‘Spirit’ of forefathers remain on Island of Seals
◆ Alison Campsie follows one man’s ‘pilgrimage’ to search for traces of his forefathers on an abandoned Scottish island
Musician and sound artist Rob Mackay returned to Eilean Nan Ròn off the coast of Sutherland after more than 40 years in search of his family story – and played a tune in the old derelict home of his relatives where only sheep now sleep.
Mr Mackay said he wanted to make a “pilgrimage” to Eilean Nan Ròn – the Island of Seals – which sits at the tip of the Kyle of Tongue and which was home to his grandfather Thomas and great grandfather, Donald, around 100 years ago.
Eilean Nan Ròn was abandoned by its last 12 residents in late 1938 after the challenges of life there had become too great for a population depleted of its younger members pulled away by war, adventure and opportunity.
Mr Mackay’s grandfather left the island in the 1920s wanting to travel the world.
First he went to the south of England to work in a bank before meeting his wife and relocating to Venezuela, where Mr Mackay’s mother was born.
The musician’s return journey to the island came more than 40 years after his last visit when he and family sailed from Skerray on the mainland to find curtains still flapping in the empty windows, wallpaper clinging to the walls and pieces of broken crockery lodged in the ground.
Today, these little traces of human existence have slipped almost completely out of view. Houses – which were built by hand in the early 19th Century from island granite quarried and carried by hand –still stood but without windows, doors or any personal touch of the families who once called this place home.
The right angles left cut into the peat bank were perhaps the only human mark that remained.
Mr Mackay, who lives in Leeds, said: "The island has always felt important to the family. I was introduced to it at the age of seven. I went up there with my mum and dad and my mum’s sister and their four sons. We all went over and it was a beautiful sunny day
"There was a lot more to see then of how it was. The houses were much more intact then. There was definitely a lot more evidence of human life but when I went back all the windows were gone, all the doors were away. Almost everything had gone.”
Mr Mackay, who has documented his journey for BBC3 radio show Island of the Seals, slept in a tent next to his grandfather’s house with the “hissing” of the snoring sheep now under its roof recorded as part of the soundscape of the island.
He added: “When I went into my grandfather’s house I could feel the spirit of the place and I decided to play my flute. I could hear it reflect over the four walls and get a sense of what it might have sounded like to have music play or hear someone speak in there. It was like putting a little bit of human life back into the house and reclaiming it from the sheep.”
Mr Mackay said he had been motivated to travel to the island to piece together the men in his family who had died before he was born. Turning 50 had focused his mind on timelines, he said.
“I really wanted to get a better sense of who my grandfather and great grandfather were. It was a bit of a pilgrimage for me to and connect with the men on my mother’s side.
“To spend 24 hours on the island and to camp next door to my grandfather’s house and to get this little taste of what the island was like was really special,” he added.
The island was inhabited in the 1820s as a direct result of the Strathnaver Clearances, when around 1,500 people were cleared from the valley and handed over to two sheep-farmers, one the infamous Patrick Sellar, the factor to the Duke of Sutherland. The island is still owned by Sutherland Estates.
Mr Mackay said it was as yet unclear whether his own descendants were part of this first group but his greatgrandfather Donald may have been among the last to leave the island in the 1930s before taking up a croft at Borgie on the mainland. The family history fell further into place during a trip to Strathnaver Museum at Bettyhill, where a box was set aside for Mr Mackay.
He added: “The last thing that came out of the box was a poem dedicated to Captain Donald Mackay and the crew formerly of the Morning Star. I thought ‘that is my great grandfather’. That was a hairs on the back of my neck moment.”
The poem, written by a WJ Telford of Winnipeg, praised the “courage and worth” of the seamen with the Morning Star one of two herring boats captained by Donald Mackay, who is said to have strapped himself to a mast in order to survive a particularly fierce storm.
When I went into my grandfather’s house I could feel the spirit of the place and I decided to play my flute
A newspaper cutting from April 1938 details the beginning of the exodus of the last residents. In April, it was reported that about half the population – then 21 people – were due to leave, including teacher Catherine Mackay and her two pupils, for the mainland. The year before, residents sent a petition to the Secretary of State for Scotland asking to be evacuated. No action was taken with islanders then taking it upon themselves to find an alternative home.
In July, postman Donald Macdonal also left the island behind.
The report said: “This will leave five women and seven men on the island, and these, too, will leave for the mainland as soon as they have found homes. By the end of the year Roan will be an island of deserted houses.”