The MacAskills
by Bill MacAskill
Priest IslandIn attempting to throw some light on the story about the MacAskill who is said to have lived on, or to have been exiled to, Priest Island the following will have to suffice. Recalling the Skye MacAskills who were tacksmen on Berneray Uist, some descendants of that family settled in Mellon Udrigle in Wester Ross. (there is also the Giant MacAskill's parents who moved to Cape Breton.) Mellon Udrigle is more or less opposite Priest Island and it is almost certainly from that branch that the man who lived on Priest came.His sojourn on Priest could have been because he drew the short straw in land allocation where poor crofts had island grazings attached or, he could have been sent to look after the tacksmans stock or, he could have been banished for a misdemeanour (in ancient tradition being put to an island or banished from the Clan was one of the worst punishments from which even Chiefs were not immune) or, he could have been on Priest for a combination of all three. However, there is no evidence of anyone from this branch having moved north to Sutherland. In any case their forefathers went to Berneray around the same time as ours moved into Assynt.
CONCLUSIONSFirstly. Murdoch Macaskill passed on information that his great-grandfather was one of seven/several brothers who were substantial inland farmers somewhere 'back towards Elphin'. It was a claim one thought to be somewhat pretentious but, in fact, turns out to be correct. (Does anyone recall him mentioning his connections with the house ruins at Loch Beannoch?)
Secondly, we have established that no MacAskills lived at that time on Sheanscaig/Leorchircaig or anywhere else on the Coigach Barony or in the Inverkirkaig environs. Thirdly, we know the Clearances to create Stronchrubie and adjacent farms took place between 1810 and 1812. Knowing that no MacAskills lived in Inverkirkaig in 1774 but several lived on these farms and then vanished and that four brothers and probably two sisters suddenly appear on the 1841 Inverkirkaig census after the evictions, if taken together with Murdoch MacAskills statements, there can be little doubt where the Inverkirkaig MacAskills, our forefathers, came from. (Sibella & Flora first appear on the 1861 census.) While ages on the early census statistics have to be extremely suspect it is still highly improbable that it was the 1774 farming MacAskill adult's children who were evicted to Inverkirkaig. On the following 1841 chart William was given as 50. Had he been the eldest son of Donald, Loch Beannoch in 1774 say 18, adding the intervening 67 years would have made him at least 85 in 1841. It therefore has to be assumed that the MacAskills who were evicted and came to Inverkirkaig were grandchildren of these, our early Sgianach farming forefathers, who in turn, had to be close kinsmen of those at Rhundunan.
|
