A history of Rossdhu house, Kenovay, 1863-2018. Includes photographs of the house, the people who lived there and a family tree. Named individuals: Allan MacLean and his wife Euphemia MacLean, two of their sons Neilie Allan MacLean and Donald MacLean, Neilie Allan’s wife Catherine (Kate) MacLean of Ardbeg, Willie MacLean, Flora Campbell, Mena Knapman.
Click here to view 2019.97.1
Compiled information about the Steamship Laristan which ran aground on rocks at Craignish, Hough, in 1942. Includes the log of the ship’s movements around the time it ran aground, an extract from a book about shipwrecks, and an extract from Home Commands’ War Diary – Casualties and Defects. The ship was also known under the names of Cherrywood and Empire Gulf.
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Black & white photograph of seaman Ralph Frederick Smith (right) who was rescued by Tiree residents when his ship, the SS Laristan, ran aground on rocks at Craignish, Hough on January 19th 1942. Ironically, having survived the wrecking of the Laristan, Ralph Smith died at sea three months later when his next ship, the Empire Dryden, was torpedoed off the USA coast. Ralph’s Seaman’s Card with details of his death can be viewed here.
1930s binoculars given to Archie MacLeod, Carrachan, Kilmoluaig, by one of the officers of the destroyer HMS Sturdy, which was wrecked on rocks at Sandaig in 1940. Archie (Erchie Charrachain) was home on leave from Gourock where he was skipper on one of the troop tenders based there during WWII. He was present at Sandaig during the rescue and carried ashore on his shoulders one of the Sturdy’s navigating officers who, in a show of gratitude, placed the binoculars around Archie’s neck. Archie’s son, also Archie (Gilleasbuig Carrachan), played with the binoculars as a boy. The binoculars remained in Carrachan until they were passed on to An Iodhlann in 2019.
Includes handwritten history of the binoculars by Gilleasbuig MacLeod.
Scanned copy of a telegram sent by Captain John Brown (1902-1986), Balevullin, to his parents in Cornaig, after being shipwrecked on Tuskar Rock off the east coast of Ireland in 1927. Includes a page of background information. John Brown was 25 years old at the time and could not swim.
He met his future wife when his ship, the Baron Belhaven, was being repaired in Barry Docks (west of Cardiff) in 1941. A bomb had dropped down the funnel when sailing in convoy out of Liverpool during WW2.
Black & white photograph of HMS Sturdy broken in two on rocks at Sandaig during WW2.
Printed scans from the register of the Royal Humane Society of London, 1869, showing the entry for Captain Archibald Brown, Mannal, and his crew who saved three of the crew of the ‘Maria & Fanny’ when it was stricken on rocks near Kenavara in August 1868. The Society awarded the Captain Brown the silver medal for bravery and his crew bronze medals. The crew were Neil Sinclair, Archibald MacLean snr, Archibald MacLean jnr, John Black, Duncan MacLean, Thomas Campbell and Archibald Brown.
Black & white photograph of black-roofed houses at The Green, Kilmoluaig, with the wreck of the SS Ingrid on the rocks in the background. SS Ingrid was a Norwegian steamship, which struck rocks off The Green in January 1942 enroute from the Tyne to Hampton Roads and Cuba.
Information about Archibald MacKinnon, Balephuil & Mull (1824-1886) and Colin MacDonald, Balephuil & Glasgow (1856-1927). Colin MacDonald’s father (also Colin) died in the Balephuil fishing disaster of 1856, just before he was born. Colin Jnr trained as a doctor then returned to Tiree to start a practice at Balemartine in 1909. Colin’s wife Jessie Maggie MacKinnon was Archibald MacKinnon’s daughter. Archibald MacKinnon survived the Balephuil fishing disaster of 1856.
“Around 1909, a second doctor had come to the island, Dr Colin MacDonald (an Dotair Domhnallach), whose first wife was related to Helen Kennedy (Eilidh bheag, Balevullin), set up a rival practice in Balemartine … but it is unlikely the island could support two doctors and left after a few years to go to Bunessan” [on Mull]. Extract from ‘Water from the Seventh Wave – a history of Tiree’s healers’ by John Holliday.
