Mull and the Clearances
Written by Peter MacNab / Introduction by Jean Whittaker / with Sally Magnusson
£7.99
- Paperback
- E-Book
Local history
Reviews
Meticulously researched... an important fragment of Scotland's social history
Herald
a very useful survey of the comprehensive process of clearance on Mull
West Highland Notes and Queries
About the Book
The Clearances are well known as one of the darkest periods of Highland history. Over a hundred-year period somewhere in the region of 150,000 people evicted from the land they had worked for generations; many were forced to start new lives overseas. The human cost was enormous, but there were huge consequences for the Highland economy too as the land was put to different uses.
This book details the Clearances as they affected the island of Mull – the Hebridean hub for the emigrant ships which left for the New World. Peter Macnab discusses the influences which changed crofting in the 18th and 19th centuries, the triggers for migration, the crofter protests, the Napier Commission of 1883 and the introduction of various laws to provide security of tenure.
Having been brought up in what likely was the last poorhouse in the Hebrides, where his father was governor, Peter Macnab was able to hear directly the stories and about the cruelties suffered. This makes his book a uniquely fascinating perspective on a complex and significant period of Scottish history.
The Authors
Peter MacNab
Peter Macnab was born in 1903. Originally destined for a career as journalist, he switched to banking after contracting Spanish flu. On retirement he expanded writing for national and international papers into writing books, particularly on Mull, influenced by the sufferings he had learned from the last of the victims of the Clearances. His books included the standard study of Mull and Iona.
Sally Magnusson
Broadcaster and journalist Sally Magnusson has written 10 books, most famously, her Sunday Times bestseller, Where Memories Go (2014) about her mother’s dementia. Half-Icelandic, half Scottish, Sally has inherited a rich storytelling tradition. Her debut novel, The Sealwoman’s Gift, was a Radio 2 Book Club and Zoe Ball Book Club selection, and was shortlisted for several prizes, including the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year, the Paul Torday Memorial Prize, the McKitterick Prize, the Waverton Good Read Award and the HWA Debut Fiction Crown. The Ninth Child, her second novel, was published in spring 2020, and was followed by Music in the Dark in 2023.
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