|
The Island of Barra Castlebay, Barra, with Kisimul Castle Barra is the largest of the southern islands of the Outer Hebrides chain, and is the ancient home of the Macneils of Barra. Kisimul Castle dates from around 1427, and Castlebay was for many years an important herring fishing port. This industry grew in importance in the 2nd half of the 19th century after widespread Clearances in 1850. Before this many of Barra's inhabitants had suffered years of clearance and enforced movement within the island at the hands of the last Macneil owners and the MacGillivray family who took over a large part of the island. In Barra, as throughout the Highlands, when the people were forced to move, it was always to poorer and poorer land; finally, in 1850 at the height of the famine caused by the potato blight, large areas of Barra and South Uist were simultaneously cleared of their people who were rounded up and forcibly shipped to Canada. This mass emigration was later described as voluntary; the truth was that starving families had been induced to put their names down for emigration to Canada by promises of food. Later, manhunts were conducted to ensure that all those who had signed were now put aboard the transports, many of them bound hand and foot. Barra was not to see happier times for many long years, until after the commission of enquiry (the Napier Commission) into the conditions of the crofting community, after the Land Raids and even after the First World War, when finally many of the estates and large farms were divided and distributed among the surviving crofter families. (No Clearance sites photographed yet.) BACK TO THE CLEARANCES MAP --------------BACK TO CLEARANCES HOMEPAGE |