair Ban.

5. MacRae Road-sign in North Carolina

An Dotair Ban was a well-loved doctor in Uist, as well as a noted land improver, whose work will be noted under Griomasaigh, Boirearaigh and Scolpaig. Unfortunately, he and MacDonald of Baile Raghaill, the factor, could never agree, especially in their cups, and they fell out so badly that the Dotair Ban eventually had to leave Uist for Skye, where he was doctor for the parishes of Strath and Sleat, along with Knoydart on the mainland. It was on a visit to Knoydart that he was killed in 1854, falling over a rock-face on his way home after delivering the child of a shepherd in a remote part of that country beyond Scotus – the rock still being remembered as Creag an Dotair.

It was An Dotair Ban who was responsible for the removal of the cross from the old graveyard of Cille Pheadair. According to tradition, the other remaining gravestones from the site were used at the same time in the building of his farm-house of Cille Pheadair. Dr Murdoch was buried in the churchyard of Cille Mhuire, as was his son; like most graves of the time, theirs are unmarked, unless by rough, uninscribed stones.

In earlier days, the doctors in North Uist had been of the family of Beatons, whose members were the hereditary physicians of the Lords of the Isles and their MacDonald successors. According to Clan Donald,6 Neil Beaton, the last of the Beaton physicians in North Uist, died in 1763. That they were learned people can be seen from the medical textbook Regimen Sanitatis – which would probably now be translated as ‘Life-Style’ – compiled by a Beaton, probably in the early 1600s. The book combines natural advice with classical learning:

It is better to rest standing, or to take a gentle walk after the meal; as Rufus says Modicus incessus post prandium hoc est quod mihi placet, that is, it is agreeable to me an easy walk after the meal. Nevertheless to make great exertion after eating by walking or riding will corrupt the food and will prevent the digestion. But after the meal take a moderate sleep as was said in this Canon Uentres hueme et uere that is that it is well to understand the extent to which the sleep helps the digestion. Still, the sleep and the non-sleep that goes beyond moderation is wrong, as is said in the second Particle of the Aphorisms; and let it be done in the night for Hippocrates says in the first Particle of the Prognostics Sompnus naturalis est qui noctem non effugit et diem non impedit, that is, the natural sleep which does not avoid the night and does not impede the day. Nevertheless many men make day of the night; sleeping in the day and awake in the night – and that is very bad.7

6. Title Page of Regimen Sanitatis

I would like to know how Beaton reckoned that a writer of books could follow his advice!

Martin Martin, the earliest travel-writer about the Hebrides, who was here in the early 1700s, tells this story of one of the Beatons, and a case of second-sight :

James Beaton, Surgeon in the Isle of North Uist, told me that, being in the Isle of Mull, a Seer told him confidently that he was shortly to have a bloody Forehead, but he disregarded it, and call’d the Seer a Fool. However, this James being called by some of the Mackleans to go along with them to attack a Vessel belonging to the Earl of Argyle, who was then coming to possess Mull by force, they attack’d the Vessel, and one of the MackLeans being Wounded, the said James while dressing the Wound, happen’d to rub his forehead, and then some of his Patients blood stuck to his face, which accomplish’d the Vision.8

Like his Beaton precursors, An Dotair Ban was a believer in natural cures, as Rev. Ewen MacRury in his Hebridean Parish quotes:

Ach cuimhnichibh, a luchd mo ghraidh,

Comhairlean an Dotair Bhan;

Thugaibh pailteas as an traigh

’S deanaibh cal air deanntaig.

Remember, friends, / the advice of the Dotair Ban; /

take plenty of your food from the shore / and make broth of nettles.9

(I should point out that I am a firm believer that translations of poetry, unless in the hands of another poet, tend to end up as doggerel, so it is with trepidation that I have included rough, prose translations of Gaelic poetry where nothing better is available, to convey some idea of the meaning to non-Gaelic speaking readers, even though the music of the words is irretrievably lost!)

Dr MacLeod obtained the neighbouring farm of Baile Loin in 1814, and the farm-house there was built for him a few years later. Since then, Cille Pheadair and Baile Loin have been a single farm. The Cille Pheadair house was let to tenants, among them being his son-in-law, Rev. Norman MacLeod of Trumaisgearraidh, who led the North Uist people out of the Church of Scotland and into the new Free Church at the time of the Disruption of 1843.

