Hebrides6 - North Harris

After a few nights camping, and a bivvy in Gleann Ulladail I was not feeling especially spruce. As I left the Gleann I got a call from Kenny Mackay, inviting me round to his croft in Reinigeadal. I apologised for my scruffy, vagabond state, and he replied, "well, come and have a cup of tea with a scruffy crofter then." So that seemed alright.
I had wanted to visit Reinigeadal after reading a poem by Ian Stephen about the power supply, written just a few years ago when the village still had no road to it:


"Isolation is the thing,
not so splendid as it seems
to visitors who choose their day."


The book of poetry, 'Malin, Hebrides, Minches' (Dangaroo Press) was illustrated with photographs by Sam Maynard and was quite an influence on me. And why not write poems about power cables?


"If I'd been raised in buttercup fields
maybe you'd get a scented song.
If classical myths had opened to me
perhaps I could raise a voice
from out a pillared form.


But I come from Western Isle
and do not sing but speak
on words that are the breeze
of harbour and moor
and corner of street."

Kenny took me for a short stroll along part of the 'postman's walk', a six mile path over the hill to Urgha. It has been repaired by the North Harris Trust as a robust recreational trail, but until 1990 it was the only way in to the village, other than by boat.

As you might expect when walking with someone who knows the land so well, there is a story round each bend. In fact, even the bend has a story.

"The path-builders were paid by the yard, so sometimes they didn't take the most direct route." The path looped round, and we took a shorter route to Gearraidh Lotaigear, an abandoned settlement, complete with shop. The village had been inhabited, until the 1950s, by the MacLennans who had previously been cleared from more fertile land across Loch Seaforth. Kenny pointed out the 'lazy beds', the strips of seaweed-ferilised raised beds that people strenuously created to eek out productivity for crops.

"Those are the most heart-breaking things. To think, they had to start all over again from scratch because they had to leave the land they had already cultivated."

Sitting in the remains of the MacLennans old shop, the history of forced depopulation is palpable - more like a memory rather than history.

In James Hunter's book, 'On The Other Side of Sorrow' (Mainstream) the author looks to Gaelic poetry to indicate a Highland environmental awareness and appreciation. He quotes the Raasay poet, Sorley MacLean as saying that such scenes of depopulation nearly drove him mad.

Given this history, or memory, the taking of the land into community ownership and "by taking responsibility for the land we have become masters of our own destiny" looks to me to be a quiet and softly spoken revolution.

Sorley MacLean's poem, Hallaig, in its hallucinatory language, sees the re-population of such places:

"...and the girls in silent bands

go to Clachan as in the beginning,

and return from Clachan

from Suisinish and the land of the living;

each one young and high-stepping,

without the heartbreak of the tale."

Kenny sat on the wall of the old shop. Looked thoughtful for a few moments and then said,

"Want to buy some socks? Gloves? Harris tweed? Lots in stock!"