Results of an academic study ‘Ancestral tourism & heritage work in a Hebridean island’ conducted by Joanna Rodgers, UHI, on Tiree in 2015-2018. From the book ‘Creating Heritage – unrecognised pasts and rejected futures’, Routledge 2020.
Abstract Roots-seeking travel is an increasingly popular activity around the world, and such visitors are particularly ubiquitous in Scotland. As a heritage practice, this ‘ancestral tourism’ has been predominantly interpreted in terms of its national or regional significance, with previous research focusing largely on ancestral tourists in the context of official heritage institutions or commercial tourism events. The distinctive contexts of ancestral tourism destinations at the local scale are rarely attended to on their own terms and residents’ perspectives have received little attention. Consequently, the practices and meanings connected to this form of tourism are only partially understood: the “heritage work” (Byrne, 2008; Harrison, 2010) of both residents and visitors in quotidian, unofficial spaces remains unexamined. Drawing on 18 months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in the island of Tiree, this chapter addresses these gaps and explores the heritages connected to ancestral tourism “from below” (Robertson, 2012).
A digital photocopy of the full text is available from An Iodhlann.
Academic paper on a study of horse-riding in Ireland in the late Bronze Age by Brian Scott, 2019. A brangas / bridle held in An Iodhlann is referred to on page 20. Published in The Journal of Irish Archaeology.
Copies of documents and correspondence between An Iodhlann’s genealogist Flo Straker and Kathryn McKinnon Berthold regarding the descendants of Murdoch Campbell, Balinoe (b. ca 1725). Names include Duncan Campbell, Balephuil (1853-1932) and his wife Janet Black (d. 1930); Hector Campbell (b. 1778); John Black (1820-1876); Murdoch Campbell, Balinoe (1805-1876); Alexander Campbell & Cath McDonald; Catherine McMillan, Kenovay.
Research article by Rena Maguire, 2019, about reconstructing a Bronze Age horse’s bridal made using a deer antler tine for a bit cheek piece. A similar antler tine, also thought to be a bit cheek piece, was found amongst items excavated from Dun Mor Vaul by Euan Mackie in 1962-1964. Entry includes extracts from associated papers.
Booklet ‘The Archaeology of Scottish Thatch’ by Timothy G Holden. Technical Advice Note 13 produced by the Technical Conservation, Research and Education Division of Historic Scotland, Edinburgh, 1998. A description of the various materials and methods used to thatch houses throughout Scotland.
Printed copy of full text for ‘Give us more land and give it to us now – demands for new crofts and Balephetrish after World War I’ by Bob Chambers, 2018. Includes images of letters written in 1919 to the secretary of the Board of Argiculture for Scotland from Cath MacKinnon, to Sir William Sutherland, MP for Argyllshire, from Archibald MacLean, and to an authority from Hector MacLean. (held digitally in An Iodhlann)
Notes on Malcom McLaurin (1765-1834), Argyll Estates’ chamberlain on Tiree during 1801-1811, compiled by John Holliday and Catriona White in 2017. He was not well-liked.
Photocopied academic paper ‘Glasgow pottery at Delftfield: three unrecorded documents’ by Nancy Valpy, 1985, pertaining to the Duke of Argyll’s permission to extract naturally-occurring clay from Tiree for use by the Glasgow Delftfield Pottery in the mid-1700s. “It contains an interesting reference to Scarinish.”
