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SÙLAISGEIR
Photographs by James MacGeoch
Catriona MacGeoch with John Love & Finlay MacLeod
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SÙLAISGEIR
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published. A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library Preface © Catriona MacGeoch My First Visit – James MacGeoch © Catriona MacGeoch My Father © Graham MacGeoch James MacGeoch (1914-1970) © John Love ‘Eathar Shùlaisgeir’ © Fionnlagh MacLeòid © all the photographs Catriona MacGeoch © CD Catriona MacGeoch First published in 2010 by Acair Limited, 7 James Street, Stornoway, Scotland HS1 2QN www.acairbooks.com info@acairbooks.com Interior and cover designed by Margaret Anne MacLeod Image scanning and retouching: John Hepburn,Wagtail Graphics, Fort William Additional imaging services: John MacPherson Photography, Balloch, Inverness Printed by J.Thomson Colour Printers, Glasgow CD printed by M & A Thomson Litho Ltd., Glasgow LAGE/ISBN 9780861523085 Softback LAGE/ISBN 9780861523238 Hardback
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SÙLAISGEIR
Photographs by James MacGeoch
Catriona MacGeoch with John Love & Finlay MacLeod
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Contents Preface
vii
My first visit
ix
My father
xiii
Letter
xiv
Mapa Shùlaisgeir
xv
James MacGeoch (1914-1970)
xvi
‘Eathar Shùlaisgeir’
xix
The Island An t-Eilean
3
Harvesting Gan Iarraidh
23
On the Island Anns an Eilean
89
Back Home Air ais aig an taigh List of Photographs
The CD accompanying this book is of the men during morning family worship in their stone bothy in Sùlaisgeir in the 1950s. The reading and prayer is by Donald Murray, An Gaisean, and the singing is led by Alasdair Murray, Eve. This remarkable recording was made by James MacGeoch and was later transferred on to a 78rpm record. From there it was transferred on to CD by Micah Gilbert.
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Family worship in a Sùlaisgeir bothy
James MacGeoch
© Catriona MacGeoch
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Preface
This book is something I have wanted to do for so many years but didn’t know how to do it or whom to approach. Who would have the same passion and understanding for my father’s wealth of photographs, negatives, slides, transcripts and recordings of Sùlaisgeir that had lain in desks and attics for nearly forty years since his untimely death at only fifty-six? I was thirteen years old when my father died and was not yet born when he went out on the first of his many trips to Sùlaisgeir. But over the years I knew somehow that I had to preserve all these countless negatives and slides and to be custodian of his work, and that one day this book would happen. I am very proud to have been involved and I would like to thank John Love and Finlay MacLeod for bringing it to fruition. Their knowledge and encouragement have been immense.That day in Finlay’s house in Shawbost when we first heard the old 78rpm recording of the men of Ness singing the Gaelic psalms on that remote island will always remain with me. I would also like to thank the staff at Acair – Norma MacLeod, editor of the book, and Margaret Anne MacLeod, who did the design. This book is lovingly dedicated by my brothers Graham and Norman and myself to our father, and also to our late mother – she too would have been very proud. Catriona MacGeoch
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In memory of our father, James MacGeoch and our mother, Catriona Graham
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My first visit James MacGeoch
At 8 am the following Friday, 27th August 1953, we set off once more in the Scotch Lass to relieve the Ness men, for whom we were now getting anxious. In bright sunshine and fresh to strong westerly winds we punched our way up the Lewis coast and out to Sùlaisgeir reaching there by 3.30 pm. On the cliff face in the landing geo were a bunch of strange-looking fellows, most with three weeks’ growth of beard, busily heaving from one to another in chain fashion what appeared to be dirty dark-coloured hot water bottles, each of which landed with a resounding smack on a flat slab of rock at the base of the cliff, occasionally one falling into the surge. So these were the Ness gannet hunters with their catch of guga. I was elated. And clutching my camera gear I went over the side of the Scotch Lass into the dinghy and was taken stern-first into the surge. As she rose to the top of the swell I jumped for the rock ledge in front of me and, grabbing the rock tightly, held on while the next surge of the sea suddenly swept round my legs before I could establish my footing on what was Sùlaisgeir.
24th August 1953. Left Kirkibost, Great Bernera, West Loch Roag, Isle of Lewis, at 8.30 pm on the Scotch Lass, a seine-net fishing boat, to relieve the gannet hunters who had been on Sùlaisgeir for two weeks. Off Sùlaisgeir at 6.30 am the following morning in heavy seas, with a gale starting to blow up out of the north. Conditions in the landing bay were dreadful. Heavy white surf was breaking on the rocks and a stream of seawater and spray was being punched back out across the bay from the deep sea cave in the corner of the bay, with a deep booming sound and like a jet from a giant hose. White angry seas broke over the saddle from the west side and our little craft twisted and turned like a cork in a whirlpool, so that I became as violently ill as ever I had been at sea. There was no sign of life on the cliffs, and after giving one or two wails on our klaxon horn the skipper decided that it might be better to run to Rona, 12 miles to the east, and ride out the gale. The previous year in the same geo he had watched the little open Ness boat, the Mayflower, wrecked in somewhat similar conditions.
