Iain Mòr - and later his oldest son, Iain Beag (Little John) - ran a small general store from the back of the house, selling food and household necessities, rope and other supplies for the fishing, animal feed. What he didn’t keep in stock, he could order. Shoes were brought here for repair (now we have the cobbler’s lasts), and Iain Beag was also a merchant in eggs, buying them from islanders and sending them on to mainland wholesalers. ^ During the winter, the livestock were free to roam the whole island, but during the summer, the animals were taken up to the hills to make the most of the new growth, allowing hay, oats, potatoes and other vegetables to be grown without being trampled or eaten by the livestock. In olden days there were no fences or walls to keep the livestock up on the hill - just a low earth bank to mark the line; so in the summer it would be the task of mostly the children to to keep watch over the animals - to keep them away from the crofts. But two world wars and the attractions of mainland urban life took their toll on the island familes, a wire fence - the so-called ‘hill fence’ - became a necessity, and with the help of government grants that was soon accomplished. Over the course of the following decades, the economics of crofting declined even more dramatically than did the population, and despite the ready availability of generous grants to do so, few ever thought it worthwhile to fence off their own crofts from those of their neighbours. We know little about how the croft itself was used. Certainly potatoes would have been grown, with the feannagan (so-called lazy-beds) moved each year to fresh ground. There were vegetable patches in a sheltered hollow down by the shore (which we’re bringing back into use); and where we’ve built our new croft store by the road was a vegetable garden - in evidence of which, we found cultivated mint growing prolifically amongst the wild herbs and grasses. Between the road and the hill, particularly nearer the road, potatoes, hay and oats would have been grown in pockets of deeper soil amongst the many rock outcrops. After each year’s harvest, the ground would be left to go fallow, and the ground broken elsewhere, using a small plough drawn by the ubiquitous Eriskay pony. Over the winter, the sheep, cattle and ponies were allowed down from the hill, and grazing the crofts they would manure the ground. ^
Without cars - or for that matter roads, certainly until after the Second World War - yet with so much fetching and carrying, not to mention ploughing and pulling to - the hardy native Eriskay pony was an essential part of island life. Each crofter would expect to keep at least one pony: many - as here at Croft 11 - would have two, typically an older mare and her grown foal. When off-duty, they were frequently tethered to a moderately large boulder: small enough for the pony to drag, but heavy enough to deter it from roaming far and allow the pony to be readily caught. ^ Eriskay lacks the expanses of deep peat with which the majority of Hebridean townships are favoured. Even so many photos from the 1930s to 1950s show peat being fetched home from the peat banks in the creels (wicker panniers) carried by the ponies. This may have come from the peat banks of more fortunate relatives in South Uist, some from their own crofts. Up at the hill end of our croft, a series of shallow scalpings follow the line of the boundaries with our neighbours. Some of these may have yielded fuel, but of poor quality: other workings may well have supplied the foundation for repairing thatched roofs - a layer of close-packed turfs laid grass-side down, serving the purpose as today’s breathable roofing membranes. ^ Iain Mòr’s wife, - Iain Beag’s mother - lived into the 1990s. She was well known - as Ciorstaidh na Carraig (Kirstie of the Carrick) - for her knitting of shawls with the intricate patterns distinctive to the island, traditionally worn by the older married women of Eriskay - as can be seen from so many old photographs of island life. In a seized up drawer of an old dresser we found a hand-made booklet of her patterns, written carefully in ink with a steel-nibbed pen. One day, perhaps, we will put these patterns to use - but first we will have to decypher the notation! ^ The extended family also worked a fishing ‘drifter’ - a type known as a Zulu - called St Vincent, built by Stephens of Banff in 1910, and first registered as CY405 at Castlebay, Barra, though based in Acarsaid Mhor and Haun, Eriskay. When not at sea the boat was beached in the creek just below the house. St Vincent is now listed on the National Historic Ships Register: Complete restoration started at Arbroath 2008-2009, and work is still continuing.  One of our two hen-houses (close by the shore - built of concrete and corrugated roofing sheets) was originally built - perhaps as late as the 1960s - for storing fishing gear (though by the time we came here it was full to the eaves with every manner of junk!). There’s a still a pile of old rope and creels from those days, left on the rocks by the shore. ^ World War 2 was especially hard on the islanders, with almost all the menfolk away at war, mostly in the Royal Navy or Merchant Navy. Many never returned - a great sacrifice by a community already losing so many of its young people to the mainland. Those that remained were the fishermen - a protected industry. The womenfolk had to manage as best they could with just the children and the old folk. They were especially difficult times, but not without some lighter moments, even if only retrospect. When, on the night of 5th of Feburary 1941, the SS Politician went aground on the shallows off the small island of Calbhaigh (Calvay) - between Bun a Mhuillin and South Uist, the first concern was of course to get the crew safely ashore. That mission successfully completed, there was at least an occasion for the giving and receiving of hospitality - an fundamental of island life, but in war time difficult to sustain without the key ingredient of conviviality - whisky.
