Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

“Former Owner Makes Final Break from Eigg” by Craig Watson. April 5, 1995 “The Herald”

The stories here are connected to the previous article: My Dream for Eigg

One gets the impression when reading the newspaper articles about the last two ‘lairds’ of Eigg, Schellenberg and Maruma, that they had the naïve idea that they actually were feudal ‘Lairds’. The article reports on Schellenberg finally leaving the island. Schellenberg was undoubtedly a rich man, but he emerges in this article as a ‘petty thief’, trying to sneak off the island with the cultural heritage of Eigg in his baggage, i.e. the hand-painted historic Ordinance Survey Map said to be extremely valuable. Schellenberg seems to defend this attempted theft by labelling the islanders as ‘pot smokers’. 

Peasants’ Revolt

The islanders were not willing to behave like the passive serfs of the ‘Laird’, and launched their own ‘Peasants Revolt’. They prevented the theft of the historical artefact by blocking the entrance to the craft shop with an old mini-bus (the map was stored in the craft shop). 

Schellenberg complained to a policeman who happened to be visiting the island, calling the Eigg people “lawless”. To be more specific he denounced the islanders as “rotten, dangerous and totally barmy revolutionaries.” In the end he had to leave the island under a police escort. Of course, it doesn’t take much to read between the lines here. Because the islanders didn’t behave like his obedient serfs, they were thus “lawless”, “dangerous”, “barmy” and “revolutionaries”. It doesn’t take much insight here to see that the only “barmy” one was Schellenberg himself.  

In retrospect, the islanders should have demanded the arrest of Schellenberg for his attempted looting of cultural artefacts!

Schellenberg also accused the islanders of setting fire to his vintage Rolls Royce and his fire engine, without offering any evidence. This was obviously an act of slander against the people of the island. 

The article also mentions the proposed sale to another ‘foreigner’, the German, and so-called ‘artist’, Marlin Eckhard (Maruma). The islanders were optimistic about the sale – little did they know at the time what was in store for them!