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Argyllshire Dawn over the Glencoe hills many of the larger islands - Mull, Islay and Jura, Coll and Tiree - and these can be found elsewhere on the website. Mainland Argyll suffered during the Clearances like the rest of the Highlands, and many poignant details can be found in Alexander Mackenzie's "History of the Highland Clearances". The west side of Loch Awe cleared of 45 families to make way for one sheep-farmer; lovely Glenorchy so ruthlessly cleared that it's population fell by a thousand during ten years; Morvern, in north Argyll, reduced, between 1831 and 1881, from a population of over two thousand to only seven hundred; and from nearby Ardgour virtually the whole of its people exiled to Australia, many dying en route. At the start, the people were helped to go - financial aid was given, ships were ordered, and the most tempting picture painted of the fine new territories they were to inhabit, beyond the Atlantic. Latterly, however, they were just evicted to barren sea-shores and left to fend for themselves, and even those who had been fortunate enough to secure some support and a passage on one of the ships found their new homes to be harsh and difficult, and far from the earthly paradise which they had been led to expect. More than this - once established, they would often find agents of their former landlords moving through the new settlements, and that what they had taken to be grants had the support they had received had been not grants but loans, and repayment was now being demanded. And Glencoe's troubles did not end with the infamous massacre of 1692. It's wild and romantic scenery today diverts our attention from the fact that the Glen is empty; in the 30 miles from Glencoe village to the little hotel at Bridge of Orchy there is barely a house to be seen; this, too, is the work of The Clearances. BACK TO THE CLEARANCES MAP --------------BACK TO CLEARANCES HOMEPAGE |