Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

Before giving a brief introduction of the history and culture of Eigg, it seems best to refer to some of my mother’s newspaper records. After all, I am no historian of Scottish history, or of local history for that matter. So it is better to hear it from the ‘horse’s mouth’; that is, the people directly concerned, who have an authoritative voice. In this context, I can refer to the various unique newspaper clippings about Eigg, the Campbells, and the MacGillivarys from 1950 onwards that my mother kept in one of her scrapbooks. 

How my mother got the newspaper records

From around 1950, my mother moved with her family to England. Her sister, Violet, in Glasgow, would keep my mother ‘updated’ on Scottish news by sending her newspaper clippings, not least clippings about Eigg. Violet also visited Eigg on several occasions in the 1930s, 1940s, and later. Violet would also send her the Scottish Sunday Post every week. We used to like reading the Sunday Post because it included “The Broons” and another comic strip, “Oor Wullie”.

My mother collected these articles over a long period of time; but, peculiarly, she only visited the island once after her marriage in 1940, as far as I know. She planned to visit the island with her two sisters, Violet and Flora around in 2003. But when travelling there, Flora became seriously ill and died the same year. The visit never took place.

Despite the fact that my mother collected these articles, I don’t think she read them in depth; she never mentioned Schellenberg or Maruma – there was just a general feeling that the island of her youth and her mother’s family stretching back 200 years or more had been taken over by “foreigners” and “hippies”. 

About the newspaper records

All the newspaper clippings about Eigg are from Scottish newspapers and magazines. Some of the older articles present a romantic view of Eigg. The later articles focus on the mismanagement of the island by the ‘foreign’ landlords (lairds), i.e. Schellenberg and Maruma. There are also a couple of articles about how the people living on the island took over ‘ownership’ of the island in conjunction with other organisations and parties. 

Some of the articles, for example, those taken from the Scottish Daily Express (a conservative newspaper) have a reactionary stance. They were perhaps even abusive referring to the inhabitants as ‘pot-smoking’ hippies.

Of course, times have changed. In 1967, Mick Jagger, of the Rolling Stones, was sentenced to three months in jail for possession of pot. Thirty-five years later, in 2003, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and was titled Sir Michael Jagger. As of 2023, sale of recreational cannabis has been legalized in some countries, while other countries have adopted a policy of limited enforcement. This means that the reactionary press have one topic less to talk about when smearing people’s lives.

But some of the articles are also critical of Schellenberg and Maruma. However, they weren’t the first ‘lairds’ to behave badly, to put it mildly. I won’t write much more about the two landlords here as anyone interested only needs to search the Internet where there are numerous articles. There was as an article on BBC News, “The People’s Island: Eigg marks 25 years since community buyout” (12 June 2022).

As mentioned, there are numerous books about Eigg. In Duncan Fallowell’s book, How to Disappear: A Memoir for Misfits, in the third chapter, “Waiting for Maruma”, he focuses on the former laird of the island.

There will be a separate post for the list of these newspaper articles and separate posts to discuss each article.