Baile Loin (Balelone)

In the old days, much of North Uist consisted of tacks – farms under long lease – and joint tenancy farms, where a number of tenants held the land and were jointly liable for the rent. But in 1814 there was a large-scale revision of the North Uist estate, when the old joint-tenancy townships were either broken into crofts, or, on the better land, made into farms. Baile Loin had at one time been leased to joint-tenants, but in 1814 they were removed and the farm let to Dr Alexander MacLeod.

Rev. Finlay MacRae, writing in the New Statistical Account in 1837, explains the then prevailing system of land-holding:

The occupiers of the land may be divided into two classes – 1. The gentleman farmers or tacksmen, each of whom possesses one or more farms – 2. The small tenants, who formerly had their lands conjunctly, the arable land possessed in run-rig, or subject to annual division amongst themselves. In the year 1814, a better system was adopted. The arable lands were measured and lotted, and each small tenant put in possession of his own croft or share, while the grazing was still left in common. This naturally gave a powerful impetus to improvement. The industrious was no longer clogged by the carelessness or sloth of his neighbour, nor by the consideration that the labour of the former would benefit the latter. On the contrary, the slothful was spurred on by the example and never-failing reward of the industrious.10

The main advantage to the estate, of course, was that the crofting system made it possible to get more people on to the land. This was still the period of the kelp industry, when sea-weed was gathered and burned for the mineral residues in the ash. This was a labour-intensive industry, so the landlords wanted as large a work force as possible. By making the crofts too small to be self-sufficient, the landlord was able to ensure that the crofters were required to work on his kelp in order to pay the rents, which were set higher than the land itself could support.

A major drawback, from the crofter’s point of view, was that he himself was wholly responsible for his own rent. If he fell into arrears, he could lose croft, house and everything, whereas in a joint-tenancy he could have taken a smaller share of the land until he came upon better times.

Rev. Finlay MacRae sees another advantage in the wider-spread houses:

Typhus fever, formerly so fatal, is now hardly known. This may undoubtedly be ascribed to the change in the habitations of the people, which took place in consequence of the lotting system. Before this system was introduced, the whole houses on a farm, to the number of from 20 to 50, were crowded and huddled together in a manner most unfriendly to cleanliness; but now, every small tenant had his cottage on his own croft, each at some distance from his neighbour’s.11

Whatever may have been the implications for public health, the separation of households from their neighbours was disliked, especially by the women, and is frequently quoted among the reasons for leaving given by the early emigrants.

One of the tenants who was evicted from Baile Loin to make way for the farm was an Alexander Fraser, who was moved to a croft in Cnoc an Torrain. Fraser is not a name one would expect to find in North Uist, where there was only one family of the name. The first of them on record is a Donald Fraser, who married the widow of Ranald MacDonald of Baile Sear and became tacksman of the farm of Orasaigh. In a list of households in 1799, there are only two Frasers shown, a John Fraser, wood-turner in Greinetobht, and this Alexander Fraser in Cnoc an Torrain, and it would seem reasonable to assume that they were both sons, or more likely grandsons, of Donald of Orasaigh.

But genealogy is not as easy as that! The purveyors of clans and tartans would have us believe that all persons of the same surname must necessarily be related, but this is clearly not so. The surnames we have today are mainly the result of decisions taken by Englishspeaking clerks and, later, registrars – and could vary as the clerks varied. If a name was unusual or difficult to pronounce or spell, it would be simplified, or a mainland name better known to the clerk could be substituted.

Surnames are a fairly recent innovation in the Gaidhealtachd, where the patronymic was, and still is, the normal way of referring to a person, and by-names are equally important. It could be that a let us say, John MacDonald was working for Fraser, and was distinguished from the other MacDonalds in the area by being called Fraser’s John – from which it is only a very small step to John Fraser! Even among the Frasers on the mainland, it was recognised that there were two classes of Fraser – the ‘blood’ Frasers, who had the name by descent, and the ‘boll of meal’ Frasers, to whom Lord Lovat, at a time of scarcity, had given a boll (140 lbs) of meal, on condition that they took the name of Fraser. And on Uist itself, we have the Domhnallaich Toin a’ Bhotaill – who became MacDonalds when they reached the end of the bottle, in the hope of getting another one!