A fellow in a skipped cap and fair beard seized hold of my hand and at the same time asked: Bheil cigarette agad? – ‘Have you a cigarette?’ This was repeated by the others higher up the geo and I was to learn that they had run out of cigarettes five days earlier and some were desperate for a smoke. At the top of the geo I got my first real view of the place I was to grow to love.The long slope to the summit with the three rude stone bothies just in front of me.To the west, deep blue seas breaking over a fascinating group of skerries; overhead, a screen of creamy white gannets circling the island in a blue sky devoid of cloud. An excitingly new and strange world.Young fulmars startled me at first as they suddenly rose from behind rocks and squirted their foul-smelling oil, but I soon got wary
We left the bay and decided to try and make Lewis, and indeed I was thankful. I stared miserably at the heads of some thirty grey seals in the bay, always a sure sign of a gale when they are on the east side of the island. Overhead a myriad gannets wheeled and criss-crossed in a black glowering sky. It was all so unreal and like a bad dream. I had reached Sùlaisgeir after six years of pleading with the Ness men to take me, only to taste bitter frustration.To have attempted a landing would have been madness. I fell exhausted into a bunk to wake at 3 o’clock in the afternoon in calmer waters as we reached Loch Roag once more and home. A hundred and twenty sea miles in 22 hours and a lot of punishment – for nothing.
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MAPA SHÙLAISGEIR
Sròin na Lic Na h-Altairean An Càrnan Mòr Lìbhinis Palla na Sluic Creag Thèirigea Beul an Truisg Palla an Taigh’ Bealach an t-Suidhe Am Magh Sgeir an Teampaill Am Bun Mòr Geodha a’ Bhuin Mhòir Am Bun Beag Geodha a’ Bhuin Bhig Toll Circein Geodha a’ Phuill Bhàin Hàmasgeir Lanndastoth Pal a’ Cheiteanaich Ràmhacleit Dà Bhogha Ràmhacleit Bogha Leathainn Geodha Bladha Mòr Geodha Bladha Beag Cnap Geodha Bladha Beag Pàirc an Iar Pallachan Balaich Chrois An Sgor Mhòr
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James MacGeoch (1914-1970)
As Secretary he organised some popular and highly successful excursions, introducing members to fieldwork in remoter parts of the Highlands. Camping weekends on Handa in 1964 and 1965 were, to me, and many other members, our first experience of an offshore island and its seabird colonies. His wife Cath and three children accompanied us.
It was during the winter session of 1958-59, as a junior member at the Inverness Bird Group, that I first encountered James MacGeoch. At one meeting he showed his film and slides of Rònaigh and Sùlaisgeir. I was enthralled. He was Secretary of the Club and had recently returned from his fourth visit to Sùlaisgeir with the guga hunters. As the first outsider to witness the traditional harvest, he had won the confidence of the men of Ness. His wife Cath came from Lewis, so Jim already knew the Outer Hebrides well. Although natural history and photography were probably Jim’s chief passions, he was also interested in archaeology, piping, folklore, culture and traditions of the Highlands and Islands. He taught himself Gaelic and became a fluent speaker. He also photographed the town of Inverness before the developers moved in during the 1960s, while his easy rapport with people resulted in some fine studies of Highland personalities and naturalists.
James MacGeoch took his first photograph when aged fifteen, with a new box Brownie bought for five shillings. Eventually his hobby was to become his work when he joined the photographic division of Glasgow police. He moved to Inverness in 1947, first to live in the police houses next door to my aunt and uncle, before moving to another house he named ‘Sulisgeir’. Jim became an expert in fingerprint/sceneof-crime photography with the CID, rising to the rank of Inspector. He worked with both black and white prints and colour slides. But he had also invested in a 16 mm cine camera and a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
He was one of the founder members in 1952 of the Inverness Bird Group, now a Branch of the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club. Jim’s interest in birds and in birdwatching was infectious. A strength lay in his ability to stimulate others, especially the young, so that under his guidance their enthusiasm soon matched his own. My friend and I accompanied him on monthly wildfowl counts round the Longman, and soon, if Jim was unavailable, we were trusted to undertake them ourselves.These took place on a Sunday morning, by bicycle, and it was only after his retirement that Jim invested in a car.
All his wide interests were to come together in 1953 on the first of several visits to Sùlaisgeir to record the traditional gannet harvest: ‘Hauling their heavy boats up the steep cliffs away from the Atlantic swell, the Nessmen lived for up to a month in crude stone bothies of the old beehive type of dwelling and each day they went to the cliffs armed with long poles and staves to take their toll of the ‘gugas’ or young gannets . . .The traditional way of life still continues under legal authority from Parliament and goes to show that a sustained harvest of gannet is possible without prejudicing the survival of the species.’
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The Island/An t-Eilean
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Harvesting/Gan Iarraidh
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On the Island/Anns an Eilean
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Back Home/Air ais aig an Taigh
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