Museum Special Exhibition 2021

Because 2020’s special exhibition  could not open until July, it was seen by fewer people.

So this year the story is continuing,  the story of  Lismore life during the second half of the 19^th century, a time of such poverty and upheaval,  many families left the island either for economic reasons or because they were ‘cleared’. Surely a euphemism for a horror.

The lives of those who left are well documented. 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. Yet absentee landlords still hold the balance of power which these crofters struggled to redress. And sustainability matters today as it did then.  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.

The primary source, is the transcript of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands which was set up in 1883 as a response to crofters’ demands for desperately needed Land Law Reform. It became known as the Napier Commission as it was led by Francis Napier, a diplomat and the 10th Lord Napier. Prime Minister William Gladstone hoped the commission would end the unrest. However, the influence of landowners stayed strong, and, although there was some improvement, the Commission reported in 1884: 

We have no hesitation in affirming that the grant at this moment to the whole mass of poor tenants in the Highlands and Islands, fixing of tenure in their holdings and free sale of their rights, goodwill and improvements would be to perpetuate social evils of a dangerous character.

Public opinion throughout the world was supportive of the crofters’ cause and in 1884 an increase in the number of crofter voters allowed MPs who were sympathetic to them to be returned in the General Election of 1885.

The exhibition deals only with Lismore and extracts from the transcript of the Commission are displayed on boards and the full transcript, pertinent to Lismore crofters, is on the bookcase.

Ultimately this exhibition is a tribute to the courage and tenacity of those who stayed. It was a heartbreaking time. To hear the voices of Liosaich giving evidence to the 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. They came from all over the island, from Frackersaig to Port Ramsay.

Some of the words from Liosaich are hung about the room while family trees of people who stayed and who, in some cases, are still here, are on the far 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, are hung with lime quarrying tools, both big trades and industries in their day. Trades that made staying possible.  As Dòmhnall MacIlleDhuibh wrote: ‘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’.

A crucial reference book is Robert Hay’s. How an Island Lost its People: Improvement, clearance and resettlement on Lismore 1830-1924.

As in other years, display boards offer a general history of the island as well as Lismore’s abundant flora and fauna.

Report and Images: Pauline Dowling

17 May 2021