Audio cassette recording of Janet MacIntosh of Scarinish talking to Maggie Campbell on 21/5/2004.
Janet MacIntosh of Urvaig talks to Maggie Campbell in May 2004 about her schooldays in Balemartine, her childhood and wartime memories, Sunday customs, her travels round Scotland as a pilgrim, women’s clothing and work, baptisms in Tiree, the 19th century Baptist revival on the Ross of Mull, the Community Council, differences between the east and west of Tiree, self education, second sight and ghost stories, Tiree Bards, the hardness of life in the past with poverty, disease and the death of children; Janet finishes by singing a hymn composed by Neil MacDonald of Kilmoluaig
Local news about the good weather and the progress of the crops, the visit by the pension officer, steam drifters on their way to the Barra fishing, the erection of the windmill at Island House to pump water and the deaths of Donald MacLean, manager of the Agricultural Co-op and of Donald MacFadyen of Balemartine who died aged 29.
Postcard of Island House, the Tiree residence of the Duke of Argyll.
Loch an Eilein (loch of the island) lies to the west of Crossapol. An ancient castle was situated on an island in the loch, with a causeway and drawbridge between it and the shore. It was occupied by the MacLeans of Duart, and probably by the MacDonalds of the Isles before them.
Lachlan Mòr MacLean was denounced as a rebel in 1588 and his estates were forfeited six years later. Tiree stayed in the actual, if not legal, possession of the MacLeans until the island passed to the Campbells of Argyll in 1674.
The Earl of Argyll built the present building in 1748, at which time the channel between the island and the shore was filled in using forced labour.
Black and white postcard of Island House, Heylipol.
Island House, Heylipol. (Original postcard in Filing Cabinet 8 drawer 2)
Hector MacPhail of Ruaig gave a talk at Vaul Golf Club in November 1996, during which he told three humorous anecdotes about a fisherman from Balevullin nicknamed ‘the Goilear’.
