Is bha t- t`orr dhaoine san `aite. Nuair a th`oisich a’ chlann ann a sheo a’ dol dhan a’ sgoil bha iad bha mini-bus man tuirt sinn agus van aca do dha thoirt leotha well dha toirt dhan sg- bha bhini- mini-bus agus van eadar an d`a bhaile a th’ann seo l`an sin. Dol dhan a’ sgoil `Uig sh`ıos[. . . ] Chan eil duine dol an-diugh ann ach ach. Sin mar a tha tha a h-uile c`ail ag atharrachadh. Fhios ad chan eil a bheag air fh`agail ann a sheo an-diugh.
There were a lot of people in this place. When the children started going to school there was a minibus and a van to take them, to take them [to school]. A minibus, as we say, and a van between the two villages, completely full up! To go to the school in Uig[. . . ] But no one goes there nowadays. That’s how everything is changing. You know, there’s not much left here today.
Mary-Ann The data from the older speakers in this thesis was collected in two rural areas of Lewis, Uig and South Lochs, which are two of the densest Gaelic-speaking areas (Duwe 2006a,b). Both of these communities are isolated, with the most remote villages about an hour’s drive from Stornoway down single track roads populated by sheep. Both areas are suffering depopulation and are home to ageing inhabitants. There are few employment opportunities in rural Lewis and young people tend to move away for work in Stornoway or on the Mainland. Crofting is not an economically viable way of life, and although many people farm a few sheep, their
wool is currently of little if any economic value.
In both of these communities, Gaelic is spoken when two people meet who know each other and know they speak Gaelic. This means that people speak Gaelic at Church, when they bump into each other in the shop, among themselves at home, but do not speak Gaelic to anyone else by default. In the shop in Uig, none of the staff except the delivery man spoke Gaelic, so all business was conducted in English. In South Lochs some of the staff spoke Gaelic, including a young girl in her twenties, but business was often conducted in English. The decline of Gaelic in local shops and other community institutions is also noted in Munro, Taylor & Armstrong (2011). In both Uig and South Lochs houses are extremely spread out with large areas of moorland and mountain in between. This means that there is very little opportunity to ‘bump in to someone’, and there is no possibility of walking down the village street, because such a street lined with houses and local businesses does not exist. Most people drive everywhere and are some distance from even their closest neighbours. Previously each house was filled with a large family, and the whole community would work on one family’s croft at a time, then move on to another croft a day later. Now with depopulation, a decline in crofting, an ageing population, and widespread ownership of cars, the remaining inhabitants can become very isolated indeed and the opportunities for speaking to someone at all, let alone speaking Gaelic, are few and far between. An example of a typical Lewis house is in Figure 5.2. Most people live in modern bungalows and often the ruins of the previous stone houses remain in the garden, as is the case here.
Uig
Uig is extremely remote from Stornoway and indeed from anywhere else, but has arguably the most spectacular scenery in Lewis: huge white sandy beaches, green machair (dune land) and in other spots large rocky cliffs. Despite the area’s remoteness several families from the Scottish Mainland and England had recently chosen to settle in the area. Although wishing that their community could remain a local Gaelic-speaking one, residents were generally happy about the arrival of these incomers. The primary school had around twenty pupils and incomers sometimes brought families which helped swell the numbers at the school and ensure its survival. Sadly, the Gaelic-medium section at the school was closed in 2008 due to lack of demand. Local people claimed that Gaelic-speaking residents were unwilling to send their children to the Gaelic section as they thought their children would be disadvantaged later on in life. They said that the Gaelic class filled up with the children of incomers to the area and this created tensions with local Gaelic-speaking parents. More and more parents chose to move their children to the English class, and this made matters even more difficult for the children still receiving Gaelic-medium education. In the end there were too few children in the Gaelic class to justify employing a Gaelic-speaking teacher and the Gaelic section closed.
Figure 5.3: Beaches and machair in Uig.
