Select Bibliography and Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the staff of An Iodhlann for the generous giving of their time and expertise, especially John Holliday, and Flo Straker in putting me right on eighteenth-century ancestors. I look forward to dropping by some time! The genealogy of Tiree families would be a much greater labour without the painstaking work of Keith Dash (a distant relative, we discover) in establishing family trees and making material generally available. The spreadsheets provided here of every census, national and local, taken of Tiree up until 1911 allow detailed reconstruction of family lives and economies. I would also like to thank Tobias Lunde for making available his transcriptions of the Old and New Statistical Accounts of Scotland.
Among other works, the essays draw directly upon the primary material of the Statistical Accounts, the Napier Commission and British Parliamentary Papers; the rich census and legal records made available at Scotlands People; and the National Register of Archives Scotland Catalogue 1209 – the Argyll Papers held at Inveraray Castle. Contemporary printed works consulted include Walker, J., An economical history of the Hebrides. Vols. I and II (1808), and the Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society, especially the essays by Beaton, Walker and Jamieson in Volume I of 1799. The 8th Duke of Argyll’s Crofts and farms (1883) provides an essential viewpoint; as does, in an earlier period, Duncan Forbes’ report of 1737.
The historical and editorial work of Eric Cregeen is indispensable to the historian of Tiree, including Cregeen, E., (ed)., Inhabitants of the Argyll Estate 1779 (1963); Cregeen, E. (ed)., Argyll Estate Instructions: Mulll, Morvern, Tiree, 1771-1805 (1964); Cregeen, E. ‘The tacksmen and their successors’, Scottish Studies (1969); and published posthumously, Cregeen, E. ‘A West Highland census of 1779’, Northern Scotland 5 (2014); and Cregeen, E., ‘The creation of crofting townships on Tiree’, edited by Tindley, A. in Journal of Scottish Historical Studies(2015).
Deep knowledge of Tiriodh and its Gaelic heritage is conveyed in the works of native Donald Meek, in contributions such as the edited Tuath is Tighearna (1995), his blogs at Passages from Tiree, and the edited collection The Secret Island: towards a history of Tiree (2014). The works of the Tiree poets are collected in Eachann Camshron’s Na Bàird Thirisdeach (1932).
Especially useful histories of the Hebrides in the period are Hunter, J., The making of the crofting community (1976) and Devine, T.M., The Great Highland famine (1988).
Other works drawn on directly for information in these essays are Devine, T., ‘The rise and fall of illicit whisky making in Northern Scotland, c.1780-1840’, Scottish Historical Review (1975); Dodgshon, R.A., ‘Strategies of Farming in the Western Highlands’, Economic History Review (1993); Dodgshon, R.A., ‘Livestock production in the Scottish Highlands before and after the clearances’, (1998); Grant, I.F. Highland Folk Ways (2018 [1961]); Gray, M., ‘The kelp industry in the highlands and islands’, Economic History Review (1951); MacAskill, J., ‘The Highland Kelp Proprietors and their Struggle over the Salt and Barilla Duties, 1817-1831’, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies (2006) ; Mclean Bristol, N., Hebridean decade. Mull, Coll and Tiree 1761-1771 (1982); Mulhern, K..M., ‘The Intellectual Duke’, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Edinburgh (2006); and Petre, J., Tiree and the Dukes of Argyll 1674-1922 (2019).
Last and not least, I am indebted to the wonderful collections of An Iodhlann and their newsletter, Sìl Eòlais. I am especially grateful for permission to use some of their wonderful image collection and all those who have gifted images to An Iodhlann; and those who have provided further permission for their images to accompany these essays. These are Catriona Smyth, Grace Campbell, Ailig MacArthur, John Fletcher, Meena Knapman, Ronnie MacLean, Ian Atkins, Su Atkins, Wallace Robertson, Ian McKirdy, Ishbel Neill, Anne Hinge, and Mary MacLean. All images are linked to their original catalogue entries at An Iodhlann so that full information about them and their context is available.
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