HISTORIAN Ben Buxton’s award-winning book, Mingulay: An Island and Its People, tells the story of life on a small, cliff-girt island in the Outer Hebrides from the earliest times to the present. Here he tells of revelations from newly accessible sources that have revealed a wealth 
of information, including a shocking depredation suffered by a group of islanders in the nineteenth century. 

"THE inhabitants of Lighthouse Island have returned after sojourning three or four years on the main island of Barra at the laird’s kelp-works.”

This brief statement from 1838 has huge significance in the study of the notorious Clearances in the Highlands and Islands in the 18th and 19th centuries. “Lighthouse Island” referred to Berneray, at the southern tip of the Outer Hebrides; it is also known as Barra Head, the name of its lighthouse, built on the top of a 600-foot cliff and the highest lighthouse in Britain.

You might think, from the innocuous-sounding statement found in the records of the Northern Lighthouse Board, that the people had been on holiday, but the reality was very different. The laird, MacNeil of Barra, evicted the inhabitants of Berneray and the nearby islands of Mingulay and Pabbay and replaced them with more profitable sheep. Evictions of whole communities were common enough during the Clearances, but MacNeil went a stage further and set some of the people to work in his kelp (or seaweed) factory on Barra. This is tantamount to forced labour, the only such case known in Scotland. It also shows that MacNeil, the clan chief, takes the prize for brutality among landlords.

This is just one of many new discoveries about these islands, the southernmost of the Western Isles, that have recently come to light. Since the first edition of Mingulay in 1995, archaeological fieldwork and newly available documentary sources have transformed our knowledge of the histories of Mingulay, Berneray and Pabbay. These three small, remote islands were inhabited until the early years of the last century, by hardy people who lived by fishing, raising crops and animals, and catching seabirds on cliffs that are amongst the highest in Scotland. Mingulay was often compared with St Kilda, on account of its cliff scenery and the way of life of the inhabitants.

Recent archaeological surveys and excavations have shown that during the Iron Age, around 2,000 years ago, Mingulay had several domestic dwellings – round houses – but no defensive building. The other two islands each had a defensive dun. Pabbay’s dun was a broch, or round tower, the remains of which were excavated in the 1990s. The broch was re-occupied several centuries later, in the Pictish period, when Pabbay probably hosted a monastic community, and one of only two Pictish symbol stones known in the Outer Hebrides has been found there. Mingulay had a Norse settlement, Suinsibost, and strip fields found nearby could date to this period; if so, they are the only such fields known in the Western isles.

IN A graphic illustration of the difficulties in interpreting manmade remains on the islands, a small group of stone-built structures on Mingulay previously identified as a type of Bronze Age burial monument have turned out to have had a more mundane function, as platforms for stacks of cut peat. Altogether there are more than 300 of these platforms, which shows peat was dug for fuel on an almost industrial scale, probably in the 19th century when the population was at its height of more than 150 people.

There are references to ancient sites and historic traditions in the notes of the 19th-century folklore collector Alexander Carmichael, who produced the multi-volume Carmina Gadelica. His antiquarian notes have now been digitised and put online. Carmichael recorded many stories and traditions, including the previously unknown names of old settlements on Mingulay, the medieval chapel on Berneray and the cemetery on Pabbay. The lighthouse records give fascinating insights into the lives of the keepers and Berneray islanders. The keepers did not always get on with each other, and in 1855 a dispute over a horse led to a punch-up. One of the keepers was obliged to feed and accommodate the crew of the relief boat if they were stranded on the island due to bad weather. The keeper complained they were so hungry his allowance did not cover his costs, and so filthy the house was infested with “vermin” – presumably fleas or lice – after each visit. In 1866 a keeper was convicted of the rape of the sister of a fellow keeper.

Isolation in stormy seas eventually drove the residents of the three islands to seek better lives elsewhere. In 1907 they joined landless people from Barra in “raiding” – grabbing land – on the less remote island of Vatersay, a story I tell in The Vatersay Raiders (Birlinn, 2008). By 1912 the last people had left and sheep took over, this time without displacing anyone.

The National Trust for Scotland bought the islands in 2000, and has renovated the former schoolhouse on Mingulay as a base, as well as consolidating the ruins of other buildings. It has initiated research into the archaeology and history, and into the seabird populations. Mingulay and Berneray are together a Site of Special Scientific Interest largely on account of the breeding seabirds; for instance, they have the largest colony of razorbills in the British Isles. These three jewels in the Trust’s islands portfolio are now safeguarded for the future.

Mingulay: An Island and Its People by Ben Buxton is published by Birlinn, priced £12.99