Nether Lochaber: The Rev. Alexander Stewart

A name to be reckoned with which has cropped up in this blog on more than once occasion is Nether Lochaber, the pen-name of the Rev. Alexander Stewart (1829–1901). Over more than four decades of contributing a more or less fortnightly column to the Inverness Courier resulted in two publications: Nether Lochaber: The Natural History, Legends and Folk-lore of the West Highlands (1883) and ’Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe: The Natural History, Legends, and Folk-lore of the West Highlands (1885). His namesake Alexander Carmichael may have got to know him from these very columns but it is likely that they may have come across one another earlier than 1859, the date on which Nether Lochaber penned his first of many contributions on wide-ranging topics such as folklore, poetry, meteorology and ornithology. An occasional contribution, as we have seen already, would wend its way from Carmichael when he was resident in Benbecula. This was the very island of Nether Lochaber’s birth for his father had been on the island working for the excise at that time. The well-respected minister passed away in early 1901, only a few months after the publication of Carmina Gadelica. It might well have been one of the last books that the Rev. Alexander Stewart was to read. Although we have yet to find evidence to the contrary, it is likely that Carmichael would have been present at his friend’s funeral. The following is the first excerpt of an appreciation of Nether Lochaber written by Donald Ross.

The “Inverness Courier,” in the issue of 25th January 1901, reported the death and funeral of a Highland scholar, “a patriot who name would be handed down to posterity as the revered and honoured of Celts all over the world.” Three days earlier the largest gathering possibly ever to assemble by Loch Leven in Nether Lochaber had witnessed the burial of Dr Alexander Stewart, minister of the Established Church at North Ballachulish, a man who had become a legend in his own time. For almost fifty years he had been respected, indeed revered, for his scholarship, love of nature and homeland, and, above all, for his humanity. It was a day of lowering and overcastting sky and mist driving over a background of sea and snow-clad mountains. Pipers of Ballachulish Volunteer Company of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders preceded the procession from the manse at Onich, playing “MacCrimmon’s Lament,” “Lochaber no More,” and “The Land o’ the Leal.” Then came representatives of the clans, learned societies, the Presbyter of Abertarff, the Stewart Society; and Cameron of Lochiel. Nearly every man and boy in the locality followed, and women and girls stood on the mile-long route, or watched from the hillside above the churchyard. It is clear from the account of the day that all were filled with emotion to a degree that could have come only from a sense of irreparable loss and identity with a great heart that has been lost to the Highlands. It is fitting, sixty years later, that we should recall with pride the name and work of Alexander Stewart, “Nether Lochaber”.

He was born in 1829 in Benbecula, where his father was an officer of the Inland Revenue. When Alexander was young his family moved to Oban. He went to school there, and later at Kilmichael in Perthshire, and had ample opportunity to acquire much of his early knowledge of the lore of the Highlands before he entered St Andrews University in 1843. He obtained his M.A., distinguishing himself especially in literature and the classics.

Stewart was ordained in 1851, after service as a missionary in Oban and assistant in Paisley. He started his ministry in Nether Lochaber, being presented by the Crown to the combined parish of North Ballachulish and Ardgour. He had charge of 1,100 souls, and two churches, and preached in Nether Lochaber and over Corran Ferry in Ardgour on alternate Sabbaths. He received “Royal Bounty” stipends totalling £120 supplemented by sums from the heritors, and a glebe of 3 to 4 acres. In 1852 he married Janet Morrison, eldest daughter of one of his Argyll parishioners, Lieutenant Morrison, R.N., of Sallachan House, and brought her to the manse in Onich to be his trusted helper for nearly fifty years.

Reference:

Ross, Donald, ‘Nether Lochaber: Memories of a Well-known Highlander’, The Inverness Courier, no. 11943 (20 Jan., 1961), p. 3

Image: Portrait of Nether Lochaber from The Celtic Magazine, vol. IX, no. 5 (1901), p. 19

Carmichaels in the Census - I

The blog ‘a’ spaidsearachd agus a’ meòrachadh’, by ‘Direcleit’, is a constantly expanding treasure-house of information about the people of the Outer Hebrides in the nineteenth century. A recent entry on Alexander Carmichael has inspired us, for our hundred and first post, to take a closer look at how the folklorist and his family were recorded in the censuses and other official documentation. We shall begin with Carmichael in his bachelor years, before his marriage to Mary Frances Macbean in January 1868.

