HALF A HIGHLANDER
Iain Hamilton.
There was never a time when South Kintyre seemed strange to me, although it was in Renfrew that I was born and grew up, and on the Lanark and Kyle farms of my Lowland father’s people that I spent much of the school holidays. Our holidays in South Kintyre were rare enough and short enough. But it seems to me that I have always had before my inward eye that astonishing sweep of land and sea from the mist-crowned bulk of the Mull round by the undulating line of Islay and the majestic Paps of Jura, with gentle Gigha and Cara lying low and closer at hand — and away to the south the hazy blue backcloth of Ireland, from Antrim to the shadowy hills dwindling westward beyond Lochs Foyle and Swilly. It must have been during a charabanc trip up the Largieside, I suppose, that this scene was indelibly imprinted on my mind.
I am looking at the photograph of a family group taken in Campbeltown in 1879. Seated in front are Margaret Laird Mac Eachran, her broad-shouldered, ful-bearded husband, Archibald, and between them are their three sons, Martin and Duncan, and between them, taller than either and mustachioed like Vercingetorix, Archibald, my maternal grandfather. The three young men have sprigs of common heath in their buttonholes - the badge of Clan Iain Mhor Mhic Dhomnuill nan Eilean - the MacConnells or MacDonnells or MacDonalds of the South Isles, Kintyre, and Antrim whom the MacEachrans had followed since the time of Regulus Somerled’s grandchildren......... A long time ago!
When that photograph was taken, my Great-Grandfather, Archibald, had the smithy at Stewarton in the Laggan between Campbeltown and Machrihanish. It was a big smithy and he had wrought there for at least twenty years, after leaving Campbeltown. (In 1860 he was paying £9 a year in rent. A little later it went up to £20, but by 1879 it had come down to £15.) Did he and his family know as they froze for that photograph that their days at Stewarton were nearly done - no more work for the farmers, the carters of peat from the Aros Moss to the distilleries, the chamberlain of Mac Chailein Mhor? Perhaps, for in 1880 the smithy was registered as vacant and the family scattered. Duncan went west to Canada and across it to Vancouver (where his offspring prospered). Isabel, Martin, and Archibald took ship (the Kintyre or the Kinloch it would be) for Glasgow. The first became a nurse and the favourite theatre sister of a famous surgeon. Martin prospered as a business man. And my Grandfather, Archibald -a smith like his father and grandfather before him - became the foreman in charge of the blacksmith’s shop in the great works of Babcock and Wilcox in Renfrew, along the banks of the White Cart. In February 1920 at his house in Moorpark, I was born, the son of his daughter, Margaret Laird Hamilton. My father, John, after whom I was named in the Gaelic version, had been an officer in the Canadian army. Demobilised, he failed to find a job, and before my first birthday he departed from us, returning to the farm in Manitoba to which he had emigrated as a child with his parents when life had become too hard on the poor ground they tilled on the ducal Hamilton estate. So Archibald MacEachran (who never forgot South Kintyre, and was proud of the long line of the small clan, stretching back to the days before the Norsemen came, before the Gaels came) stood in loco paternis.
On a holiday about 1927, I stood outside the smithy at Stewarton, afraid of the flying sparks and the acrid smoke sizzling in clouds from the hoof of a horse that was being shod, while my Grandfather talked to a man in a leather apron, the boss, who said (I think) that he had come from Islay. Anyhow he knew nothing of my Great-Grandfather. They could have talked for hours, if at length I had not (bored by the words buzzing over my head and sickened by the stink of burning hoof) made a great nuisance of myself. So we went to Greenlees’ shop not far from the smithy. I had a glass of fizzy lemonade. So had my Grandfather, but he had something else poured into his glass first from a brown bottle.
During a summer spent on a paternal great-aunt’s
farm near Dungavel, I learned that I was descended from one John Hamilton,
a fanatical Covenanter who had been killed or wounded at Drumclog in the
skirmish with Bloody Clavers’ dragoons. At the end of the holiday, my
Grandfather came to take me home to Renfrew. As we walked down the farm road,
I told him of my discovery. Had he heard of my Covenanting forebear? He had.
He frowned. He then told me (or more likely, reminded me) that many years
before Drumclog, another of my ancestors had been out with the Marquess of
Montrose in the Highland and Irish contingent led by Montrose’s chief
lieutenant, Alasdair Mac Cholla Chictach, fighting the forces of the Covenant.
After the rout at Rhunahoarine, Alasdair departed for Islay and Ireland,
to be killed at Cnoc an Dos in Munster in a battle against Lord Inchiquin.
His remaining force in Kintyre retreated south to Dunaverty, which was besieged
by General David Leslie and the Mac Chailein Mhor. Eventually they surrendered
under quarter, but the fanatical chaplains (or reverend commissars) accompanying
the Parliamentary army ranted in God’s name to such an effect that all
but a few of the surrendered Highlanders were slaughtered on the spot. The
remainder, the daoine usislean (‘nobles’ or ‘leading men’)
were then done to death more formally after a drumhead trial, being hanged
or shot. Among them was a MacEachran from whom I am descended. “You
must remember,” said my grandfather, “that these Lowland people
do not see things as we Highlanders do. You may be only half a Highlander,
but your Highland half is the better half, and don’t you forget it.”
Which is as it may be.
NORTH CAROLINA 1739—1989
The North Carolina celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the settlement which left Kintyre for North Carolina in 1739 was a great success, and that despite your Editor’s enforced absence!
