New music to mark Iolaire disaster

A hero of the Iolaire disaster which claimed more than 200 lives of servicemen returning to the Isle of Lewis is to inspire a new piece of music marking its centenary.

John Finlay Macleod saved dozens of lives after managing to swim ashore with a rope from the stricken vessel, which sank in the early hours of New Year’s Day in 1919.

Now Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis and fiddler Duncan Chisholm are to join forces to create a suite of music inspired by the heroics of Macleod, whose efforts are thought to have helped more than half of those who survived.

The project - An Treas Suaile / The Third Wave - is one of two honouring the 100th anniversary of the Iolaire disaster being premiered at the An Lanntair arts centre in Stornoway as part of a Uk-wide programme of events marking the centenary of the end of the First World War.

Fowlis and Chisholm will be combine newly-composed music, traditional material and archive recordings with on-stage visuals and projection mapping in the show.

The other An Lanntair production, will see Lewis-born singer-songwriter Iain Morrison, whose great-grandfather was among the Iolaire victims, work with visual artists Matthew Dalziel and Louise Scullion to create Sàl (Saltwater).

Seaman John Morrison was one of the 205 victims and left behind a family of eight children.