Alexander Archibald Carmichael is relatively easy to track down. He was born on the 1 December 1832 to Hugh and Betty née MacColl in Taylochan, Lismore, and baptised a week later. A marginal note, ‘Ex[amine]d A.C.’, shows that Alexander must have looked up his own baptismal record during one of his visits to Lismore as an adult! The 1841 census has Alexander, recorded as seven years old, living with his tenant father, his mother, and his 20-year old brother Donald at Killean on the island. Ten years later, having finished his schooling, he is working as a ploughman at his parents’ house – a reminder of the strength and stamina Alexander Carmichael would need both for his career as an exciseman and for his avocation as a folklorist.

In 1861 Carmichael, recorded as 27 years old, is staying in Talisker at the foot of Glen Òraid in Minginish in the Isle of Skye, where he worked as an exciseman at the Talisker Distillery, actually nearly five miles away at Carbost, from September 1860 until March 1862. He is a visitor – that is, a lodger – in the substantial household of the owners of the estate, the 80-year old sheepfarmer from Kilmonivaig, Ewen Cameron (1780–1863), and his son Donald Colin (1827–83). Ewen Cameron’s father, Donald Charles, was born in 1745, his middle name deriving from the fact that among those attending his baptism was the newly-arrived Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

Ewen Cameron had come across from Beolary in Glenelg to take over Talisker from Hugh MacAskill in 1849, after the potato famine had devastated the latter’s finances. Both tacksmen left behind them a bad reputation for carrying out clearances, a charge forcefully put by John McCaskill or MacAskill, shoemaker, from the village of Fernilea (Fearann an Léith) on the tack, to the Napier Commission on 18 May 1883: ‘what the Assyrians left undone, the Babylonians finished.’

‘He [Ewen Cameron] got the tack thirty-three years ago, and when he came on he made up his mind that there should be nobody in the place at all, for McAskill had left remaining some of the people for his own convenience. When Mr Cameron came to Talisker he was not to do with any of the people, and as I have understood, he began to litigate with the landlord, holding out that the people being allowed on the tack was not mentioned in the lease. He would give us nothing, and he would keep nothing from us. The matter then came that he would have to take the tack as he got it, or leave it, and he stuck to it. He then deprived the cottars of the grazing which they had, and grazing for cows could no longer be got, not for twenty years or so. He took from us our peat mosses, and gave us a bog which neither man nor best made use of up to that time.’

MacAskill goes on to allege that Cameron cleared some twenty families from other parts of the estate into his own native township of Fernilea, using them as an enforced agricultural labour force for his farm.

MacAskill was probably related to another John MacAskill, cottar, Fernilea, who recited Carmichael a story about his ancestor Mac Iain Duibh mhic Thasgail on Hallowe’en Night, 1860, as well as to Kenneth MacAskill, one of the boys who recited the story Cigean, Cuaigean, is Boc Geal an Reubain on 30 January 1861.

Given his sympathies with the crofting cause, Carmichael’s association with the Camerons appears rather ill-starred. The connection, however, may have given Carmichael a first contact with the Outer Hebrides, a possible factor in suggesting to him the idea of working in Uist. It is likely that Ewen Cameron’s son Donald Colin was then already courting the woman he was to marry on 24 July 1863, Jane Macdonald (c. 1835–1915) of the Balranald family in North Uist.

