Special exhibition 2021 Napier Commission Interviews
This year’s special exhibition at the museum opened in July as a result of Covid and lockdown. Unfortunately it was seen by fewer people than in other years particularly as it dealt with the middle years of the nineteenth century when the population began its great declined . A time when many Liosaich left because they could not support themselves or because they were ‘cleared’. Surely that is a euphemism for a horror.
This was a crucial time in the island’s story.
Robert Hay 2013
It has been told in Robert Hay’s book, How an Island Lost its People: Improvement, clearance and resettlement on Lismore 1830-1924.
Both this book and the exhibition speak volubly of a time when many Liosaich left because they could not support themselves or because they were ‘cleared’. For those who stayed life often became an unrelenting grind, a daily struggle to adapt or fail to adapt. The repercussions of these times are still with us. Thank goodness not as it was then; far from it, their lives are unimaginable. But sustainability matters today as it did then and, when the 1,831 Liosaich who lived here in the 1800s began to suffer increasing hardships, the population decline began. By 1850 only 600 remained. Today there are fewer than 200.
It was a heartbreaking time. To hear the voices of Liosaich giving evidence to the Napier Commission is to hear their mistreatment by absent landowners, the naked disregard for their well-being, the steady erosion of the lives they had known. It’s worth opening the images above to hear for yourself. They came from everywhere from Frackersaig to Port Ramsay.
The Napier Commission was in fact the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands. It was set up in 1883 as a response to crofters’ demands for desperately needed Land Law Reform. It was led by Francis Napier, a diplomat and the 10th Lord Napier. Prime Minister William Gladstone hoped the commission would end the unrest.
More about this exhibition and to see see family trees and other images go to the Special exhibition 2021 here
The words of Liosaich were hung about the room while the family trees of some who stayed, were on the wall: the MacGregors, MacColls, Blacks and Carmichaels. Names we all know and descendants we know and have known. In addition, information about trades such as boat building, with the relevant tools, were hung with lime quarrying tools, both big trades and industries in their day. Trades that made staying possible.
Dòmhnall MacIlleDhuibh says in his book that, A Tale or two from Lismore , ‘this island in the first two or three decades of the 19th century could boast a diversity of skills and trades … there were 42 people engaged in occupations other than agriculture’. One of these was boatbuilding.