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.
Iron cruisgean from Sliabh Cottage, Cornaigbeg.
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.
Click here to view 2017.14.2
Two hand-drawn family trees showing (1) the link between the donor and her Tiree ancestors through her great-grandmother Marion MacLean Brodie (b. 1854), who was daughter of Lachlan MacLean (b. 1804), Kilmoluaig, and Catherine MacLean (b.1814), Grianal (Greenhill), and (2) the family of Sarah Sinclair (b. 1895), Cathcart, whose Tiree ancestors include her grandparents Donald Sinclair (b. 1808), Balemartine, and Henrietta McLaurin (b. 1811), Balemartine. Henrietta’s father was Malcolm McLaurin, the Duke of Argyll’s Chamberlain on Tiree.
Click here to view 2017.36.11
Small cutting from an unknown Gaelic magazine with the saying: “See that your own hearth is swept before you lift your neighbour’s ashes”.
Click here to view 2017.28.1
Softback book ‘Correspondence from July, 1846, to February, 1847, Relating to the Measures Adopted for the Relief of the Distress in Scotland…’ Great Britain Treasury, 2012. Government correspondence about Famine Relief in the Highlands. Includes separate index listing references to Tiree.
Click here to view index 2017.26.1 Tiree references
CD ‘Sguaban à Tìr an Eòrna: Traditions of Tiree’, Scottish Tradition Series no. 27, School of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh University, 2016. A collection of 29 tunes, songs, poems, hymns and other recordings in Gaelic and English. Includes a booklet edited by Margaret A MacKay and Donald E Meek. Compiled for A’ Bhuain – Tiree Homecoming 2016.
Click on the cover image for a list of contents:
Gaelic poem ‘Cumha do Dhonnachadh‘ composed by Hector MacArthur, Moss, following the tragic drowning of his brother Duncan MacArthur, who was going to compete at the annual Tiree Regatta in July 1954.
Click here to view 2017.17.4
