Softback book ‘The Escape of Bonnie Prince Charlie’ by Malcolm Seddon, 2016. Describing the adventures of Charles Stewart over five months after his defeat at the battle of Culloden in 1746, including his 500-mile trek over the Western Isles and NW Highlands, and eventual rescue. The French ship carrying him away from Scotland passed close to Tiree, where it is said that two Tiree men from Ruaig were abducted to navigate the ship safely onwards. See ‘Donald the Pilot’ for further information.
Poem ‘The Sail Weaver’ by Michele Fermanis-Winward, 2017, inspired by the stories of emigration from the Scottish Islands to the New World. The poet’s four-times great grandmother was Mary (McKinnon) MacLean of Tiree, born 1796, and the subject of the poem. Keith Dash (Australia), Mary MacLean (Scarinish) and John Holliday (Balephuil) are mentioned in the acknowledgements.
Chanter belonging to Captain Lachlan MacPhail, Tiree and Glasgow (1889-1961), who was a great piper and writer of Gaelic poems and bagpipe tunes, and who had a pipe tune named after him. The chanter was presented to An Iodhlann by his eldest grandson on behalf of Lachlan’s three daughters Isabel, Cath and Margaret, who spent the holidays in Tiree in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.
An iron ‘crusie’ lamp that was used to burn fish oil and once belonged to Mrs Mary Campbell, grandmother of the donor. Notes accompanying the cruisgean tell that it came into the possession of the donor in 1996 and was initially offered to the Thatched House Museum in Sandaig. There it was photographed and returned to the donor with some notes suggesting that it was “an early 18th century iron hanging cruise lamp presented by the late Viscountess Gort”, and that “a cruse is a clay container which could be transformed into a lamp by being filled with oil and equipped with a simple wick – a rag would suffice, but a rush was more efficient and minimised the smoke.”
Photocopied extract of an article about the location of the Old Norse place-name ‘Isleborg’ in the Argyll Islands, by Dr John Holliday, Balephuil, and the possibility that it refers to an ancient fort on Loch an Eilein on Tiree. Published in West Highland Notes and Queries, Series 4, No. 2, December 2016.
Photocopy of a newspaper article published in The Sunday Telegraph 2/4/2017, announcing the installation of a statue of suffragette Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London. The article includes a photograph of a group of suffragettes in 1908, including Lady Frances Balfour, the Duke of Argyll’s sister. See 2017.56.1
Black and white photograph of a group of suffragettes during a march by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies in 1908. L-R: Lady Frances Balfour, Millicent Fawcett, Ethel Snowden, unidentified, unidentified, unidentified. Lady Frances Balfour was the sister of the Duke of Argyll and author of the biography of her sister Lady Victoria Campbell. The fasteners on her jacket are silver salmon, which are still used on the formal clothing of the Argylls. (large print stored in filing cabinet 10 drawer 2)
Softback book ‘Deuteroskopia, or a Brief Discourse Concerning the Second Sight, so Called’ by John Frazer, 2011, containing a re-printing of an original pamphlet produced in 1820 by ‘the Reverend Mr John Frazer, late minister of Tiree and Coll, and Dean of the Isles’, reflecting on instances of second sight, including an example from Tiree on page 21.
Softback book ‘An Enlightened Duke: The Life of Archibald Campbell (1682-1761), Earl of Ilay, 3rd Duke of Argyll’ by Roger L. Emerson, 2013. A study of the complex political, social, and intellectual life of a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment.