It was a MacDonald who succeeded An Dotair Ban at Baile Loin – Dr John MacDonald, son of Roderick MacDonald of Circeabost – Dotair a’ Chaolais. In his manuscript History of North Uist, Rev. A. J. MacDonald, Minister of Killearnan, refers to him as:

A magnificent looking man. He wore a broad bonnet with a MacDonald crest stuck in the side of it; He drove a carriage and pair always. I used to admire him as he sat in his carriage with the hood down.12

I shall quote frequently from Rev. MacDonald’s manuscript (which is now in the Carmichael-Watson collection in Edinburgh University Library), partly because it is an excellent source which has never been published, but also because MacDonald is quite prepared to make statements in manuscript which would most likely have been edited out of any published version! Rev. MacDonald was one of the joint authors of Clan Donald, a three volume history of the main families of the name, which, despite its-shortcomings, is the basic text from which all other researchers on the families must make their start.13

The next tenant at Baile Loin was John Stewart of Duntulm on the Isle of Skye. He was a son of Donald Stewart of Losgaintir in Harris, who was later described as the greatest curse that ever came upon that island, as he was the driving force behind most of the Clearances there. Rev. MacDonald has a typical comment on him:

He was a famous breeder of Highland cattle, who also had the reputation of being a first rate blackguard – no woman was safe with him. I knew him personally, a very pleasant man and very handsome. His brother Donald, a mad evangelist, lived there for some time and converted Rory MacAulay, Taighghearray, for which everybody was sorry.14

I think that Rev. MacDonald’s established church sympathies may have been showing just a little there!

The house at Baile Loin lies a little distance to the east of the road, under the foothills of Carra Crom, and occupies one of the most attractive sites in the whole of North Uist.

7. Baile Loin

Baile Mhartainn (Balmartin)

South of Baile Loin lies Baile Mhartainn, or, as it appears in early documents, Tallow Martain – for Talamh Mhartainn – Martin’s land. Who Martin was is unknown, and it is not a surname which one would associate with North Uist. Could it be the remnant of another church name, a dedication to one of the many missionary saints of that name?

Baile Mhartainn is poorer land than the townships on either side, and has always been in the hands of joint-tenants, and then crofters. In more recent times, the township is said to have been the home of a retired pirate! I remember the late Mrs Kate MacNab telling us the story for our Croft History of the area:

Calum Iain Oig, he was the cobbler, and he made shoes. There was a story about Calum Iain Oig – there was an old man who lived up at the back of Baile Mhartainn – I think that he was a MacVicar – and they said that he had been a pirate! Anyway he had a bit of money hidden away and, when he was very old, he sent for Calum, and was going to tell him where it was, but Calum’s apprentice came into the house, and he wouldn’t tell him with anyone else there, and he died before he got another chance, so Calum just had to stay as a shoemaker!15

(And if you ever see odd movements and lights on the hill at night-time, it is probably Calum’s grandson from Aberdeen out with a metal-detector!)

Baile Locha – Baleloch

John Arbuckle from South Queensferry in Lothian, who came to North Uist as a mason to build the church at Cille Mhuire in 1764, was married to Peggy, daughter of Donald MacAulay – Domhnall mac Neill mhic Eoghainn – who was the tacksman of Baile Locha in the mid 1700s. The township was crofted for a very short time in the estate rearrangement of 1814, but within two years the tenants had been removed to Malacleit, and the township was back in the hands of Rev. William Arbuckle, son of John. The lease changed hands a few times, but by 1849 it had passed to Donald MacDonald from Monkstadt in Skye, best remembered for his elopement with Jessie, daughter of MacDonald of Baile Raghaill.

Donald had been appointed factor of North Uist by Lord MacDonald in March 1849, and given the lease of Baile Locha. Unfortunately, the MacDonald estates were in financial trouble at this time and were put under administration by trustees, one of who was named Patrick Cooper. Suspecting that Donald might, from his local connections, be too lenient with the crofters, Cooper arranged for him to be dismissed in October of the same year, and assumed the post of factor himself.

