Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

In this post, we discuss Morag Campbell and Hector MacGillivray’s life together, kids, and other activities.

1892: Birth of Marion (Morag) Campbell (my grandmother)

There seems to be some disagreement concerning Morag’s birthday. According to my mother she was born on May 1st. According to the birth certificate she was born on April 24th, 1892 and registered May 4th. This would mean that she was 3 years old when her mother died. According to my mother, she was 3 months old when her mother died and was one of two twins; the other twin died. The photograph here shows Morag MacGillivray, nee Campbell, with her daughter Rhoda (my mother). She must have been about thirty years old at the time of the photo. 

Morag marries Hector in 1918

Morag was married in 1918 in Acharacle, Argyllshire, 26 years old, to Hector MacGillivray, aged 33 years, from Acharacle, a soldier. At this time her father Roderick is registered as a ferryman (when he must have been in his late seventies). At the time of her marriage, she had lived in Glasgow for a number of years. Hector and Morag lived at 81 Plantation Street, Govan, Glasgow. I can’t make out what her profession is. Of interest are the witnesses, John MacGillivray and Flora MacGillivray. This is the younger brother and sister of Hector, whom I will talk about later in this book. 

Morag died in Glasgow, 29 Scotia Street, 17th March 1957. She died from multiple sclerosis, which she suffered from for several years; however, on the death certificate it states ‘cerebral haemorrhage – disseminated sclerosis’. 

Rhoda Campbell Harkness’s mother, Morag (Sarah) MacGillivray, nee Campbell

Mother and grandmother dying on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17^th

I am certainly no expert in the history of Glasgow. But it is fairly well known that Glasgow has, in the past, had conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. In popular history, this has been especially evident in the ‘conflict’ between the two Glasgow soccer teams, Celtic and Rangers. Rangers is associated with Protestant sympathies, while Celtic has been associated with the Catholic religion. The Rangers stadium, Ibrox, is located in the Govan and Plantation district.

My mother, who was a Protestant, grew up in Plantation Street. So it was perhaps part of her socialization as a young girl that she was taught to ‘hate’ the Catholics. In my mother’s mind, Catholics were the Irish – so this ‘hate’ was extended to the Irish. 

I have perhaps been unfair to my mother in this book, regarding her ‘prejudices’. After all, she was no more than a ‘product’ of the environment in which she grew up in. In other words, the hate of the Jews and the Romani people in the 1930s was not something left up to the individual. It was a kind of communal disease among the peoples of Europe. Thus, the hate of the Irish in Glasgow in the twentieth century was also a kind of communal disease. This is expressed by one of my mother’s heroes, ‘Para Handy’. He says, “There’s one thing, certain sure – I never could stand the Irish.”

My cousin, Dawn Driscoll, pointed out the irony that my mother, and our grandmother, Morag, both died on March 17^th, St Patrick’s Day. This was the date of the death of the Irish patron saint in the year 461. Dawn didn’t mention it specifically, but she must have been aware of my mother’s ‘hate’ of the Irish through the family grapevine. 

To be fair to the Irish and to my mother, the Irish were not the only objects of ‘hate’. As perhaps mentioned elsewhere here, the ‘objects of hate’ were the various races, genders, religions, classes, and so on, that receive a prejudicial hate status in the right wing press, such as the Daily Express, which my mother read for at least 50 years. In other words, the ‘coloureds’, the lesbians (feminists), the Catholics, the working class (and the unions), and so on. 

As a child and young adult, I started to become aware of some contradictions in my mother’s character make-up. She loved the Highlands, and was proud of the fact that the MacGillivarys had fought against ‘the English’ at the Battle of Culloden (1746). But she seemed to be unaware of the fact that the Highlanders and Islanders were Catholics during this historical period. In fact, many of her Catholic descendants on the Isle of Eigg were persecuted for their participation in the Battle of Culloden, described elsewhere here. To make things worse, an Irish battalion (500 men) fought on the Jacobite side in the Scottish Jacobite uprisings up to the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

Regarding my mother’s prejudices, it might be a good idea to take a step back, and consider what is meant by ‘prejudice’. Oxford dictionaries provides the following definition: “Preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.” I will modify this definition by saying that “prejudices are based on preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual knowledge, and often based on popular unfounded ideas.”

Moreover, as also mentioned elsewhere here, it seems our family were descended from the murderous Irish ‘gypsies’, the MacKinnons, who were exiled to the Isle of Muck, after committing murder in Ireland (a rumour told me by Katie MacKinnon’s granddaughter, Kathleen Miller). 

Of course, in conclusion here, having ‘frizzy black hair’ (like my grandmother Morag, and some of her descendants) doesn’t mean you are descended from gypsies. On the other hand, the Romani people often have thick, black hair – but then so do many of the people in the west of the British Isles and in Ireland. In fact, anyone that looks at a map of Europe can easily imagine that many western British people can be descended from the peoples of the Iberian peninsula: “Archaeological evidence (…) and, in recent years, DNA analysis suggests that (…) the Portuguese-Iberian peoples were ancestors to the Gaelic Irish.

Morag feeding the hens on Eigg 

The photograph here showing Morag feeding hens was probably taken on Eigg when she was visiting her sister Flora. My Auntie Violet also has a ‘twin photograph’ of Auntie Flora feeding the hens. Pay attention to her ‘gypsy’ hair that was also inherited by her daughter Violet, and her son Donald (although Donald’s hair was perhaps more ‘wavy’ than ‘frizzy’). My mother had sumptuous hair, but not of the kind of ‘Jimi Hendrix gypsy’ ‘frizzy’ hair shown here. In other words, there was a differentiation of ’frizzy’ and ‘wavy’ hair among her descendants.  

Fashionable 1920s Morag with headband

Morag was perhaps a country girl, but she was highly fashionable here wearing a 1920s headband. She was definitely a ‘looker’, despite her ‘gypsy’ hair. Whatever the deficiencies of the intelligence of the Campbells, MacGillivrays, Harkenesses and Humes, they certainly made up for it with ‘looks’. From a Darwinian perspective, this is perhaps more important than so-called ‘intelligence’. 

1957: Death of Morag Campbell