Yumpu_ May_June 2017_02

Skye Excites the Emotions
Skye Excites the Emotions
Skye Excites the Emotions
Ron Hill shows how past events can add to our experience
Psycho-geography is a fuzzy concept, but I like
using the term to connect places to emotions
and behaviours. In the Braes area on Skye I have
discovered a range of emotions associated with the
physical landscape, the remains of shielings on Ben
Lee, 19th Century croft houses and, importantly, the
monument on the roadside on the approach to
Gedintailor which records an event on Tuesday, 18
April 1882.
On moving to Camustianavaig, in The Braes area
near Portree, Skye, I discovered that as well as the
house and the grounds, there was a book which
came with the new ownership. The book is The
Former Days by Norman Maclean, published in
1945. It is based on personal reminiscences from
living in the vicinity and includes the events which
became known as ‘The Battle of the Braes.’
Maclean describes the scene on that day when a
force of 50 policemen (including 40 drafted from
Glasgow) marched the seven miles from Portree to
Balmeanach in Braes to arrest the lawbreakers - that
is those men who broke the law on 7 April 1882
when an attempt to evict seven men and three
women from the Braes for grazing on Ben Lee
without permission was de-forced.
Public Embarrassment
This was when a local crowd burnt the summonses,
with public embarrassment for the Sherriff Officer,
his assistant and the Estate Ground Officer. Maclean
tells us it was a ‘grey dawn’ with poor weather
conditions. He wrote, ‘Nobody could have wished a
more forbidding reception on the part of the
elements. The rain swept down Glen Varagil in sheets
driven by a south-wester that blew with ice in its
teeth. No greatcoats could stand up to rain driven by
such a wind’
We must also picture a wagonette rumbling
behind the marching policemen including Sherriff
Ivory (Sherriff of the County of Inverness-shire),
Sherriff-Substitute Spiers (who administered the
law on the Isle of Skye), and other local officials.
Roger Hutchinson adds in his Martyrs: Glendale
and the Revolution on Skye ‘…and several journalists
set forth from Portree.’
The 1880s was an age of mass communications and
by 1881, 18 daily newspapers were appearing in
London, 96 in the English provinces, 21 in Scotland
and 17 in Ireland, (but only four in Wales) according
to Kevin Williams in his Read All About It: A History
of the British Newspaper. The actual ‘battle’ took place
when the police arrested the five law-breakers which
sparked a reaction from the Braes communities.
Sharp Flints
Maclean, in his romantic style, imagined the 15
minute ‘battle’ as ‘When the invaders reached the
south end of the pass, they were met with a fusillade
of stones and clods. Sam (Nicolson) had some 20
boys and girls under his command. They filled their
pockets with sharp flints. ‘They have no guns’, cried
Sam, ‘Let us charge them; throw stones and then
run back up the brae’.
This they did, hurling down the slope like a
mountain torrent. Stopping where Sam stopped, a
rain of stones descended on the police. Sherriff
Ivory, the sacred representative of Queen Victoria,
the embodiment of law and order, was hit with a
clod on the jaw. For Sam never missed his target’.
The Glasgow Evening Times of 21 April 1882
reported, under the banner heading of ‘Return of
the Glasgow Police’ - ‘The policemen arrived in
Glasgow this forenoon and with a few exceptions
have reported themselves for duty in the various
districts from which they were drawn. They all bear
traces of fatigue and exposure.’
The Unhappy Crofters
‘Telegraphing last night from Portree the special
correspondent of The Herald says, the sudden and
effective, if somewhat harsh, blows inflicted
yesterday by the constabulary of Glasgow and
Inverness on the unhappy crofters at the Braes have
had a wonderful influence on restoring order.’
Further in the same report, from the journalist
who was in the Braes area on the day after the
40 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE 2017
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