Jane was the daughter of James Thomas Macdonald (d. 1855), the erstwhile factor of the North Uist estates known to the islanders as Seumas Ruadh. She was the sister of Alexander Macdonald of Balranald (d. 1901), Alick Bhaile Raghnaill, one of the most respected and popular tacksmen of his day in the island. Another of her siblings was Anne Margaret, wife of the Sheriff-Substitute at Lochmaddy, Charles Shaw W.S. (d. 1885), ‘An Siorram Glas’, to whom Carmichael would bring ‘strong recommendations from friends of the highest respectability’ when he arrived to take up his post in Lochmaddy in December 1864. The Shaws’ daughter Anne would marry Ewen Cameron’s nephew, Donald Charles Cameron, farmer of the neighbouring tack of Glenbrittle, in 1873. Yet another sibling of Jane’s was Jessie Catherine (d. 1895), the famous Seasaidh Bhaile Raghnaill whose romantic elopement with Donald MacDonald, the son of the tacksman of Monkstadt in Skye, had caused such a stir throughout the islands in 1850.

A playful love poem, Anns a’ mhadainn chiùin Chéitein, to Jane – ‘Sìneag uasal nam blàth-shùl’ – probably dates from the late 1850s. It was composed by the Rev. John Norman MacDonald (1830–1868), minister of Harris, in the name of the Rev. John Alexander MacRae (1832–96) of North Uist. Jane was MacRae’s first cousin.

References:
National Archives of Scotland GD1/126/8/1/90, Charles Shaw to W. F. Skene, 10 June 1869
National Library of Scotland Adv. MS 50.1.11 fos.365–6v
CW MSS 109 fo.37; 382 fos.50–5; 441

John Francis Campbell (ed.), Popular Tales of the West Highlands (Edinburgh, 4 vols, 1860–62), p. 454
Revs A. & A. MacDonald, The Clan Donald (Inverness, 3 vols, 1896–1904), iii, pp. 492–3
iidem, The MacDonald Collection of Gaelic Poetry (Inverness, 1911), pp. 141–2.
Napier Commission, vol. 1, p. 331

http://direcleit.blogspot.com/2010/09/alexander-carmichael-in-uists.html
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~coigach/altimack.htm
http://www.clan-cameron.org.au/descend_mdvp.php?personID=I18392&tree=cameron1

Image:
Talisker House

Alexander Carmichael’s Dedication to his Wife

It should come as no surprise that Alexander Carmichael may be best described as an inverterate and constant tinkerer – he was fastidious and took great pains over his writing, especially with regard to his Introduction to Carmina Gadelica. Drafting and redrafting this particular, and it must be said rather tricky, part of Carmina was extremely important for a number of reasons: it allowed the author to give a general introduction to the reader with regard to the books’ contents; it also allowed Carmichael to try to explain the stucture of the present work and how the genesis of collecting and compiling finally reached the state in which it was ready to be published; the author’s editorial methodology would also be touched upon (something which Carmichael would at times lose sleep over) in order to forestall any potential criticisms; and finally where Carmichael could also acknowledge the assistance he received from many, many people, both friends and colleagues alike.

An example of a draft dedication penned to his wife is contained in one of his field notebooks and written down sometime after 1893:

This book is dedi[cated] to the [del: best of wives]
The best of ^[supra: wives] and the best of mothers
The severest of critics but the warmest of friends
Thee my beloved Mary.

In simple but apposite words Carmichael reflects the affection, warmth and respect that he showed his wife of more than two decades (at the probable time of writing). Certainly, Carmichael had a lot to be grateful about for it was his wife who had painstakingly undertaken the chore of drawing of the ‘Celtic letters in the work have been copied … from Celtic MSS … This has been a task of extreme difficulty, needing great skill and patient care owing to the defaced condition of the originals.’ One of the most distintive aesthetic touchstones of Carmina Gadelica is this very lettering and it would have been a rather different book (and look) if it had not been for her artistic input. But for whatever reason the above dedication remained in manuscript and instead Carmichael offered his thanks to his wife thus in Carmina’s Introduction:

Again and again I laid down my self-imposed task, feeling unable to render the intense power and supreme beauty of the original Gaelic into adequate English. But I resumed under the inspiring influence of my wife, to whose unfailing sympathy and cultured ear this work owes much.

There is no doubt that Carmichael was sincere when he penned these words but it is neither quite as touching nor as direct as the warmth shown in the draft dedication which never made its appearance in print. All this, it may be said, just adds to the adage that behind a good man is a good woman.

