Old Photograph Robert Doun Monument Durness Scotland

Old photograph of the Robert Doun monument by Durness, Northern Sutherland, Scotland. In the churchyard of the old Durness Parish church there is a memorial to Rob Doun, Robert Calder Mackay, the Gaelic Bard, born 1714, died 1778. Durness, Scottish Gaelic: Diùranais, in the old county of Sutherland in the North West Highlands. Durness is a village and civil parish on the north coast of the country in the traditional county of Sutherland around 120 miles north of Inverness. The area is remote and the parish is huge and sparsely populated covering an area from east of Loch Eriboll to Cape Wrath, the most north westerly point of the Scottish mainland. The population is dispersed and includes a number of townships including Kempie, Eriboll, Laid, Rispond, Sangobeg, Leirinmore, Smoo, Sangomore, Durine, Balnakeil, and Keoldale. Smoo Cave is a large combined sea cave and freshwater cave in Durness. Emigration from this parish began in 1772 when 200 people left for South Carolina. This was before the notorious clearances when people were forcibly evicted to make way for sheep farming. Despite having been on the government side during the Jacobite Uprising of 1745, the Clan Mackay were hit by the economic downturn which crippled the Highlands in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden. Poor management of the Mackay estates did not help and in keeping with elsewhere in the Highlands, sheep farming was seen as the salvation. The first enforced clearance was in 1820 in the West Moine district of the parish, followed by the Keoldale Estate clearances and in 1841, the Rispond Estate Clearance. The latter was, however, a clearance too many and it sparked off a series of events known as the Durness Riots, the first real resistance to clearances in the Highlands. The population, however, peaked in 1881 with 1109 people and then gradually declined. The biggest drop came in the aftermath of the First World War when emigration to the Scottish Lowlands, England and Canada was particularly popular. This was the home of the powerful and warlike Clan Mackay, and as such was named in Gaelic, Dùthaich 'Ic Aoidh, the Homeland of Mackay. Even today this part of Sutherland is known as Mackay Country, and, unlike other areas of Scotland where the names traditionally associated with the area have become diluted, there is still a preponderance of Mackays in the Dùthaich. Blog post of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day.



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