BY HILL AND SHORE
Angus Martin
It has not yet been my privilege to see a BADGER alive in its wild state, though I have seen setts. The trick, of course, is to sit out from dusk into the night and watch a sett, but I'm afraid I'm too fond of my bed for a ploy of that kind. Iain Hood, Peninver, had the good fortune to encounter a badger towards the end of March, and not where one would have expected such an encounter. He had left his car at Glenahanty and walked around Cnoc Moy via Gleneadardacrock. He was between the Inans and the Gulls' Den, at dusk, on a track some 300 feet above sea-level, when he saw the creature coming uphill towards him, intent on gaining the same track that he was on. He stopped and watched, and the badger got to within about 10 feet of him before it realised he was there and ran off. It had a 'shiny coat' on it and appeared to be in the best of condition. I consulted 'An Atlas of Kintyre Vertebrates' and was not surprised to find that no badger sightings at all were recorded on the coast between Machrihanish and the Mull during the period 1800-1975, which is the span of the compilation.
Iain Hood's badger encounter came into my mind on 21 June when, in the Inans Glen, I came across a big den excavated within the past year. The unmistakeable signs of fox were absent, not least the accompanying stink. More than that, the den was dug in too exposed a location to have been the work of indigenous foxes, which leaves just the badger. Only, there were no signs of badgers either. Perhaps the sett has not yet been regularly occupied. One of my companions on the hike, John Brodie, mentioned having found a scrape containing badger dung in the immediate vicinity of the den last year.
A Kintyre farmer told me several years ago that his hens had been subject to wanton destruction. The killer was 'biting the arses out of them' and just leaving them. It didn't look like a fox's work, and he was puzzled. One night his wife shouted to him that there was something in the henhouse. He went out and found a boar badger there. He didn't know how the beast would react to his appearance, but armed himself with an iron bar. When he entered the hen-house, the badger lay still, as though dead - seconds later it was dead.
The ERRADILL field-walk, organised by the Society for Easter Sunday, 7 April, was something of a flop. Merely five persons turned up: Frances Hood, Elizabeth Marrison and her son Robert, Maureen Bell, and I, plus Frances's dog, Midge, which I had hoped might discover some ancient and significant bones, but which seemed to spend its time running around doing absolutely nothing of any relevance whatever.
Admittedly, many members, who might have come along ordinarily, were detained with Easter visitors, etc. We searched high ground to the west of the glen, without discovering anything of note. There were the usual 18th and 19th century crockery sherds, and Elizabeth picked up a flint flake, but, beyond that, nothing worth mentioning.
Since the afternoon was perfectly sunny, Maureen Bell and I, who were last on the ground, took the short circular walk from the top of the brae opposite the Bastard and visited the ruins of Cantaig and Socach, before ending up back at Erradill. We also looked at part of the remains of old Glenahervie - also known as Sheanachie - which occupy either side of the brae north from Erradill Bridge. There was said to be an inn at Sheanachie, as well as a school. A schoolmaster, Ewan or Hugh MacMaster, married Flora, a sister of Amelia MacKay [see below] in 1821. By 1834, when his son Donald's birth was registered, the family was living at Erradill, and he had become a 'sailor'.
Flory Loynachan was born at Sheanachie on 13 March 1810. She inspired, of course, the 19th century dialect poem which bears her name, a poem which, it seems to me, deserves to be better known beyond Kintyre. Archie McEachran, Kilblaan, has it on record that Flory went to Kilblaan in 1832 to keep house after the death of his great-grandmother there, and Archie's grandfather remembered Flory as 'a wee round-faced girl'. Flory later emigrated to Canada and there married one David MacGillivray, a widower. Her sister, Mary, also married in Canada - her husband was one William MacDougall - and attained, in 1913, her hundredth birthday, which she celebrated surrounded by 'her huge family of five generations'.
I have been delving further into my MacKay ancestors in Erradill, and the summary so far is: Archibald MacKay, with his sons Donald and Neil, got the tenancy in 1797. Donald was my great-great-great-great grandfather and married Margaret MacKerral of Balnabraid, further north on the Learside. Their daughter Amelia, my great-great-great grandmother, born in 1806, also married a MacKerral, John, born in Kilmashenachan in 1810, son of Neil MacKerral and Barbara McEachran. Amelia's brother, Peter, also married a MacKerral, Janet of Brunerican, born 1830. A somewhat inter-bred lot, it may be said, but the tendency certainly didn't affect the quality of their genes.
The marriage of Peter MacKay and Janet MacKerral produced a rather distinguished crop of males. Donald, born at Erradill, 1836, was a founding partner of the Campbeltown Shipbuilding Company in 1878. His estate was valued at £31,267 17s 6d, a considerable sum in 1890, the year after his death. Peter, also born at Erradill, in 1839, was in business in Campbeltown as a coachbuilder and wheelwright, but is best remembered for having designed MacKay's Patent Hay-Rick Lifter, which he marketed throughout the British Isles. Archibald was the last MacKay born at Erradill, in 1841 - the family removed, in the following year, to Knockstapplemore - and the only son who continued in farming. In 1878, he took up the tenancy of Lephenstrath. Godfrey, born 1845 at Knockstapplemore, became a draughtsman in Greenock. Neil was also born at Knockstapplemore, in 1851, and attended the University of Glasgow, whence he graduated MA in 1875 and BD in 1878. He was minister in Ochiltree, in the Presbytery of Ayr, from 1880, and died there in 1930. These were all Gaelic speakers, of course, and I have seen a photograph, taken in the garden of Lephenstrath, with Neil, Archibald and Godfrey together, and wondered whether their talk, that day, was in the old language.
