Gairloch in North-West Ross-Shire / Its Records, Traditions, Inhabitants, and Natural History, with a Guide to Gairloch and Loch Maree, and a Map and Illustrations

by John H. Dixon

A Story of Rob Donn.

"Rob Donn, the great Reay bard, was bard and ground-officer to Mackay Lord Reay, in the middle of the eighteenth century. He would always be going out with his gun, and secretly killing deer. Lord Reay found this out, and sent for Rob. He said, 'I'm hearing, Robert, you are killing my deer.' 'Oh, no,' says he, 'I am not killing them all, but I am killing some of them; I cannot deny that.' Lord Reay then said, 'Unless you give it up, I must put you away out of the place; you must get a security that you will not kill any more.' 'Oh,' says Rob to him, 'I must go and see if I can get a surety.' So he left the room. Outside the door he met Lord Reay's son. 'Will you,' said Rob to the boy, 'become security for me that I will not kill more deer on your father's property?' 'Yes,' replied the boy. Rob caught him by the hand and took him to Lord Reay. 'Is that your security, Robert?' said his lordship. 'Yes,' said Robert, 'will you not take him?' 'No, I will not,' answered his lordship. 'It is very strange,' replied Rob, 'that you will not take your own son as security for one man, when God took his own Son for all the world's security.' It need scarcely be added that Rob Donn remained bard and ground-officer to Lord Reay. This story I believe to be perfectly true."

The Lochbroom Herring Fishing.

"About ninety years ago the British Fishery Society built the pier at Ullapool, and the streets of unfinished and unoccupied houses there which to this day give it the appearance of a deserted town. There were great herring fisheries then in Lochbroom, and Woodhouse from Liverpool started a large curing establishment in Isle Martin; so did Rorie Morrison at Tanera, and Melville at Ullapool. The Big Pool of Loch Broom was the best place for herrings in Scotland at that time, and there would be a hundred and fifty ships from all parts to buy herrings there,—from Saltcoats, Bute, and Helensburgh, Greenock and Port Bonachie, East Tarbert and West Tarbert. Melville built two ships in Guisach, which he named the 'Tweed' and the 'Riand.' That place was full of natural wood at the time; it was in a rocky spot at Aultnaharril, opposite to Ullapool, where the ferry is. Melville was bound to take the herrings from all the fishermen's boats. They were so plentiful that he could not cure them all, so he made middens of them, and he also boiled quantities for the oil from them. After that season Lochbroom was nineteen years without a hundred herrings in it, and the fishery has never recovered to this day."

The other Rob Roy Macgregor.

"Kenneth Mackenzie, the last laird of Dundonnell of the old family, was descended from the first Lord Mackenzie of Kintail, and was a connection of the Gairloch Mackenzies. He was a peculiar man; he had a large flock of hens, and used to make every tenant pay him so many hens at the Martinmas term along with their rent. My grandfather's brother, Sandy M'Rae, who was tenant of the Isle of Gruinard, had to pay four hens every year to the laird. Kenneth Mackenzie, in 1817, married Bella, daughter of one Donald Roy Macgregor, belonging to Easter Ross; they had no family. She had a brother called Rob Roy Macgregor, who was a lawyer in Edinburgh. When Kenneth was on his deathbed his wife and Rob Roy wanted him to leave the Dundonnell estate to the latter. The dying laird was willing to do so, because he did not care for his only brother Thomas Mackenzie; but he was so weak that he could not sign his name to the will, and it is said that Rob Roy Macgregor held the laird's hand with the pen, and that the wife was keeping up the hand while Rob Roy made the signature. The laird died soon after, and left nothing at all to his brother Thomas. When the will became known there was a great feeling of indignation among all the Mackenzies and the gentry of the low country, as well as among the tenantry on the Dundonnell estates, against Rob Roy Macgregor, who now took up his residence at the old house of Dundonnell. The whole of the tenantry were opposed to him, except one man at Badluachrach named Donald Maclean, commonly called Donald the son of Farquhar. He was the only man that was on Rob Roy's side. His neighbours made a fire in the bow of his boat in the night time and burnt a good part of it. He sent the boat to Malcolm Beaton, a cousin of his own at Poolewe, to repair it; the night after it was repaired (whilst still at Poolewe) there was a fire put in the stern, and the other end of her was burnt. The Dundonnell tenants rose against Rob Roy Macgregor, and procured firearms; they surrounded the house, and fired through the shutters by which the windows were defended, hoping to take his life; one ball or slug struck the post of his bed. The next night he escaped, and never returned again. His barn and his stacks of hay and corn were burnt, and the manes and tails of his horses were cut short. Thomas Mackenzie commenced law against Rob Roy Macgregor for the recovery of the estate. In the end it was decided that it belonged to him, but it had become so burdened by the law expenses that it had to be sold."

Cases of Drowning in Loch Maree.

"It would be before 1810 that Hector Mackenzie of Sand was living in a house at Cliff, on the west side of the burn at Cliff House. Sir Hector Mackenzie of Gairloch had given him lands at Inverasdale. He went up Loch Maree in a boat to fetch wood to build a house close to the shore at Inverasdale. He took for a crew his son Sandy, a young lad, and also William M'Rae from Cove, and William Urquhart, called William Og, and his son, who lived at Bac Dubh. They reached Kenlochewe and loaded the boat. Just before they started back, Kenneth Mackenzie, a married man, and Rorie Mackenzie, a young man, who were returning to Gairloch with hemp for nets, asked for a passage down the loch. Hector said there was too much in the boat already. He was not for them to go in the boat, so they went off; but William Og said to Hector, 'You had better call the men back; you don't know where they will meet you again.' William Og called for them to come back. Kenneth Mackenzie came back, but Rorie would not return; he had taken the refusal amiss, and it was good for him that he had done so. The boat with the six of them started from the head of Loch Maree. Opposite Letterewe she was swamped, from being so heavy. All hands were lost except William M'Rae and Sandy the son of Hector, they were picked up by a boat from Letterewe.

"Two sons of Lewis M'Iver, of Stornoway, came to Kenlochewe on their way back from college. It was before the road was made from Gairloch to Poolewe. They took a boat down Loch Maree. Four Kenlochewe men came with them; they were all ignorant of sailing. Between Ardlair and the islands there was a breeze, and they put the sail up. One of the Kenlochewe men stretched himself upon the middle thwart of the boat; a squall came, and he went overboard head foremost and was drowned.

"Kenneth Mackenzie from Eilean Horrisdale and Grigor M'Gregor from Achtercairn were employed sawing at Letterewe. They were put across to Aird na h'eighaimh, the promontory that runs out from the west shore of Loch Maree to near Isle Maree, by a boat from Letterewe. One of them had a whip saw on his shoulder. On landing they started to walk to Gairloch. There was then no bridge over the river at Talladale. The stream was swollen by rain; they tried to wade it, but were carried off their legs and taken down to the loch, where they were drowned. Their bodies were never recovered. This was more than eighty years ago.