References:
CW129(g), fo. 253r
Carmina Gadelica, i, pp. ix–xxxvi.
Image: Mary Frances Carmichael (née MacBean)

The Tyranny of a Uist Factor

A rather unusual contemporary example collected by Alexander Carmichael from the very person to whom it happened – John MacMillan (fl. 1860–1880) of Daliburgh, South Uist – concerns a factor named William Birnie (c. 1807–1880). It is likely that Birnie hailed from Aberdeenshire and he was but one in a long line of factors in South Uist. During his time as factor he would have been one of the main agents of change at the time Colonel John Gordon of Cluny died and his South Uist estate passed to his wife. Colonel John Gordon of Cluny had bought South Uist (along with Benbecula, Eriskay and Barra) in 1838 thus ending almost five hundred years of possession by the MacDonalds of Clanranald. This heralded unprecedented change and social turmoil in the Southern Hebrides which saw mass clearances of many islanders who were forced to emigrate to Canada. It is little wonder then that William Birnie is not fondly remembered as he was the very public face of a landlord’s oppression motivated by greed and the pursuit of profit with hardly a second thought for the consequences of the poor people who would be affected by such measures:

John Macmillan skipper Dallabrog

ten[ant] lent £10/ to a neighbour who was to repay
him at the first market in summer.
But not having done so & aft[er] trying for
5 or 6 years to get it he saw the man
before small debt court. On the morning
of the court while skating on the ice in front
of the house a son of John Macmillan
fell & broke his col[l]ar bone &c. This rendered
the fath[er’s] app[earance] in court 10 min[ute]s late & decr[ee]
was bro[ugh]t out against him with £5 more
than he lent the man. The acc[oun]t was made
up no person knew how but without
foundation (The Macleans of Mull
had only Eachann us Eoun The acc[oun]t made
up like this.) John Macmillan showed the
decree to the fiscal & asked him how he cou[l]d
obtain a rehears[al] of the case & place the shoe
maker on oath about this extra acc[oun]t. The
fiscal said the decree was absolutely
worthless & wholly illegal. This came to Birnie’s
ear & when paying the rent he att[acked] Macmillan
& aft[er] damning & calling him everything for showing
his decree to the fiscal daring him to have his
decision reversed by the sheriff or that
he w[ou]ld put him out of his croft. Should you
put me out of Uist & out of the Kingdom
I who know the truth of the case will not
submit to such a dec[ree] till I bring the case
before the sheriff. Mr Birnie rose from
the side of the room walked across it &
struck Macmillan in the cheek in presence
of his clerk ---- ----!

References:

CW108, fos. 18v–19r

Stewart, James A. ‘The Jaws of Sheep: The 1851 Hebridean Clearances of Gordon of Cluny’, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, vol. 18/19 (1998/1999), pp. 205–26.

Image: Ruined Hebridean Crofthouse.

The Duke of Tarentum in South Uist

Among Alexander Carmichael’s fieldwork notebooks are a few mentions of the Duke of Tarentum. This was none other than Marshal MacDonald (1765–1840) whose father, Neil MacEachen (later MacDonald) of Howbeg, had been born in South Uist. The Marshal was feted by all when he visited Britain and the memories of seeing this dashing French Marshal in the native land of his forebears was not lost on the older Uist folk who would have met him (and perhaps might have even spoken with him) when he came to the Hebrides in 1825. Fortunately for posterity the Marshal left a travel diary recording his visit to Scotland and the Islands which was the subject of a recent publication, The French MacDonald, edited by Jean-Didier Hache (along with a contribution by Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart). One of the overriding reasons for this visit was his search for family roots, a popular reason for many people travelling to Scotland, especially the Highlands and Islands, from where thousands upon thousands emigrated. It is perhaps an historical irony that while the Marshal was visiting the number of people leaving their native land, whether it was forced or voluntary, had yet to reach its peak:

