Shooting party at the Scarinish Hotel around 1912
Photograph of a shooting party at the Scarinish Hotel around 1912.
Courtesy of Mr Angus MacLean
During the Victorian era and up to World War I, game shooting was a popular field sport. This photograph taken outside the Scarinish Hotel around 1912 shows a shooting party, probably attracted to Tiree by the huge numbers of common snipe.
Sir Hugh Gladstone wrote in his ‘Record Bags & Shooting Records’ of 1922 that Lord Elphinstone and a Mr J. Cobbold, who visited Tiree in the autumn of 1908 and 1909, on both occasions bagged over 1,000 snipe in ten days’ shooting.
Although shooting parties still come to Tiree in October through to January to shoot mainly geese and some snipe, their numbers are exceeded by bird-watchers keen to sight corncrakes, of which one third of the UK population can be found on the island.
Black and white photograph of a shooting party at the Scarinish Hotel.
Shooting party at the Scarinish Hotel around 1912. (Original in Filing Cabinet 2 drawer 1: 1997.178)
Black and white postcard of Ruaig School.
Ruaig School. (Original in Filing Cabinet 2 drawer 1: 1997.178)
Lifting potatoes at Ruaig
Postcard of the potato harvest at Ruaig in the mid-1920s.
Courtesy of Mr Angus MacLean
Potatoes were first grown in the Hebrides in 1743 when they were brought back to South Uist from Ireland by MacDonald of Clanranald. His tenants were unwilling to plant them and brought the crop to his house as they refused to eat them.
However, by 1800 potatoes had become the main food crop in the islands, including Tiree. They produce three to five times as many calories as grain from the same area of land. Potatoes are also a much more dependable crop than oats and barley, which can be flattened overnight by a storm.
Dependable, that is, until 1846, when the fungus causing potato blight caused widespread starvation in Europe. It is said that West Hynish was the only area of Tiree to be unaffected. This postcard shows Nancy and Alexander MacInnes in the foreground harvesting potatoes in Ruaig in the mid-1920s.
Black and white photograph of potato lifting at Ruaig.
Lifting potatoes at Ruaig, c. 1925-6, with Nancy and Alexander MacInnes in the foreground (Duncan MacInnes`s aunt and great-uncle).
Black and white photograph of Ruaig School taken in 1935.
Ruaig School, 1935. L-R: (front) Hector MacArthur, Caoles; Donald MacArthur, Caoles; Rena MacKinnon, Vaul; Lillian Graham, Ruaig; Janet MacFadyen, Caoles; Jan MacKinnon, Ruaig; Hugh MacLean, Salum; Lachie MacLean, Salum; (back) Robert MacLeod, headmaster; Peter MacLeod, headmaster’s son; Morag MacFadyen, Caoles; Alasdair MacLean, Salum; Minnie MacKinnon, Vaul; Archie MacLean, Caoles; Mary Flora MacKinnon, Ruaig; Margaret Graham, Vaul; James Graham, Vaul; Isabel MacDonald, Milton; Hector MacKinnon, Vaul; Mary MacArthur, Caoles; Angus MacLean, Caoles; Jessie Ann MacFadyen (or Mary Bell MacFadyen), Caoles; Margaret MacLean, primary teacher.
Black and white photograph of Scarinish taken in 1946.
View of Scarinish in 1946 from the air looking south with the lighthouse on the extreme left.
Black and white photograph of the Youth Club platform party, 1953.
Youth Club platform party, 1953, with the Duke and Duchess of Argyll in the centre front.
Black and white photograph of a de Havilland Rapide.
De Havilland Rapide at No.1 Hangar at Tiree airport.
Black and white photograph of the old harbour and lighthouse, Scarinish.
The old harbour and lighthouse in Scarinish.
Black and white photograph of Baca Mhic Illeathain in Scarinish.
The inlet known as Baca Mhic Illeathain in Scarinish with the MacCallum`s old thatched house in the background.
Black and white postcard of Gott Bay pier.
The M. V. `Claymore` approaching Gott Bay pier.