There was another reason for the dismissal: Donald had used his time at Baile Locha to court Jessie, the daughter of James MacDonald, tacksman of Baile Raghaill, and himself a former factor of North Uist. But Cooper had cast an eye on her himself. Seumas Ruadh – Red James – of Baile Raghaill seems to have encouraged Donald’s suit at first, but when Donald was replaced as factor by Cooper, Seamas Ruadh seems to have expected Jessie to transfer her affections to the new occupant of the post! Jessie, not unreasonably, objected to this, and made arrangements to elope with Donald. She wrote a letter to Donald:

My Dearest Donald,

If the bearer of this letter meets you on your way here, you must return home. It seems that W. MacNeil suspects, or else has heard what we have been intending to do. As he had no opportunity of telling Papa of it, he deputed John MacDonald to do so, which he did last night; and Papa immediately wrote William to find out all he knew of the matter. I heard this from the grieve’s wife. John MacDonald told her husband of it. Now, my own Donald, we must be off this night. You had better not come till half-past eleven o’clock. I shall be quite ready to start with you.16

8. Roghadal House, now Rodel Hotel

Donald arrived as requested, and they set off for Loch nam Madadh, where a boat called Eliza MacLeod, belonging to a Harris man Donald MacLeod (Domhnall Fidhlear – Donald the fiddler) was waiting for them. It was a wild night, and they were not able to set off immediately. Cooper and Seumas Ruadh almost caught them – the Eliza MacLeod was still in sight in the loch as they arrived at Loch nam Madadh.

Donald and Jessie could not have picked a worse night. Instead of taking them to Skye, the Eliza MacLeod was forced to head north for shelter in the bay of An Tairbeart in Harris. This was doubly unlucky, as Jessie’s uncle, John Robertson MacDonald of Roghadal (am Baillidh Domhnallach), was the factor in Harris. Jessie’s brother Alick crossed to Roghadal; he and his uncle set out for An Tairbeart and found the Eliza MacLeod was still sheltering there. They boarded the ship, took Jessie ashore, and back to Roghadal, where she was kept under lock and key.

Donald, in the meantime had headed back to Skye on the Eliza MacLeod. Domhnall Fidhlear, knowing the repercussions that would come – according to his brother’s evidence to the Napier Commission, all his brothers and sisters were later evicted from their crofts by the Baillidh Domhnallach – was unwilling to take any further part, beyond helping Donald to find another ship, the Eliza Clow, and crew. They sailed for Roghadal, stormed the Baillidh’s house, and took Jessie down to the shore and on to the Eliza Clow, which then sailed for Skye, and eventually Gairloch, from where the young couple made their way to Edinburgh.

Neither Seumas Ruadh nor the Baillidh Domhnallach could take such an affront to his position without retaliation, and criminal charges were brought against Donald and his party for breaking and entering the house at Roghadal. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, they were found not guilty; both the jury and the public outside the court must have felt that this was a romantic adventure and not to be penalised. Jessie and Donald eventually made their way to Australia, where they settled and prospered.

So romantic a theme could not fail to have many songs and verses made about it, such as these verses from a version gathered by D. A. MacDonald of the School of Scottish Studies:

Failte dhuit deagh shlainte leat,

’S i ’n fhailte chuirinn as do dheidh

Failte dhuit deagh shlainte leat

Labhair Seonaid gu craiteach

Nuair a thainig Cupar caol

’Tha thu nise dol gam fhagail

’S mise ’n deaghaidh cnamh nad ghaol

‘Thusa oigeir a’ chuil dualach

’S mall do ghluasad ’n am an fheum

Faic a’ namhaid tighinn le sheoltachd

Chum do Sheonaid cur san fheith’

Here’s to you and your right good health, / that is my greeting to you, /

Here’s to you and your right good health.

Jessie spoke sadly / when thin Cooper came, / ‘you will now have to leave me / and leave me only the bones of love.

You are the youth of the curly hair, / slow you were in my time of need, / See the sneaky enemy comes / to put your Jessie in a morass.’17

Seumas Ruadh must have put pressure on Rev. Finlay MacRae, the then minister of North Uist, for the marriage of Donald and Jessie is recorded in the Old Parochial Register for the island on 31 March 1850, as though the marriage had taken place there – perhaps he was putting the best face on the matter that he could. It is maybe not unrelated to this that the tack of Baile Locha later passed to Rev. John MacRae, son of Rev. Finlay!

My wife tells me that my training as a lawyer and surveyor has left me unwilling to believe anything unless I can check it myself, but here is an example of how written records, even written by a minister, need not necessarily be true!

