Barra
Principal Sources
RMS II (2287) 1495 & RW Munro ALI pp 34-5
RMS VIII (203) 1621, (1447) 1629
Ross Retours (71) 1627
Inverness Retours (78) 1655
CRA p 4 1561
GD221/4271/9 1730
E656/1 No 326 1718
TD 85/63 Bundle 20 Rental 1836-7
RHP 3004 Chart of Mingulay & Bernera
RHP 44187 Plan of the Estate & parish of Barra 1861-3
RW Munro, Monro’s Western Isles of Scotland pp 72-5
Martin Martin, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, Birlinn, 1994 pp 156-164
Macfarlane’s Geographical Collections II pp 177-180, 529
JB Caird, Early nineteenth-century Estate Plans, Togail Tir, p 73
F MacLeod, The Chapels in the Western Isles, 1997
A Macquarrie, Cille Bharra, 1984
RMS VIII (203) of 1621 gives our most complete breakdown of the land-assessment situation in Barra. (Versions also survive in Ross Retours (71) of 1627 and Inverness Retours (78) of 1655). The document starts by listing Barra, five islands which we know belonged to the Bishop of the Isles, Ferray (Fiaraidh) and Killiegir. These last two are confusing since Munro did not include Fiaraidh amongst his list of nine islands which belonged to the bishop in 1549. It is, however, given as church property in RMS VIII (1447) of 1629. I can offer no information at all about Killiegir. The document goes on to include the ‘tiroung’ (ounceland) of Boisdale in South Uist which had formerly been held by MacNeill. It then runs:
lie tyringis de Fuday,
Kilbaray,
M’Clene,
Greinge,
Borrow,
lie tiringis de Killis
et Hangistill, …
Reddendo £40.
Here we have another 7 ouncelands; one of Fuday which is an island just off the north end of Barra, and six which seem to constitute Barra itself. They run roughly north- south and are Cille-Bharra, Cliaid, Grein, Borgh, Caolas & Tangasdal. (Caolas is a little ambiguous since this looks to be the settlement at the north end of Vatersay, which island had already been listed amongst the five Bishop’s Isles). The total assessment value seems to be 7 ouncelands, plus whatever the Bishop’s Isles amounted to, and plus the ounceland of Boisdale which was in South Uist. The reddendo (apparently for everything) was £40 (or 60m).
This reddendo of £40 was long-lived because Martin Martin mentions it as the rate in his day and in E656/1 of 1718 £40 was the annual feu duty paid by McNeill to Mcdonald of Sleat. It seems possible therefore that the land-assessment valuation of Barra and its surrounding islands was £40 or 60m. It is likely that the rate of exchange between ouncelands and merklands was the same as that which obtained in Uist and Benbecula. At one ounceland to six merks this would give a notional total of 10 ouncelands (or davachs) totalling 200d. Compared to the larger islands of Uist, 10 ouncelands seems rather a lot for Barra and I have wondered if this figure included the ounceland of Boisdale. If this is deducted we come to 9 ouncelands or 180d. In the document given above we have seven ouncelands plus the Bishop’s Isles, which I think came to another 1½ ouncelands, making a minimum of 8½ ouncelands. Unfortunately we have little more detail so I cannot come to a firm conclusion as to whether Barra was 9 or 10 ouncelands in total. To further muddy the water, Skene’s source of the late sixteenth century gives Barra as £20 (30m) although his assessments were quite often inaccurate.
In 1549 Monro listed 9 islands south of Barra which he claimed belonged to the Bishop and which each contained a chapel. They were Lingay, Gigarmen, Berneray, Megalay, Pabay, Fladay, Scarpay na mult, Sanderay, Vatersay. He says of five of these – Berneray, Megalay, Pabay, Sanderay & Vatersay – that they are ‘inhabit(e)’. These, presumably, are the islands referred to in the Bishopric rental of 1561 (CRA p 4) as ‘the fyve Illis of Barray’. Berneray, Mingulay, Pabbay and Vatersay were still tenanted in 1836-7.
RMS VIII (1447) of 1629, confirming another document of 1612, lists the islands round Barra which belonged to the church. They included:
Wattirsay
Sandirrirra
Phappay
Mygylay
Bernaray
Farray-Yle (= Fiaraidh which lies north of Barra and was not one of the islands mentioned by Monro in 1549 as belonging to the Bishop).
The Reddendo was £6 or 9m which might mean that the lands were worth 1½ ouncelands or 30d. These islands are the same as those listed in RMS VIII (203) of 1621 although that document has the extra isle of Killiegir.
It seems very probable that there were other islands round Barra (apart from the Bishop’s Isles) which once had land-valuations which have since been lost. This would help explain why Barra could have been as much as 10 ouncelands. In the rental of 1836-7 we learn that the following islands were still inhabited:
Hellisay, NF 7504
Gighay, NF 7604
Fuidheigh (Fuay), NF 7402
Vatersay, NL 6394
Mingulay
Lamalum, NF 7203
Fuday, NF 7308
Pabbay
Berneray
After discounting Fuday and the Bishop’s Isles we are still left with 4 (Hellisay, Gighay, Fuidheigh and Lamalum) which are not referred to in the 1621 document and whose (unknown) values could be added to the 8½ ouncelands mentioned above.
Although we have some data from the rental of 1836-7 I think the time-lapse is too great for us to try and establish the likely assessments of these islands retrospectively. It is the same with the farms on Barra itself although there are some striking similarities. The ounceland of Greinge in 1621 was Green with 27 tenants and a rental of £165-7-0 in 1836-7. The ounceland of Borrow in 1621 was Borve in 1836-7 with 31 tenants and a rental of £222-0-0. (This was just over one-tenth of the total rental just as the one ounceland of Borrow may have been one-tenth of the total value of Barra). However what the nineteeenth-century rental does suggest is that settlements such as Bruinish, Earsary, Skalary and Breveg probably all had their own assessments at one time. They may not have been important enough to be among the ouncelands named in 1621 but they were probably each reckoned at so many pennylands. Perhaps one day we shall be able to reconstruct the situation further on the basis of traditional information gleaned from within Barra.
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