One of the original aims of CELM founders was:
“to collect, identify and preserve documents, artefacts, photographs, songs, stories and other oral material, moving images, and material of historical value for the benefit of the community”.
As well as recording a great deal about the lives of islanders over the last couple of centuries, and providing genealogical information, the CELM archive reveals many universal insights into how human beings deal with the challenges of life – some of them very poignant. To give one recent finding from our study of the weekly logs of the Lismore schools in the 19th century: on 17th November 1884, Baligarve School was closed “owing to the death and funeral of the teacher’s child”.
Our archive, collected over thirty years, is unique and precious, and we are working to conserve it for the future and, at the same time, to make its contents as widely accessible as possible.
Documents
Here is a small snapshot of the wide range of original documents that we hold:
- List of Communicants in Lismore Parish Church 1834
- Emigrant letters from Cape Breton Island to Lismore, 1840s & 1850s
- Invoice from Duncan Turner, 13&15 Union Street, Glasgow to Mary Stewart for molasses per [steamer] Rob Roy; 1847
- Passenger list, including the Munro family (from Lismore), Liverpool to Melbourne on the Red Jacket, November 1865
- Public notice/poster about the let of the meal mill at Balnagown. January 1874
- Diary of life of the MacColl family.at Balnagown 30 March 1875 to 7 July 1880
- Enrolment certificate Highland Land Law Reform Association. John McDonald
- Letter Scottish Land Court to Ann Campbell, Killean, setting a fair rent for her croft. 19 October 1917
- 14 MacCormick family letters between Glasgow and Daisybank, 1917-18, including information about WW1 and the influenza epidemic
- Receipt Captain McFadyen from Henry & Wright, Hemp & Rope Merchants, Ship Chandlers, Sailmakers and Riggers, Glasgow, for supplies to the Mary & Effie smack, 5 August, 1926
- Documents relating to the Building of Lismore Public Hall, 1928
- Photocopy of an original handwritten copy (1 page), and typed transcript (1 page) of An t’Eilean Liosach”. Composed by Tom Livingstone, Bachuil
- Ministry of Food Ration Books, 1953-
- Accounts for the installation of Electrical Supply, Baligrundle 1. 1969-1987
- Letter from Oxshott Pottery, to Donald Black, 14 December 2004, with an associated archive of information on Archibald Knox.
Recent additions, purchased from the internet, include:
- A letter from the Duke of Wellington to General Colin Macaulay (born on Lismore). 8 December 1820
- List of Farms in the Parish of Lesmoir and Appin from the Scheme of Teinds, including Proprietors’ Names
New donations of materials to the collections (objects as well as documents), are always welcome.
As many of these documents are very vulnerable, they are protected and stored according to national standards, and not easily accessible to the public. Because of this, CELM has had a policy of presenting a range of documents in the annual display in the museum, and many were included in The Story of Lismore in Fifty Objects in 2018 which is for sale in the centre’s shop and readable on the website.
Programme of Publishing
The archive also has an ongoing programme of publishing as much as possible on the internet (through the Regional Ethnology of Scotland, at the University of Edinburgh and the CELM website) as well as articles in heritage publications:
The Lismore Agricultural Society Minute Book 1853 (edited by Robert Hay, 2018) is available online. Read the full text on the Regional Ethnology of Scotland website.
Lismore Agricultural Society Minute Book 1853
The Diary of Mary Cameron MacGregor: 1868, A Year in the Life of Lismore Manse, Argyll (edited by Robert Hay, Caroline Bath, and Barbara McDougall, 2019) provides full text with commentary and can be read on the Regional Ethnology of Scotland website.
Pages from Mary McGregor’s Diary for 1868
Online
Current CELM webpages include:
- The Cathedral Church of Lismore (currently being updated);
- The Story of Achanard;
- The Story of Baligrundle;
- The Story of the North End parts 1-5.
- Captain Hugh Anderson (1837-1909). A Lismore bard
- John McIntyre (1811-1897). Lismore Crofter and Entrepreneur
- General Colin Macaulay (1759-1836). Distinguished son of Lismore
- The Isle of Lismore Lighthouse and its nineteenth century keepers
Lismore LIghthouse on Eilean Musdile with the Lady Rock beacon and Mull to the West
Published Articles
There are published articles in History Scotland, the Appin Archive and the Review of Scottish Culture on:
- Community Archaeology on Lismore
- Dugald Carmichael. Naturalist and Island Explorer
- Lismore Ground Officer Letters
- Keeping the Peace on Lismore
- Rev Gregor MacGregor, minister 1836-1885
- The Lismore ladies and other stones
- Rewriting History (Alexander Carmichael)
Rewriting History: The childhood and youth of Alexander Carmichael
Island Life in the 17th Century
Copies of these articles are available from the archive
Current Projects
Current projects include:
- Exploring the log books from Killandrist, Baligarve and Baligrundle Schools for details of island life in the 19th and 20th centuries
- Providing access to the pre-1855 records of Births and Marriages recorded by Rev Gregor MacGregor
Catalogue
An updated catalogue of the archive is available in the Library. We are currently considering how the following resources could be made more available:
- Emigrant letters
- The Daisybank Papers
- The Campbell (Baligrundle) Papers
- Hawthorn House/Stewart Archive
- The MacColl Balnagown Archive
Team
All of this recent work on the CELM archive has been done by Jennifer Baker, Douglas Breingan, Caroline Bath, Laura Gloag, and Robert Hay. We have a great need of an active member to curate and develop Gaelic archive resources.
This post had concentrated on the paper and electronic resources at the Centre but we must not forget the many objects and photographic images currently being catalogued and stored electronically using the eHive database system.
All of these resources are being looked after for you – please benefit from them.