Hosta

In Hosta we come on to the machair proper of North Uist. Machair, the flattish shore plain, usually sheltered from the sea to some extent by a range of sand dunes, is a form of land special to the Atlantic shores, capable of being cultivated to produce excellent crops, yet suffering from its own drawbacks. Rev. Finlay MacRae, himself a farmer of mainly machair lands, described it well in his article for the New Statistical Account of 1837:

With the exception of a few bold rocky headlands, the west coast is all along bounded with light white sands, chiefly formed of shells, crumbled and pounded by the irresistible force of the Atlantic waves, gathering strength as they uninterruptedly roll their magnificent, awfully grand, and incalculable force upon the shores. The sand, or rather shells, thus literally ground to beautiful fineness, is, when dry, wafted by the winds into the interior of the country to a very considerable distance; and possessing the qualities of lime, it adds much to the productive qualities and the beauty of the belt over which it extends. This belt which, generally speaking, is the only cultivated part of the west side, is extremely beautiful and pleasant in the summer and autumn months. If these seasons be accompanied with warmth and moisture, this part yields the richest pasture of white and red clover, and other plants and herbs delighting in dry sandy situations. It also yields luxuriant crops of barley or bear, and, under proper management, grain crops of every description. In dry seasons, however, by the heat of the sand, the grass becomes sickly, withered and of a burnt appearance; the crops on the machirs, a term used for sandy soil, fail; and vegetation appears almost destroyed. Although, during a favourable summer season, the country exhibits a delightful prospect of beauty and luxuriance, the scene is totally changed during the winter and spring months. Without high hills, and destitute of trees to shelter from the tremendous gales which during these seasons prevail, bare and unprotected, the face of the country lies exposed to their influence. The finer, the softer, the more tender, and the more valuable grasses are melted away by the rain, the frost and the storms.18

Martin Martin, in the early 1700s, tells us that the machair was used at that time for horse-riding on special occasions:

The Natives are much addicted to riding, the plainness of the Country disposing both Men and Horses to it. They observe an Anniversary Cavalcade in Michaelmas-Day, and then all ranks of both Sexes appear on Horse-back. The place for this Randezvous is a large Piece of firm sandy Ground on the Sea-shore, and there they have Horse-racing for small Prizes, for which they contend eagerly. There is an Antient Custom, by which it is lawful for any of the Inhabitants to steal his Neighbour’s Horse the Night before the race, and ride him all next Day, provided he deliver him safe and sound to the Owner after the race. The manner of running is by a few Young Men, who use neither Saddles nor Bridles, except two small Ropes made of Bent instead of a Bridle, nor any sort of Spurs, but their bare heels: and when they begin the race, they throw these Ropes on their Horses necks, and drive them on vigorously with a piece of long Sea-ware in each hand, instead of a Whip; and this is dry’d in the Sun several Months before for that purpose. This is a happy opportunity for the Vulgar, who have few occasions for meeting, except on Sundays; the Men have their Sweet-hearts behind them on horse-back, and give and receive mutual Presents; the Men present the Women with Knives and Purses, the Women present the Men with a pair of fine Garters of divers Colours, they give them likewise a quantity of Wild Carrots.19

At one point in the sixteenth century, there were two main branches of the MacDonalds in North Uist, vying with each other for local power. Siol Ghoraidh were descendants of Godrey MacDonald, son of John of the Isles, while Siol Mhurchaidh claimed descent from an earlier, but possibly illegitimate, branch of the Lordship. Claims of illegitimacy in old genealogies need not always be taken at face value, for it was a favourite technique of the seannachie, trying to establish the seniority of his own branch of a family, to claim that an older branch was illegitimate. In the days of hand-fast marriages and the wide range of degrees of relationship forbidden by the church for marriage, it is a brave scholar who would be definite on whether a birth was legitimate or not!

It is said that Hosta was the home at this time of the Siol Mhurchaidh, while the main base of the Siol Ghoraidh was at Udal, near Solas; between the two there was no love lost, each doing their best to exterminate the other.

One night, under cover of darkness, a group of warriors of Siol Ghoraidh gathered at the shore of a loch above Hosta. They cut away the embankment of the loch until it poured its waters down upon the village, drowning many of the Siol Mhurchaidh. Where the village was is now Loch Hosta; on a calm clear day, the houses can still be seen under the water – or so it used to be said.

A version of the story, quoted by Erskine Beveridge,20 suggests that the home of the Siol Mhurchaidh was one of the many island duns or forts to be found on lochs in North Uist, which would make its drowning more feasible. But it must have been a very small community, or a very large dun! The remnant of Siol Mhurchaidh in turn took their revenge by destroying the home of Siol Ghoraidh, as will be told when we reach Udal.