Came to Uist ab[ou]t 46 [years ago]. Left 10£ a year to his

cousin[s] Alast[air] & Isebel each as long as they lived.
His nephew a count along with him. He had 2
sister[s]. Had one son – No English – I cant speak
to you but Ill send you my son. He then got
an English tutor to his son. The son died & the
pro[eeds] claimed by a man fr[om] America.
Raol had a son John [del: who had a son Tonas]
who was a cooper in the Customs In Greenock
who had a son Thomas who went to Quebec.
Probably this was the claimant. he came
to Paris to see the Duke who behaved kindly
to him. Duke sharp – knew his relatives
by sight. He w[ou]ld be ab[ou]t 70 or 75. The late
Angus Fletcher Edin[burgh] corresp[onded] with him.
Angus Macintire & Ken[ne]th Beaton
were taken away from Croic Pheigh[inn].
Paton was put out at Assynt & money
given him to take him home. Macint[ire]
was ?keunpr in France 15 y[ea]rs & came
back to Uist.

Elsewhere Carmichael notes down the physical appearance of the Duke and it is clear from this description that an impression was made which lasted some sixty-six years before being noted down:

Duke [of] Tar[en]t[um] middle sized clear mind[ed]
smart man high sight – Swarthy
complex[ion]. About 5-10 or 5-11.

Perhaps this does not quite chime with his above portrait but it must be remembered that it was painted many years later in faraway France by François Gerard (1770–1837). Only this year – on 30 April 2010 to be precise – a trilingual plaque was unveiled to the memory of the Marshal of France – (Étienne) Jacques (Joseph Alexandre) MacDonald – at Howbeg in South Uist.

References:
CW108, fos. 14r–14v
Hache, Jean-Didier (ed.), The French MacDonald (Port of Ness, Isle of Lewis: The Islands Book Trust, 2007)
Image: Jacques MacDonald, portrait by François Gerard.

The First Earl of Seaforth’s Funeral

An entry made by Alexander Carmichael concerns the funeral ‘celebration’ of Cailean Ruadh MacKenzie (1596/7–1633), the 1st Earl of Seaforth. He was the eldest son of Kenneth MacKenzie, 1st Lord MacKenzie of Kintail by his first wife, Ann, daughter of George Ross of Balnagown. The MacKenzies were a clan from Ross-shire that had risen to prominence in the fifteenth century after the collapse of the Lordship of the Isles.

When Cailein Ruadh Leoghais died
100 sheep 100 pigs 100 hens, 100
geese 100 ducks 100 fat heifers & 100 casks of whisk[y]
were consumed at the funeral which
last[ed] three days & three nights.

Cailean Ruadh throughout his life had been known for his profligacy and would think nothing of spending beyond his means. For instance, he commissioned the building of Brahan Castle in 1611. The Rev. John MacRae (d. 1704) states that he “lived most of his time at Chanonry in great state and very magnificently. He annually imported his wines from the Continent, and kept a store for his wines, beers, and other liquors, from which he replenished his fleet on his voyages round the West Coast and the Lewis, when he made a circular voyage every year or at least every two years round his own estates … It is scarcely credible what allowance was made for his table of Scotch and French wines during these trips amongst his people … I have heard my grandfather, Mr Farquhar MacRa (then Constable of the Castle) say that the Earl never came to his house with less than 300 and sometimes 500 men.” Thus showing in life his boundless extravagence which was later to be reflected in the consummate consumption which was so conspicuous at his funeral. Indeed, his death reflected his life in this very respect.

References:

CW 108, fo. 19v
MacKenzie, Alexander, History of the MacKenzies (Inverness: A. & W. MacKenzie, 1894)
Image: Brahan Castle

Calum Iain Maclean on Carmichael

Fifty years ago Calum Iain Maclean passed away on his adopted isle of South Uist. Over a decade of amassing oral traditions of every type and variety from the people of this island allowed Maclean an insight into Southern Hebridean life and culture afforded to only a few so-called ‘outsiders’, and far more important than that, he also developed a great respect and love for the Uibhistich. Typical of his rather reticent character, Maclean would never take a great deal of credit for the achievement of his work to preserve the fast-dying Gaelic oral traditions of the Southern Hebrides. But such recognition duly came his way with the award of a posthumous degree of LL.D. from the St Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. Maclean, of course, knew that he had been following a fairly well-trodden path when he wrote the following in 1956 about Alexander Carmichael:

