Tour Scotland travel video, with Scottish music, of derelict cottages, on ancestry, genealogy, history visit to the Island of Belnahua one of the Slate Islands in the Firth of Lorn. In the 7th century Loarn mac Eirc a legendary king of Dál Riata controlled what is today known as Lorn in the kingdom of Dalriada. From about the middle of the 9th century Belnahua would then have become part of the Norse Kingdom of the Isles. In the 1790s Belnahua was leased out by the Campbell landowners to the Stevenson brothers whose aim was to supply slate for the developing town of Oban. Cottages were constructed for the workers in the south east corner of the island and there was a school and company store. By the early 19th century the Stevenson family were shipping slate from both Belnahua and Fladda to Campbeltown in Kintyre. Their lease was eventually passed on to the Shaw family of Luing who hired a quarry master that lived on a house on the island. At the height of the activity there were 30 quarry workers and their families living there and a total population of over 150. With the commencement of World War 1 in 1914 quarry work ceased and the island was completely abandoned and it has been uninhabited ever since. Living on a remote island in the 19th century came with hardships. Quarry workers sought employment from around Scotland, some arriving in an area where they would have had few friends or family to support them in times of difficulty. There was no protection from the wind and it was a harsh and desolate location, especially in Winter. The islanders were paid poorly and forced to rent their homes and buy all their supplies from their feudal superior, the Campbell Marquis of Breadalbane, who kept the workforce in a state of permanent debt and poverty. Effectively, the people of Belnahua were slaves.
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