Festival of the Sea 2012

by Pauline Dowling | 26 May 2012 | Events

On Saturday 26 May 2012 visitors to Lismore’s Festival of the Sea were met at the ten ferry in glorious sunshine and taken to Port Ramsay where retired Captain Duncan Black and Historian Dr Robert Hay talked about the life and works of the many seafarers who plied the Lismore lime trade in smacks. Port Ramsay is rich in remains of this lucrative trade, the most notable being the rudder post of The Lady Margaret one of the two last smacks that traded out of Port Ramsay.

Port Ramsay Festival of the sea 2012

Unfortunately the tide did not permit the viewing of this or the cursed gravestone a disgruntled mariner dropped over the side because the purchaser did not pay. But the mooring ring can still be seen in the cliff and nearby the quarry and kilns which fired the limestone were of great interest as was the boat building saw pit near the road to Park.

Park boat building sawpit

The group were then driven to the Heritage Centre to see the Museum and the new audio visual presentation on the maritime and lime burning history of the island. After lunch Dr Hay led the group on a walk to the lime quarries of Salen, where he spoke about the settlement and invited the visitors to explore this tranquil place once such a busy industrial hub.

Port Ramsay

Boat mooring ring

Towards Sailean

Bob Hay near Lime kilns at Sailean

Dwellings Sailean

Lime kiln Sailean

Information board Sailean

Background

The sea has always been vital for life on Lismore. There is a long history of fishing, fetching peat and wood fuel from the mainland, and transporting livestock and grain in small boats. In the nineteenth century there were four families of carpenters building sturdy clinker-built dinghies; they included the MacDonalds, based on Port Ramsay, who transferred their business to Oban, and the Connels, based at Balure, who were descendants of the hereditary boatbuilders to the Glenorchy Campbells. You can see some of the MacDonald’s tools in the Lismore Museum.

Boat building tools in Museum

As early as the seventeenth century, land was so valuable on the island that the cattle were transported to the surrounding islands (rather than hill sheilings) during the growing season. Seal hunting, smuggling and profiting from wrecks were also features of island life, although the safety of shipping was improved by the building of the lighthouse on Eilean Musdile by Robert Stevenson in 1833.

The sea was part of everyday life: in the 1841 census only four men are described as seamen and none as full time fisherman but the life of the island was changing. By 1871 there were 11 sailors, 6 shipowners or masters, 11 fisherman, I boatman and 1 ferryman. This was caused partly by the movement of people from the land and the need to seek alternative employment or emigrate, but a major factor was the coastal trade in coal and lime, which took off in the mid-nineteenth century. Port Ramsay, with its muddy shore and protecting skerries, was the only safe anchorage for the sailing smacks operated by MacCorquodales, Carmichaels and MacDonalds, and they were joined in the 1870s by MacFayden and MacKinnon, sea captains from Tiree.

There are traces of early lime burning in small clamp kilns across the island, but larger scale burning began at the end of the eighteenth century at Kilcheran and Sailean, using coal from Lanarkshire. Later there were quarries and kilns at Park, Sheep Island, Alastrath and, Port na Morlach – 14 or 15 kilns are still visible. This was the principal alternative employment on the island, and it was a major operation – producing 48,000 barrels of slaked lime in 1878, mainly for building. (Quarrying tools on display at the Museum).

Undermined by the arrival of the railway at Oban and cheap imports, the operation at Sailean finally closed at the start of the Second World War. The last two smacks to operate from Port Ramsay were the Mary and Effie (MacFadyen) and the Lady Margaret (MacCorquodale) and, although the MacFadyen boat was equipped with an auxiliary engine, they gave way to West Highland puffers in the 1950s (see the Boats Board in the Museum). They live on in the memory of inhabitants of Port Ramsay (as shown in the Film: Port Ramsay, Cradle of Master Mariners), and the rudder post of the Lady Margaret lies on the shore at Port Ramsay.

The island has a rich seam of stories of the sea, and the hazards of the coastal trade, particularly the dangers of carrying quicklime fresh from the limekilns, as it heats on contact with water. In 1870, the Janet of Lismore (skipper Hector MacKinnon), sailing north in a severe storm, was forced to seek shelter in Gairloch, but the boat dragged its anchor and went aground. The crew were saved by a ‘human chain’ of men from the shore but water entered the hull of the smack and it blew up. Other crews were not so fortunate: In the Museum are portraits of the MacDonald brothers , who drowned off the south end in 1896 when their smack, The Brothers of Brodick, foundered.

Seafaring is a continuing theme for Lismore. On this site you can read the story of Hugh Anderson a Lismore bard, and a master of ships carrying explosives for the Nobel Company between 1890 and 1920. You can hear of the deep sea exploits of Duncan Black, Calum MacCorquodale and John MacFadyen, all descendants of Alexander MacFadyen of Tiree in the museum audiovisual display.

Today Stuart Ross is master of the Pole Star, which maintains Scottish lighthouses and his partner, Pauline Dowling has written 2 books about being at sea with this Lismore mariner /crofter when he was for many years sailing deep sea. Eoghan Black is a full-time fisherman, based on the island while Diarmid Wilson and Duncan MacLean are both deck Officers deep sea.