Another collector arrived in the Hebrides about the year 1865. He was Alexander Carmichael (1832–1912), a Customs and Excise officer. Carmichael’s work brought him in touch with hundreds of tradition-bearers. He resided permanently in the Hebrides until 1882, and continued his visits there for almost a space of thirty years. He was especially interested in charms, incantations and prayers, of which four volumes, entitled Carmina Gadelica have been published and a fifth volume is in preparation. Carmichael, however, noted down much valuable information about beliefs and festival customs, grazing and tillage customs, agricultural methods, field monuments, legends and tales, and left many notes about story-tellers and tradition-bearers of the last half of the century. In the Hebrides Carmichael and John Francis Campbell met and together visited some of the noted story-tellers. Carmichael has much to say of the practice of story-telling at the ‘ceilidh’. He refers to scores of story-tellers in the Hebrides and on the Scottish mainland. In many cases he speaks of tradition-bearers, ‘whose lore would have filled volumes, but it died with them’.

In a later newspaper article, Maclean again name-checks Carmichael with regard to Alasdair Mòr MacIntyre (c. 1831–1914) who is said to have been recorded by him But there has been, so far, no record of Carmichael having recorded from this famed tradition-bearer; and, even if he did, then it seems that the record is no longer extant. It might, of course, be somewhere in Carmichael’s collection and at some point such a record might well see the light of day. Either way, the amusing anecdote which follows reflects the value of swapping stories in good company in preference to the monotonous grind of manual labour; a triumph of a spiritual rather than a secular exchange of goods, which, it may be assumed, was more to the benefit of the older men rather than the hapless lads who had been placed in a rather delicate predicament.

As has been stated already, the sense of non-utilitarian values is very strong. That has not changed much for generations, as Donald MacIntyre of Loch Eynort, a great storyteller and the son of an even greater one, the late Alasdair Mor MacIntyre illustrates.

Alasdair MacIntyre was a shepherd and lived in a remote place to the east side of Ben More. It was from him that old Angus MacLellan of Frobost learned most of his tales, and old Alasdair used to walk from the back of Ben More to Ormiclate to record tales for the late Dr. Alasdair Carmichael over 70 years ago. Carmichael was immensely proud of one tale he recorded and Donald himself recorded the selfsame tale a fortnight ago.

It is the international tale about the Clever Peasant Girl. No. 94 in the Grimm Collection. It took about an hour to relate, but Donald MacIntyre maintained that in the telling he had nothing like his father’s mastery of ornate, artistic language.

Old Alasdair and Angus MacLellan’s father, Aonghas mac Eachainn, were close friends. One day Alasdair Mor called at the MacLellan home on his way to Lochboisdale. “No one went to bed in their house that night. They all remained by the fire as the two old men went on storytelling,” said Donald.

“Next day old Angus and two or three of the boys went down to Loch Eynort to gather seaweed. They brought Alasdair Mor with them, as it would shorten his way, and they put in at a place where there was a track that would bring him home. Aonghus mac Eachainn got out of the boat also and accompanied Alasdair to see him safely on the track. The two old men sat down on a hillock and began storytelling, while the boys kept the boat afloat on the ebbing tide. The boys continued keeping the boat afloat for a very long time and soon twilight was upon them.

“Go up,” said on of the boys to another, “and separate those two devils or the boat will soon be high and dry.” One of the boys went up and the two old men parted. When Aonghas mac Eachainn came down to the shore, the boys remonstrated with him for having wasted the day and for not having cut any seaweed. Old Aonghus mac Eachainn looked up at the sky: “It will be a fine day tomorrow. We will get plenty seaweed tomorrow.”

References:
Maclean, Calum I. 1956. ‘Hebridean Traditions’, Gwerin: Journal of Folk life, vol. 1, no. 1: pp. 21–33.
———. 12/08/1959. ‘Uist Keeps Its Own Sense of Values’, The Scotsman: p. 6
Image: Calum Iain Maclean.