There is a question, concerning these MacKays, which remains unanswered. Family tradition has doggedly argued descent from Farquhar MacKay, who helped the fugitive Robert Bruce cross Kintyre in 1306 and for which service he was granted the Crown lands of Ugadale and Arnicle when Bruce became King. This claim is impossible to prove; it is also, by the same token, impossible to disprove! There is, however, an interesting piece of evidence which might point to some kind of connection with the Ugadale MacKays. Before taking up the tenancy of Erradill, Archibald MacKay and his family were in Aros. This information appears in the List of Inhabitants upon the Duke of Argyle's Property in Kintyre in 1792. Interestingly, however, the lease of Aros during that period was held by Lachlan MacNeil [see The Kintyre Magazine, No 35, pp 8 and 9] with consent of Col Charles Campbell and Hector MacNeill of Ugadale'. Now, Ugadale and Arnicle were acquired by the MacNeills - now Macneals - of Lossit, in the late 17th century, and Torquil MacNeill some time thereafter married Catherine, twin daughter of Donald Mackay of Ugadale and Arnicle, who had died bankrupt. Was Archibald MacKay given the sub-tenancy of Aros by Lachlan MacNeill on the strength of his being a tenant on the lands of Ugadale and Arnicle? In other words, did he come into Southend from the north or was he one of the MacKays already in Southend Parish by the 16th century [the earliest appears to have been Neil McAne McYe in Gartnacopaig, 1505]? There are a few clues which point to an origin in North Kintyre. First, Archibald's wife was Flory MacNair. Now, MacNair has never been a Southend name: the MacNairs were established further north. Second, one of the daughters of Archibald MacKay and Flory MacNair, Isabella, appears in the Census of 1851, aged 73, in Southend Village with her son, Archibald McCaig, and his family. Her parish of birth is given as Killean. Finally, the name 'Amelia', which appears both in the Erradill and the Achadhdh MacKay families, and offshoots of these, recurs in the Killean and Kilchenzie Old Parish Registers in such families as the Curries and MacKinvens. Could there be a Largieside connection which brought the name - an unusual one in eighteenth century Gaelic Kintyre - into the MacKay line? I have often wondered what the Gaelic form of Amelia could be, and I think my wife may have stumbled on it, again in the Killean and Kilchenzie Parish Registers, in the anglicised forms 'Melly' and 'Mellie'. The ultimate source of the name may well be a minister's or laird's wife, but as yet there is no evidence of that.
On 28 April, I visited, for the first time, Achadhdubh [or Achadaduie, in which form it also appears in old records], another MacKay 'stronghold' of the 18th and 19th centuries. Little remains of the steading, which is easily accessible by a farm-track leading from the main road at Macharioch Cottage, but the little that remains is impressive in its monumentality, and the three jutting wall-sections are plainly visible south from the main road between Polliwilline and Kildavie.
I was very surprised to discover that Achadhdubh was inhabited until the 1940s, and that there are still people around who remember it as home. Two such are Alec and Gavin Muir, and I interviewed them, one evening in May, at Gavin's house in Tomaig Road, Campbeltown. Alec is the elder brother, and spent 12 years in Achadhdubh, having gone there, at about the age of four, from Teapot Lane in Southend Village. His father was Norman Muir and his mother Maggie Wilson.
The building then was in poor condition, but it housed, in its two storeys, two families. The rent was more in 'work rendered' to Macharioch Estate, which owned Achadhdubh, than in actual cash. The lavatory was a bucket in a 'caboodle'. Water was drawn from a well, about 100 yards distant, in the middle of a field, but it was good water. 'It wid dingle [tingle] yer teeth,' Gavin remarked.
The diet was basic, tatties and oatmeal being the staples; but rabbits were stalked and killed, with the bare hands or with a stick [which method, however, caused bruising of the flesh if the hunter's strike at the head was off-target]. Their mother sometimes made 'sheep's heid broth'. The eyes too were boiled, which would prompt the stock quip from Mrs Muir: 'That'll see ye through the week.' One unexpected addition to the diet was a 41b salmon taken from 'the Craichan' [Corrachan Burn] some four miles from the sea. The fish was stoned into shallow water and then flung on to land and carried home in a handkerchief. Not a strictly legal practice, but what normal boy could have resisted such an opportunity of seizing nature's bounty? Hardly a day would pass without the appearance of a travelling van on the road - grocery vans, in the main, from both town and village, but also Thomson, the fishmonger, and David Kerr, the butcher. Milk was got at Kildavie, and the child despatched on the errand would seldom leave the farm without a jeely piece or a buttered scone.
