Ies of our past

which MacDonald refers to him leave little doubt that he was a good friend to the local folk in their hour of need. Tha’n Saighdean agus an Criosdaidh An aon phearse ghrinn a Chaiptin (The soldier and the Christian are in the pretty person of the Captain). Another who no doubt contributed to the leniency shown would have been the parish priest, William Harrison, who by his prudence and cautious diplomacy, gained the approbation of both sides during that difficult period, though not apparently that of Macdonald the bard.

‘For some years after the ’45, Macdonald lived at Eignaig, where his near neighbour was Father Harrison who, I believe, had a chapel at Caolas. Macdonald was on very bad terms with the priest and no doubt contributed to the feelings which inspired his poem Dispraise of Eignaig, which depicts it as barren, stony, unproductive, and so on.

‘Reflecting on this one August morning as I partook of the hospitality of the Eignaig Boys, the late Archie and Angus Macdougall, it was borne in on me that this unfavourable picture

Jacobite monument at Glen Finnan. Will it be demolished because its funder has been associated with the American slave trade?

was due to the bard’s irascible temper rather than to the nature of Eignaig and its surroundings.

‘When the new road is completed, visitors will no doubt follow in some places between Kinlochmoidart and Forsay the same route as the Prince took when he walked across to Caolas. But there will be a difference – a much-reduced native population. With emigration and migration, it would be difficult to find in the Glenuig area today sufficient descendants of those who followed the prince to make a set for The Eight Men of Moidart.’