The Trump of the Archangel

AN OLD MAN’S NARRATIVE OF THE ULBSTER ESTATE EVICTIONS Part C

To the Editor of the Northern Ensign

Sir,-

"Mr James Waters statements regarding the evictions and vast clearances, with the names of ministers, and about four mills in good working order, and the church converted into a sporting house and a kennel for dogs – all this is strictly true."

Extract from Gloomy Memories in the Highlands of Scotland 

by Donald MacLeod. 

The kennel for dogs in Mr Sage’s study room was Strathnaver

"Will Mr Logan inform me who was the gentleman who made the first eviction in the north of Scotland for a sheep range and imported merino sheep to stock the cleared ground!" 

Sir John Sinclair (again!)

"I am not speaking from hearsay, but what I saw myself, and the persons whose names I give, all heads of families I well remember. I do not include the old names I gave you of the township of Rumsdale."

"There are three large cemeteries in this clearance, with beautiful tombstones, some of polished granite, and many a rich slab of marble; and the inscriptions bear witness to the wealth and generosity and piety of the people of that locality in past times."

Dalnawillan Cemetery

Dirlot Cemetery

Achreny Cemetery

"These rich cemeteries, indicate the love the living had for the dead in erecting over them costly and interesting monuments. In these beautiful cemeteries there are none to be buried now. All the beautiful straths there are now depopulated, and the graves will get rest until the great day when the trump of the archangel shall sound."

 – I am, etc.

One who was evicted and One who knows

Northern Ensign 21 Feb 1884

My Comments:

I haven’t got a copy of the statements by Mr James Waters but think he had read some of the reports of Donald MacLeod.

Donald MacLeod was born in Rosall, Strathnaver near the end of the eighteenth century. He witnessed the horrors of the Sutherland clearances and eventually went to Edinburgh and wrote very courageously of what he had seen. His letters were published in the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle and other papers. Much later his letters were republished in revised form to counter the views in a publication by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Sunny Memories.

Tombstone in Achreny Cemetery. 
George McLeod Dalnaha Died 16 March 1848 
and others

Re the three cemeteries in the locality of Rumsdale I have selected what seems to me to be the cemeteries referred to. Some time back I took photos in the old Dalnawillan and Achreny (also known as Acharynie) cemeteries which certainly had very fine tombstones erected long ago. Climbing over the wall into Achreny was a bit disconcerting from a safety point of view with the foot stones becoming almost dislodged now. I haven’t visited Dirlot but it can be seen to have also had very elegant and substantial tombstones put in there.

Achreny from the road.

The beautiful straths are certainly depopulated now as the Google Earth views show.