Coal was carried across the fields to Achadhdubh from the roadside at Kildavie. The Muir boys themselves had that task, since their father was generally away from home, ditching and fencing for the greater part of the day, and they accomplished the task by dividing the coal into smaller loads. Whins served as supplementary fuel, and the boys would burn the bushes on Kildavie ground. Jamie McMillan, the farmer there, would supply them with rags and paraffin, and one lit rag would torch about a dozen bushes. On their way home in the dark, they'd be stumbling into obstacles, their vision impaired by the conflagrations they had started; and their clothing would stink of paraffin 'for months after'. The burnt whins could be cut and carried home the following year. Paraffin lamps were the main means of illumination in the house, and there were two set-in beds in the living-room, with chaff mattresses on them. Their father would cycle, loaded with his tools, as far as the Backs, and once cycled to Minard, and back, for a term of work.
The Muir children got to school in Southend by cutting across the Langholm fields. There were two parts of the burn which had to be crossed by a plank, and if there was a spate on, the planks couldn't be seen under the rush of the water. At times, there would be as many as three bulls to dodge on the way to school, and Gavin remembers running for his life from the Langholm bull.
Alec kept pigeons at Achadhdhubh and would sometimes walk the shore as far as Glenahervie with his friend James Boyd, and return carrying a load of wood, both to patch up his doocot - which was too often invaded by predatory rats - and to feed the fire. James had a good singing voice and would be yodelling all the way back. When the Muirs left Achadhdubh in 1937, it was to a new Council house in Southend Village that they went - relative luxury after the rigours of the old place.
One remark of Alec's caught my attention. He recalled that one of the Duchess Line steamers, outward bound for Canada, could be seen passing Southend at precisely ten minutes to six each Saturday evening, and that 'ye could set yer watch by it'. That reminded me that the Achnasavil peat- cutters, at work on Barmollach Hill, were able to keep track of time by the steamers Davaar and Dalriada passing Grogport, according to Duncan McKinnon in Low Tirfergus, who was brought up on Achnasavil Farm. From what is now forest, the McKinnons were digging to a depth of three peats, the bottom one good black stuff. Even so, they bought in two tons of coal each year, carted from Port na Cuile, to the north of Carradale harbour, where the puffers beached and discharged their cargoes.
TRIANGULATION PILLARS have for many years intrigued me. I had a vague idea of what they were for, but how long had they been in place, and how and by whose hands were they erected? These questions finally broke the apathy barrier when, following a debate with George McSporran about the age of the Ben Gullion 'trig point' ['By Hill and Shore', June 1996], I decided to write to the Ordnance Survey.
A reply from Mr David Earley, of the Geodetic Surveys department, arrived a few days later. I had thought nineteenth century; George thought post-war. The date: November, 1955. There were, however, trig stations on the summit of both hills since the mid-nineteenth century. These were the old 'secondary' or 'tertiary' trigs, which were insubstantial - a pole, for example - and often difficult to find. Where possible the modern pillars were built over these early sites.
Mr Earley assured me that most of the pillars in Kintyre were built about 1955, and he kindly supplied copies of the documents relating to the construction of the Ben Gullion pillar. I found these so interesting that I wrote immediately for the Cnoc Moy papers, which, owing to its height and remoteness, must, I reckoned, have posed serious logistical problems. In that, I wasn't far wrong; but, first, to the function of the triangulation pillar. Built of stone or concrete, it is uniformly 1.2 m high, tapering from 60 cm square at the base to 35 cm square at the top. A brass plate on the top accommodates the feet of the tribrach of a theodolite, the surveying instrument for measuring horizontal and vertical angles.
Anybody who has done a bit of walking in the countryside must have encountered these pillars. They are dotted all over Kintyre and can be found on the Pathfinder series of maps. The most accessible of those that I am aware of is at Uisaed in the Galdrans.
In the construction of the Ben Gullion pillar, three men were employed for two days, one at 36s per day and others at 25s per day, with unspecified daily allowances of 22s 6d and 1 6s respectively. Materials comprised 4 cwts cement, costing £1 18s, a ton of washed gravel at 18s 4d, 15 cwts sand at 12s 6d and 'Cementone' costing 4s. The hire of a 'Weasel' tractor cost £20 and the transport of the tractor 7s 7d. Total: £38 5s Sd. The work was completed on 17 November 1955.
The erection of the Cnoc Moy pillar took nine days to organise and execute, in July 1937. The constructor - the doyen of pillar-builders, Harry Court - described it, in his report, as a 'real hard station on account of the distance to travel for transport, labour and to the work' He had 'difficulty in persuading the only contractor within reasonable distance to take the hauling with horses', and failed to hire any labourer, one man having demanded is 7d an hour. In the end, he had to take advantage of one of the horse men, 'to fumish what labour I was bound to have.
To be continued
No 40 Autumn 1996
Page 2: Campbeltown Whalers
Page 3: Franciscan Converts in Kintyre - Part 1
Page 4: Mr. Macslimun - Clydeside Cameos
Page 5: Military Echoes
Page 6: The Cuckoo is a Bonnie bird // Roadside Flowers
Page 7: James Watt at Campbeltown - Part 1
Page 9: The Screws