The Big House
Author: Dr Annie Tindley PhD, Strathclyde University
Photograph is of Dunrobin Castle in Golspie, Sutherland, home of the Dukes of Sutherland and designed by the same architect as designed the Houses of Parliament.
At its peak after 1840, the Sutherland Estate was owned by the largest landowners in western Europe and the eighth richest patrician family in Britain, that of the Duke of Sutherland. The family endured the worst possible public criticism and exposure following the Sutherland Clearances and it attracted the ire of no less a figure than Karl Marx. He argued that ” the person who stood at the head of this usurpation of property was a female Mehmet Ali who had digested well her Malthus – the Countess of Sutherland”. He and others argued that no amount of support for anti-slavery or sacks of seeds sent as relief could assuage the guilt the Sutherlands should feel for their treatment en masse of the ordinary crofter. The onslaught was only partly assuaged by the equally public support from their American friend and visitor, Harriet Beecher Stowe, authoress of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’.
The Big House PDF download will be on Amazon Kindle or Smashwords from 20th July 2011 (see above).
A Jacobite homage in the memory of Bonnie Prince Charlie (confusingly written in Irish Gaelic) was composed by a John MacDonald (Sean Ciarach MacDhomhnaill) – obviously from an Irish branch of the famous clan. A rough Scottish Gaelic translation of the first verse is inserted by me in brackets to illustrate how little difference there is between the two languages:
Seal da rabhas im’ mhaighdean shéimh,
(Chian ‘s an robh me na m’ mhaighdean sheimh)
‘S anois im’ bhaintreach chaite thréith,
(‘Sa nis tha mi na m’ bhaintreach chaithte treith)
Mo chéile ag treabhadh na dtonn go tréan
(Mo cheile ag treabhadh na tonn gu treun)
De bharr na gcnoc is imigéin.
(Thar barr nan cnuic is imeachdainn)
Bímse buan ar buairt gach ló,
Ag caoi go cruaidh ‘s ag tuar na ndeór
Mar scaoileadh uaim an buachaill beó
‘S ná ríomhtar tuairisc uaidh, mo bhrón.
Ní labhrann cuach go suairc ar nóin
Is níl guth gadhair i gcoillte cnó,
Ná maidin shamhraidh i gcleanntaibh ceoigh
Ó d’imthigh sé uaim an buachaill beó.
Ghile Mear ‘sa seal faoi chumha,
‘S Eire go léir faoi chlócaibh dubha;
Suan ná séan ní bhfuaireas féin
Ó cuaigh i gcéin mo Ghile Mear.