Between the Sunset and the Sea by Simon Ingram

Author:Simon Ingram
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

I didn’t get struck by lightning on Cùl Beag, and for this I was immeasurably thankful, if a little disappointed I’d had to bin my climb. I managed to reach the car within twenty minutes, during which time the flashes and the rumbles began to separate, indicating the thunderstorm was moving away. In its place, a pretty severe rainstorm was establishing itself – which meant wherever this elusive view was, it wasn’t going to be here and certainly wouldn’t appear in the next few minutes. This was made a little easier to take as Cùl Beag would never have delivered exactly what I was looking for, anyway: I’d realised this when I broke out of the trees and saw that from this angle, however high I got on Cùl Beag, the oh-so-important ingredient – Suilven – was going to remain half-blocked by neighbouring Cùl Mòr’s colossal west flank. As I sat in the car, morosely watching the spires of Stac Pollaidh disappear behind thickening rain, I made a decision. Starting the engine, I pulled out of the car park and headed for Lochinver.

The founding of Lochinver in 1812 sadly took place under the pall of something less than celebratory. This was known to local people as the ‘Fuadach nan Gàidheal’ – the expulsion of the Gael – whilst the landlords called the process ‘improvement’. The rural people of England had seen this already in the form of the Enclosure Acts, but north of the border history would give them another, less ambiguous and entirely more notorious, name: the Highland Clearances.

Between 1812 and 1821 some 160 families were evicted from their homes in Assynt’s glens. The Duke of Sutherland, like other landowners across Scotland, had decided to convert the most fertile parts of his land from crofting to the more lucrative sheep farming, necessitating the forced removal of the families smallholding upon it.

Even before the Clearances, the turbulent history of Assynt makes for sour reading. The Clan MacLeod had controlled the land since the Vikings were defeated by Alexander of Scotland in 1263 at the Battle of Largs. Reputedly the descendants of a Viking named Leod were permitted to remain in his lands, but not as Vikings; instead, they became Gaelic clansmen, and their name became MacLeod – literally, son of Leod. They would build Ardvreck Castle, now a magnificently ruinous and ancient finger of old stone pointing skywards from the banks of Loch Assynt beneath Quinag. In 1672 the castle and its lands were seized by the Clan Mackenzie of Ross-shire, and after the Mackenzies went bankrupt in 1739, Assynt was acquired by the Duchess-Countess of Sutherland in 1757.

The Clearances of Assynt were less evictions than forced migrations. In order to make way for what would become five enormous sheep pastures, the people were offered an alternative livelihood by the sea – typically kelp-farming, fishing or smallholding on the quaggy coastline. The only inland area to receive an influx of displaced tenants was what is today Knockan and Elphin, where 58 crofts were designated.

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