Mrs MacDonald, Lachlan MacNeill, Donald Mackechnie, Hugh Lamont

Archie Maclean, Donald MacDougall, John Munn

Photograph researched and donated by Jo Currie, the great granddaughter and granddaughter of two MacKechnie bards who feature in The Tiree Bards – Donald MacKechnie 1844-1923 (pictured) and his son Angus MacKechnie, 1870-1944.

Donald MacKechnie was a joiner, postal worker and teacher of psalmody in Tiree, the son of one John McEachern, who was originally from Mull. Donald had been brought up in Tiree, married in 1868 a Mull girl whose father was a successful bidder for one of the best farms in Iona — Catherine McPhail, and with her had produced a family of six children, the first, Angus, being born in Iona in 1870.    The family went to live in Glasgow in the 1870s but was back in Hynish, Tiree in the 1891 census.

Donald MacKechnie’s son John became the schoolmaster in Bunessan, Mull, and to him Donald sent this photograph of the postal staff in Tiree.

Donald handwrote the names of the staff with the places they came from. He retired to Iona before WW1. The photo was owned by Cathy Crawford, Eorabus, daughter of John MacKechnie, who gave it to the donor.

Since uploading, the following information has been sent in:

L[achlan] MacNiell of Balemartine was my maternal grandmother’s cousin. Lachlan was the son of Alexander MacNeill and Ann McIntyre. Alexander’s younger brother, Donald MacNeill, was my great grandfather; his daughter, my grandmother Sarah Currie MacNeill. Her daughter, my mother was Dorothy Mary Hobden. Donald and his wife emigrated to the Eastern Cape, South Africa in March 1880. They were accompanied by Donald and Alexander’s younger sister and her husband, Richard and Marion Brown. Gail Roethlin, Switzerland.

Please email us with any more information on the other subjects of the photo.