Large, ornately framed oil painting of Hugh MacDiarmid (1846-1928), known locally as Am Baillidh Dubh / the Black Factor, for his part in evoking Tiree’s ‘land war’ in 1886. The portrait was painted by the established artist Duncan MacGregor Whyte (1866-1953) in around 1922. MacGregor Whyte built The Studio at Balevullin. For more detailed information, see our exhibition material.
Hardback edition of A Pronouncing Gaelic-English Dictionary by celebrated lexiographer, Neil MacAlpine, of Islay.
Inside cover board inscribed, ‘A.R. MacDonald, Cornaigbeg, Tiree. Personal Property’.
Gaelic to English and English to Gaelic, with phonetic key.
Re-printed from 1845 first pressing several times.
549pp.
Black and white photograph of unnamed seamen on a sailing boat in around the early 1900s, which formed the front page of a 1935 Gaelic school book (publication unknown). The item was found in Cnoc Ruadh, 10 Moss, Isle of Tiree.
Compact, leather-covered, Gaelic ‘Biobull / Bible’, produced by Comunn-Bhiobull Duthchail na h-Alba. On the inside front cover is written ‘Cornaig Sunday School. For Mary Ishbel MacDonald [Kenovay], with every good wish for the future, J Gillies, 28/8/46. John Gillies was the Church of Scotland Missionary on Tiree for 17 years (1937-1954), teaching Sunday School in Gaelic and English.
Hardback book ‘The Scottish Anthem Book’, 1922, revised from the original ‘Book of Anthems’, which was published in 1875 as and aid to singing hymns and psalms in the Church of Scotland. Belonging to Effie MacDonald (nee MacCorquodale), Kenovay, it is signed ‘Euphemia Cameron MacCorquodale, No. 8’.
Photograph and sample of gutta-percha from a bale found embedded in the machair shore at Sandaig (NL 936 436) by visitor Jennie Hynd in September 2022. The extent of the lichen and vegetation on the bale suggests that it had been there for some time.
Gutta-percha is a stretchy, rubbery material, derived from the latex of the Palaquium gutta tree in Malaysia. During the second half of the 19th century, gutta-percha was imported into Britain in vast quanities and used as insulation for underwater electrical cables, golf balls, chewing gum and root canal treatment. Synthetic materials have since largely replaced it.
Bales of gutta-percha have been washed up on the beaches of western Europe for over 100 years, with many likely to have come from ships wrecked during WWI such as the Japanese liner Miyazaki Maru, which was sunk by a German U-boat off the Scilly Isles in 1917.
Two original monochrome postcards showing Scarinish Harbour and Island House. These are originals of digital copies already held in the collection. See 2000.230.4 and 2013.33.2, respectively.
Black & white photo postcard of a view of “Scarinish Village” taken from the south in around 1910. Visible in the distance are the manse/care home, school, bakery, The Reading Room/An Iodhlann, Brown’s Store, Mary Stewart, old lighthouse.
Black & white postcard photograph of cattle standing in Loch a’ Phuil in around the 1920s. Houses and barns of ‘The Land’, Barrapol, are visible in the background.
Black & white photographic postcard of passengers aboard the ferry passing through the Sound of Mull on their way to/from Tiree in the 1920s.