The celebrations started at Winston Salem on 22 and 23 September where I had undertaken to deliver two talks on the rise and fall of Gaelic culture and on the emigration of Highlanders to the American colonies, particularly to North Carolina. In addition lectures were to be given by American specialists on Scottish Genealogical Sources, Research at the Library of Latter Day Saints at Salt Lake City, Scottish Tartans, and Clan History. The attendance fee of $67 was paid by over 100 interested parties. It was intriguing to be billed as Lord A.I.B. Stewart. I understand that Dr Scott Buie, a distinguished Texan pathologist of Jura descent whom we know as Editor of Argyll Colony Plus stood in for me and delivered my talks and I am indebted to him.
The next do was at Fayetteville (the former Campbeltown), where some 130 persons from eleven different states and Scotland paid the registration fee of $90. Again I was to deliver a talk on the History of the Scots, as a race, and I was also to propose a toast to Scotland at the banquet. Again there was a wide range of lectures by American experts including one by my friend Mr William C. Fields, a descendant of the Losset and Ballinakill families, on “Genealogical Sources in North Carolina”. The Fayetteville celebration ended with a service of the “Kirkin’ o’ the Tartans” on Sunday 1st October.
I was glad that at very short notice Fayetteville got Professor Edward Carson of the University of Guelph, Ontario to replace me. Fayetteville apparently found the whole affair so enjoyable that they are thinking of making it an annual event.
Perhaps it was as well I was absent because newspaper reports suggest that Christie Saunders, the official harpist of Clan McNeill who delighted the audience with her playing apparently referred to Prince Charles Edward Stewart as “a bit of a jerk”, which might have caused my Appin hackles to rise.
On the afternoon of 1st October there was an art exhibition at Harnett County Library in Lillington where our friend Col. Vic Clark gave a talk in which among other things he talked of his Scottish visits and promoted the book “Colorful Heritage” prepared by Mrs Louise Curry and himself, and a copy of which has been generously donated to the Society by the authors. At the same time a painting of Inveraray Castle was presented to the Museum. Col. Clark spotted this painting and obtained a copy by the artist which he has presented to the Cape Fear Museum at Fayetteville.
The celebrations closed with the Flora MacDonald Highland Games at Red Springs, but weather conditions which accompanied Hurricane Hugo apparently made this impossible. Rev. Peter Youngson, formerly in Jura, had leapt into the breach in my absence and he together with Rev. Dr John MacLeod of North Carolina and Judge Sandy Mckinnon of Kintyre descent kept the company entertained on coach tours round homes built by Kintyre folk or their descendants and churches which were first ministered to by Rev. James Campbell, a native of Campbeltown. In addition to the Games there were re-enactments of Revolutionary War Battles involving the Highlanders. Flora’s husband Capt. Alan MacDonald of Kingsburgh and a son were again on the wrong side and became American prisoners. They were better off with Mr Youngson than with me because in addition to learned talks and slide shows he preached several sermons including one which Colonel Clark described as “very moving” at the kirkin’ of the Tartan Service on Sunday 8th October. This I believe was intended to complete the proceedings but such was the enthusiasm that they were still carrying on on the Tuesday when Mr Youngson preached a final sermon at the Barbecue Church.
From all accounts I missed a wonderful warm experience. I am grateful to Dr McKenna and Miss Marion Campbell of Kilberry and to Mrs Agnes Stewart for lending me slides which I had hoped to show and to Clan Donald for giving me their video of the Island Kingdom which at their request was donated to the Cape Fear Museum. I am also indebted to the friends known and hitherto unknown to me who had offered most generous hospitality. It was a bitter disappointment that I was unable to attend.
This short report is based on a very full and detailed exposition by Colonel Vic Clark.
RING NET FISHING
The origins of ring net fishing in Loch Fyne in the 1830s is told in great detail in The Ring Net Fishermena by Angus Martin (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1981). Drift nets were formed into a bag to draw the shoal ashore.
But Angu's cousin Thomas Ralston, one time Fish Merchant in Mallaig and now retired to Anstruther has provided evidence that even if not used the ring net had been invented many years before.
In An Account of the Present State of the Hebrides and Western Coasts of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1785), Dr James Anderson coments:
“An ingenious man, one Bruce of Aberdeen, contrived a net to be employed in the herring fishery, that promises to be of much use on a principle different from either of the foregoing” (i.e. drift nets and anchored nets used in small bays on the west coast).
A description of it was sent to Dr Anderson which he showed to the principal fishermen on the coast, who unanimously agreed that in many cases it could be employed with the greatest success, though it could not apply in all cases. The net was proposed to be made of as great length and depth as could competently be managed; to be shot by one or two boats according to its size; to take a circular sweep as as to close both ends at one point. The bottom was then to be drawn close by means of a line drawn through open holes made for that purpose, so as to form a kind of bag when close drawn, which would effectually confine all the fish that had been at first enclosed within it, which when the shoals were thick would be of immense quantity. These might be taken out at leisure by small nets fixed to a handle like those used by the Swedes.
This is surely an exact description of a modern ring net.
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Dr Anderson fully approved of the proposed Crinan Canal:
“The fishing boats from Barra usually carry their dried fish to Glasgow to be disposed of and are often lost going round the Mull of Kintyre. Last year 1783-4 of five boats that went from Barra two were lost on their way to the Clyde and one on their return and all on board perished. Few years pass without some loss there but it is seldom so bad as the above.”
Page 3: The Lowland Church Baptismal Basin / The Lowland Church Baptismal Laver
Page 4: Seventeenth Century Agricultural Tenancys in Kintyre
Page 5: A Miniature Volcano
Page 6: The Private Journal of Robert Picken, Smerby, 1810-1840
Page 7: After Culloden / A Melder Wi' the Miller
Page 8: By Hill and Shore - Another foray from the pen of Mr. Angus Martin
Page 9: Three Interesting e-mails and some Bits and Bobs
Page 10: Researching your Family History