Records and Traditions of Gairloch.

CHAPTER PAGE
I.Early History[3]
II.The Tragedy of Isle Maree[7]
III.The Mackenzies of Kintail[11]
IV.Ewan Mac Gabhar, the Son of the Goat[14]
V.The MacRaes of Kintail and Gairloch[19]
VI.The MacBeaths[21]
VII.The M'Leods of Gairloch[24]
VIII.The Macdonalds in Gairloch[27]
IX.Hector Roy Mackenzie, First Laird of Gairloch[29]
X.John Glassich Mackenzie and his Sons[36]
XI.John Roy Mackenzie[38]
XII.Expulsion of the M'Leods from Gairloch[43]
XIII.Alastair Breac, and his Son and Grandson[49]
XIV.The Baronets of Gairloch, and some other Gairloch Mackenzies[53]
XV.Gairloch Estates, and Old Names of Places[60]
XVI.Ecclesiastical History of Gairloch[63]
XVII.Ancient Gairloch Ironworks[72]
XVIII.The Historic Ironworks of Loch Maree[75]
XIX.The Iron Ores used in Gairloch[86]
XX.Remains of Ironworks in the Parish of Gairloch[90]
XXI.Antiquities[97]

GAIRLOCH

Chapter I.

Early History.

The blessedness attributed to the nation without a history cannot be assigned to the parish of Gairloch. Although her ancient history has never been written, it is to be feared her inhabitants were far from wholly blessed in the far off days of yore. The earlier annals of Gairloch are indeed veiled in mists, almost as impenetrable as those that often shroud her mountains. Amid the gloom there are faint glimpses to be had of the wild natives of the district, of fierce warriors from other lands, and of saintly Christian pioneers; but complete pictures of the doings of those old times can be found only in the galleries of the imagination. The same everlasting hills still tower over the same straths, glens, and lochs; but the actors are changed, the play has another plot, with incidents of a very different kind. In a region so innocent of letters, so inaccessible to the scholar, it is easy to account for the total absence of ancient records. The narratives of the seannachies, or bards, handed down by oral tradition from generation to generation, might have been expected to fill in the blank, yet it is only in the stories of some few salient adventures that these traditions have been preserved beyond the past four centuries.

Even imagination fails to carry us further back than the Picts or Celts or Gaels, who are supposed to have been the aborigines of all the British Isles. They were a wild warlike race,—wild from their rough struggling state of existence, warlike in their constant attitude of self-defence. Some have supposed that there were giants among them in those days, and that these were the originals of the colossal heroes of the Fingalian legends. The name of the Giant's Point (Ru Nohar) on Loch Maree, and the discoveries in the neighbourhood of what are alleged to be enormous graves, give some colour to the supposition. There are slight traces of Fingalian legends still current in the parish. Thus the hollow near the Gairloch Established Church, in which the Free Church communion services are held, is said to have been scooped out by Fingal for a bed where his white cow might calve. It is still called Leabaidh na Ba Bàine, or the bed of the white cow. Then the large stones in Loch Maree, in a line between the base of the Fox Point and the nearest part of the opposite shore, are said to have been placed there by Fingal for stepping-stones, to keep his feet dry when going this way to court Malvina, who lived in the direction of Torridon. Only an enormous giant could have stepped from stone to stone; they are to this day called the sweetheart's stepping-stones. Again, there is a mound in a depression near the summit of Beinn Tarsuinn, called Suidheachan Fhinn, or Fingal's seat, where they say he used to sit and spy when hunting on the mountains. These fragments are all we are told of Fingal's doings in Gairloch.