Can you imagine yourself living here, and content to just stand on the shore and watch? No? Then surely neither would the macDonalds of croft 11!. Alas we have not found any bottles of ‘Polly’ buried long ago and forgotten about: but we have found - mostly right down by the shore - an extraordinary collection of ship’s ironwork and hardware, too big for island fishing boats, and so heavy as to be scarcely moveable, at least on land. We believe that most if not all of this was salvaged from the SS Politician: including a brass ship’s bell, alas without inscription to prove the point. ^
Mairi Alexandra became a missionary nun - Sister John Vincent - with the Congregation of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary. For more than forty years she served the poor and needy in Zambia, and then served fourteen years as the head - Superior General of the Congregation - of the world-wide organization. Iain Beag - as the eldest son - had inherited the croft from his mother, but having never married and had not otherwise acquired any children to leave the croft to on his own death (according to crofting law, tenancies are heritable). For reasons we’ll probably only ever be able to guess at - he decided to assign the croft to his brother in Canada - notwithstanding the fact Alex clearly had no interest in returning to Eriskay. Iain died just a year or so later, in late 2005: Alex travelled to Eriskay to bury his brother, and then on returning to Canada instructed solicitors in Oban to advertise the croft for sale (more correctly, the assignation of the tenancy was offered for sale). The only expression of interest was from someone who had expectations that proved inconsistent with crofting law, and thus in early 2007 the croft was again up for sale. Again there was only one expression of interest: this time it was from a couple who had moved to Uist in 2002, and having already restored the historic walled kitchen garden at Cille Bhrìghde, South Uist, back into full productive order, were looking for more land to put to work. And that couple is of course ourselves. ^ Once we’d satisfied the authorities of our suitability, the assignation was ratified by the Crofters Commission, and at Michaelmas 2007 we became the legal tenants of Croft 11, Bun a Mhuillin, Isle of Eriskay. Last-minute legal obstacles overcome, we were free to actually take possession in January 2008 - after almost a year. And then we pulled on our overalls, boots and working gloves, and started work sifting through and making sense of ... of the flotsam and jetsum of a century and a half of a crofting family life. ^
Alex Lachie had been unable to take anything other than a few small personal effects with him back to Canada, and thus the house contents were left to others amongst the extended family and neighbours. Notwithstanding, when clearing the house ourselves, we found many items of great interest - at least to us, including a number of Sister John’s books and momentos from Zambia, a rare traditional hand-woven blanket of traditional Hebridean pattern, family letters, the hand-written book of Ciorstaidh’s Eriskay knitting patterns, old steel-nib pens (probably used to srite the pattern book) and a stash of old photos mainly from the 1930s to 1950s. Many of these were found in the drawer of an old dresser, which had seized up after being painted over - apparently (judging from the contents) in the late 1950s or early 60s. ^ A few days before the house was to be demolished, we were working outside, tending a bonfire of old mattresses, worm-eaten furniture and the such like, when suddenly there was a loud ringing from indoors. We rushed in to investigate. On the wall of the back kitchen, an old-fashioned brass telephone extension bell was summoning us to pick up the phone ... a phone that no longer existed. Hadn’t the house been empty for two years now? Had not the line been disconnected for just as long? The bell rang for at a minute or so. There was nothing we could do. Half an hour or so later, it rang again for perhaps the same length of time. And another half hour so later it rang again - this time it seemed for an eternity. And then it rang no more. And of course, we will never know ... ^ Contributions and corrections to this page are welcome - Jonathan. | ||||||||||||||||
The Naming of a House
Even so, by 1868 the macDonald family were sufficiently well established here to build their first permanent home in Eriskay - a traditional Hebridean thatched house, the ruins of which are still to be found between the present day Carrick and the sea. In 2008 we found, amongst the crumbling stonework at the head of the walls, various talismans incorporated into the new home, brought with them from South Uist: a glass inkwell, worn-down sharpening stones, a silver-plated knife; perhaps there was more, now lost? 
And so it is, then that to this day the crofts of Eriskay are worked on the ‘open township’ basis. When the sheep, cattle and ponies come down from the hills for the winter, they are free to graze across all the crofts of the township, and even if part of a croft is fenced off, the gates must be opened up for the animals to come and go as they fancy. 
In January and February, seaweed would have been cut from the rocks on the shore and taken up in wicker creels carried by the ponies, and spread across the newly broken ground as fertilizer. At most crofts there would also be manure from the byre, where the house cow would have provided the family with milk - and from that a soft cheese known as crowdie. The frequent attention required by the cow made it desirable for the byre to be as close to the house as practicable; not least because the byre was - in the days before WCs - also the household toilet! And sure enough, here on Croft 11, a little behind the old thatched house stands a stone byre - now rebuilt as a hen-house. 
Iain and Ciorstaidh had eight children in total, all of who around the end of WW2 set out from Eriskay to make their own way in life. Iain (Beag) served in the merchant navy for many years, returning home after the death of his father to stay for good. Alexander Lachlainn - second eldest - emigrated to Canada, and to this day lives in Ontario - at least during the summer, migrating to Florida for each winter. Other brothers and sisters and their children are scattered across the globe, as far as New Zealand. 
In early October 2004 she fell ill and - deteriorating rapidly, was brought back to England for care. She died within a week. (Of her personal effects, including momentos of her life in Zambia, returned to Carrick, a number were left in the house when we acquired it - including the delightful miniature bust in ivory shown here.) 
The seann taigh (old house) down near the shore had become derelict twenty or thirty years before, and whilst now roofless and part fallen-in, was not sufficiently decayed as to attract the veneer of historical romance. Frankly, it was (and remains) an eyesore. But our more immediate concern was with the upper house, Carrick. Having been empty for about two years, it smelt of damp, decay - and the departed. Knocking holes through the plasterboard and floor confirmed our working assumptions: the stonework was crumbling, wood rotting, steel rusting ... and everything was damp from three generations of gale-driven, salt-laden rain. With no foundations to speak of and the fixings between the elevations and the gables having rusted away, cracks at each corner demonstrated the house’s clear intentions to fall apart in the not too distant future. There was nothing for it but to pull it down and build a-new.