Colour photograph of Hector and Flora MacPhail of Skipinnish on board the `Ros Nuala`.
Hector and Flora MacPhail of Skipinnish with their children on board the `Ros Nuala`, a fishing boat bought in Donegal.
2006.161.1
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Township: ruaig
2006.107.1
Transcription of an extract from ‘A Winter on Tiree’ by Isobel Wylie Hutchison. Originally published in Blackie’s Girls’ Annual, 1924
Click here to view entire article
Born in 1889 in Kirkliston near Edinburgh, Isobel Wylie Hutchison became a respected film-maker, author and poet. While travelling in the Hebrides in 1920, she decided to spend a winter on Tiree. However, due to the vagaries of the weather and the mail-boat, it was a month before she reached the island.
She found lodgings in Ruaig and became involved in the life of the local Primary School. Her love of plants prompted an experiment in bulb-growing which presaged the Hebridean Bulb-growers Association by thirty years. Her subsequent travels took her to Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Alaska and the Aleutian islands.
A fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, she was awarded the Mungo Park Medal in 1934 ‘in recognition of outstanding contributions to geographical knowledge through exploration.’ She wrote several travel books including ‘North to the Rime-Ringed Sun’ and ‘Stepping Stones from Alaska to Asia’, and four volumes of poetry.
2006.108.1
Copied Register of Admissions for Ruaig School, 1919-1969.
Register of Admissions for Ruaig School, 1919-1969, giving pupils date of birth, name of parent or guardian, address, name of last school, date of leaving, and cause of leaving or where gone.
This, and all other school admission registers that we held, has now been returned to Argyll & Bute Council archives
2006.73.5
Photograph of Private Hugh MacKinnon, Ruaig (1897-1918)
Black & white photograph of Private Hugh MacKinnon of Ruaig/Glasgow, in uniform around 1910, from an obituary in the Oban Times newspaper around 1919. Son of Mary Ann and Donald McKinnon, (Ruaig/Glasgow), Hugh was killed in action near Meuouvers, France, in 1918 whilst serving with the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) in World War I.
2005.117.12
Photocopied extracts from `The Scottish Congregational Ministry 1794-1933` by Rev Dr William McNaughton.
Information about the Congegational Church on Tiree, Rev Archibald Ffarquharson and Malcom hunter.
2005.70.1
Ethel MacCallum talking about moving to a Gaelic-speaking community
Sound clip in English of Ethel MacCallum talking about moving to a Gaelic-speaking community in the 1940s.
Courtesy of Mrs Ethel MacCallum
In this recording made in June 2005, Mrs Ethel MacCallum talks to Maggie Campbell about what it was like to move as a child to a Gaelic-speaking community. During World War II, Ethel was evacuated to Tiree where she was fostered by Hugh and Kate Lamont of Ruaig Post Office.
After leaving school at fifteen, Ethel helped her foster-parents in the Post Office and on the family’s croft. A couple of years later she moved to Inverary Castle where she worked as a housemaid for the Duke and Duchess of Argyll.
By the end of her schooling Ethel had ‘nothing in her head but music’. She competed many times in national and provincial Mods, winning cups for her Gaelic singing. She was also a gold medallist in the provincial Mod at Lochgilphead in 1967.
2005.52.3
The police report on the Ruaig drowning of 1860
Transcription of the police report on the Ruaig drowning of 1860.
Courtesy of Argyll & Bute Archives
In February 1860, Charles MacLean and brothers Duncan and Archibald MacInnes left Skipnish, the harbour in Ruaig, to check their lobster traps. Their skiff measured just over sixteen feet. With Duncan at the helm and Charles and Archibald on the oars, they rowed four or five hundred yards to the south-east.
They then put three reefs in the sail, hoisted it and steered to the west of Soay. The wind was from the south, very strong but steady. As the sea was so heavy, they decided to shorten sail. While Archibald was doing this, water came aboard. They dropped the sail and in a moment the boat capsized.
Duncan managed to struggle ashore but the other two were drowned. When found by two Ruaig men, he was so weak he was unable to speak and had to be assisted home.
2005.30.1
Copied black and white postcard of a coal puffer at Ruaig.
Postcard of a coal puffer unloading at Ruaig.
2000.61.15
CD Pròiseact Thiriodh CD-SA1968-25.
Donald Sinclair (Dòmhnall Chaluim Bhàin) of Balephuil sings a song about the loss of a sailor, talks about the exploits of Donald Lamont of Ruaig, funeral customs, a type of kilt worn on Tiree, playing shinty on Sundays, whey-making, a well Tobar na Naoi Beò, sings three Gaelic songs, talks about games old men would play with young lads, recites a verse of a song about the Balephuil drowning, tells and anecdote about what his father believed, sings a humorous song about Calum MacArthur in Glasgow, talks about the Balemartine bard, gives a saying about guns, sings a Gaelic song and another by John MacLean, tells a story about a fool and his gold, a humorous anecdote about his great-grandmother, sings four more Gaelic songs, tells a story about sighting fairies and another about a sailing disaster and sings another Gaelic song.
2000.61.41
Mini-disk SA1968/25.
Donald Sinclair (Dòmhnall Chaluim Bhàin) of Balephuil sings a song about the loss of a sailor, talks about the exploits of Donald Lamont of Ruaig, funeral customs, a type of kilt worn on Tiree, playing shinty on Sundays, whey-making, a well Tobar na Naoi Beò, sings three Gaelic songs, talks about games old men would play with young lads, recites a verse of a song about the Balephuil drowning, tells and anecdote about what his father believed, sings a humorous song about Calum MacArthur in Glasgow, talks about the Balemartine bard, gives a saying about guns, sings a Gaelic song and another by John MacLean, tells a story about a fool and his gold, a humorous anecdote about his great-grandmother, sings four more Gaelic songs, tells a story about sighting fairies and another about a sailing disaster and sings another Gaelic song.