How an island lost its people
Lismore’s Bob Hay has extended his book documenting a bygone time of big change on the little island.
A new version of How An Island Lost Its People, published by Birlinn this month, comes as a recommended read by Scotland’s most distinguished historian Tom Devine.
On the front cover, top academic Devine describes the book that charts improvement, clearance and re-settlement on the island from 1830 to 1914, as “evocative, lucid and well researched.”
Apart from the additional fresh material, the book also has a new foreword by Highlands and islands author and history specialist Dr James Hunter.
“I had written to Tom Devine asking for his support in me writing a second edition and got a long letter back from him. To get the forward from Jim Hunter was also heartwarming to me,” said Bob.
In 1830 the little Hebridean island of Lismore was one of the granaries of the West Highlands, with every possible scrap of land producing bere barley or oats.
The population reached its peak of 1,500 but by 1910, numbers had dwindled to just 400 and were still falling.
The agricultural economy had been almost completely transformed to support sheep and cattle, with plough and replaced by the now familiar green grassy landscape.
With reference to documentary sources - including Poor Law reports, the Napier Commission looking into the conditions lived by crofters in the Highlands and Islands, as well as documents and letters from this area - Bob Hay’s book covers a century of emigration, migration and clearance and paints an intimate portrait of the island community during a period of profound change.
Around a quarter of the book derives from the Dunollie archive. It also includes the only portrait of a youthful Allan MacDougall of Dunollie, who for many years was factor on Lismore. The portrait was found in a box in the attic at Dunollie but it was discovered too late to go in the first edition.
The book also celebrates the achievements of the many tenants who grasped the opportunities involved in agricultural improvements.
The first edition came out in 2013 published by the Island Book Trust but the second version was spurred on after the digitising of the minute book of Lismore Agricultural Society from 1853 which offered a wealth of new information that had not been covered in the previous study.
“It had much about how much the ordinary tenants had achieved, nothing necessarily to do with the gentlemen factors. It gave us a broader view of the subject,” added Bob.
The Birlinn edition of 266 pages, rather than the original 304, has also focused the genealogical material more.