Tour Scotland Video Clan Currie Drive B880 Road Across Isle Of Arran

Tour Scotland video of part of a drive on the B880 road across the island on a Clan Currie ancestry visit to the Isle of Arran, Scotland. This route was originally numbered as the A842, which continued to the coast in Blackwaterfoot. However, there was a review of the road numbers on Arran during the 1920s and by 1932 the route had been renumbered as the B880, which it remains to this day. The B880 bisects Arran from the island capital of Brodick on the east coast to Blackwaterfoot on the west coast. The name Currie is alleged to be a reduced form of MacMhurrich. Tradition has it that like some of the old Arran families they had charters of the lands of Feorline. This, I am afraid, is unsupported by evidence. Down to the end of the eighteenth century the name Currie does not appear in Feorline at all. In 1796 they came to Feorline. (Tormore Curries.) One was a taxman in Kilpatrick, one in Feorline, another in Clachan. There were several in Tormore at the same period. Arran in all its long history has never thrown up a poet of any standing, though we have a few rhymers. There were one or two of the Curries who made brave attempts. One of them was called Gobha Beag, the wee smith. The other was Donald Currie. Poaching in Arran was always looked upon as a heinous crime. The Gobha Beag, first of these Curries wrote a very pathetic poem of his eviction from Arran for poaching-the following is a translation from Gaelic of four of the verses:-

In the calm summer morn, ere the sun with his rays,
Would waken in beauty our valleys and braes,
With my take in my skiff I so gladly would come,
To the shade of the Castle where nestled my home.
Dear Beallach nam Mean, how my heartstrings were torn,
When banished the spot where my darling was born,
'Tis my fate in the Lowlands to nourish my wrongs,
Since fortune once placed too near to the Longs.
The factor ordained in the pride of his power,
My kin should disown me if e'en for an hour,
They'd shelter or aid me, his ire they would feel,
Be stripped of their farms, and crushed by his heels.
But those who expelled me from Arran shall be
Without sheep on the moorland, or cow on the lea;
While I openhanded shall live in Tormore,
To drink my cup yet, and eat of my store.

There is ample evidence of the survival of the Currie clan.



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