Much of Uig was bought by the residents from the local landlord and local facilities are now community-owned and run as a cooperative. Funds were generated from the UK National Lottery and the European Union and other such sources to provide an extremely well-stocked local shop, equipped with petrol pumps, coffee machine, internet access, and laundrette facilities, also a community centre with sports and internet facilities, and a community caf´e and museum. Local people are extremely proud of these community-led initiatives,
though some noted that the committees which organised these developments were often helped by incomers who were adept at grant proposals and played up the community’s Gaelic-speaking nature, without being Gaelic speakers themselves. Uig’s spiritual needs are serviced by two churches: the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the Church of Scotland. Both provided weekly services in Gaelic and in English. Despite the strong sense of community in Uig, the demographic makeup was noticeably old and the population declined from 4,500 at the turn of the twentieth century (1901 census) to an estimated 617 in 2009 (Scottish Government 2011). These figures also include the neighbouring island of Bernera, so ‘mainland’ Uig has even fewer inhabitants. It is common to see ruined houses in the fields surrounding once populous villages.
South Lochs
South Lochs, also known as Park after the deer park in the area in the 1880s, is still owned by a private landlord, although a community buyout plan is under way to buy the area in the near future. The geography of the area is scenic sea lochs and rivers, although it lacks Uig’s spectacular beaches, possibly making it less desirable to incomers and tourists. The area has a community centre housed in a building which also includes a youth hostel, shop, caf´e, and archive of local historical materials. There is a small museum in the centre, which mostly displays household items from bygone days. South Lochs was severely affected by the Highland Clearances (see Chapter 3) and was also the scene of one of the most dramatic events in the Highland Land Wars: the occupation of Park Deer Park, where the deer park land was occupied by local people who slaughtered around 200 deer in 1887 (Macdonald 2004, 251) (See also Section 3.3.1). A permanent monument to this significant event was put up in the neighbouring town of Balallan. Post office facilities are in the South Lochs village of Gravir, which also hosts the area’s only church, a Free Church. Gaelic services were held once a week. South Lochs is also now suffering severe depopulation.
Social statistics for Uig and South Lochs
To back up these observations, Table 5.1 shows figures from the Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics (Scottish Government 2011). These numbers are based on official population estimates mostly from 2009 and give a snapshot of relevant areas of life in Uig, South Lochs, the Western Isles as a whole, and the Scottish national average. The proportion of Gaelic speakers in each community is based on figures from the 2001 census.
Figure 5.4: The village of Orinsay, South Lochs.
Uig South Lochs Western Isles Scotland
Population 617 861 26,180 5,194,000
Population as a % of Scottish total 0.01 0.02 0.5
% children 13.45 18.35 17.23 17.57
% working age 56.08 56.56 57.83 62.55
% pensionable age 30.47 25.09 24.94 19.89
% income deprived 20 20 15 16
Dwellings per hectare 0.01 0.01 0.05 0.32
Urban-rural score 6 6
Access to services deprivation decile 1 1
Public transport time to shops 81.2 67.4
% of population Gaelic speaking 75 75 73 1
Table 5.1: Relevant statistics referring to the communities of Uig and South Lochs compared to the Western Isles as a whole, and Scotland. Source: Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics. Source for Gaelic speaking proportion: 2001 census. Urban-rural score: 1 most urban, 6 most rural.
Summary: Gaelic among older speakers in rural Lewis
In summary Uig and South Lochs have a small ageing population, in an extremely rural setting with sparse housing density. The proportion of Gaelic speakers in Uig and South Lochs (75%) is slightly higher than the proportion for the Western Isles as a whole (73%), and much higher than the 1% Gaelic speakers in Scotland as a whole.
What is means to be a Gaelic-speaker is very different for these older speakers than for the young people in Gaelic-medium education described below. Gaelic is something very
much associated with local life and culture. The language is part of the fabric of everyday existence and is spoken by practically all local people of a certain age. For these members of the older generation, Gaelic was not so much a reflexive choice, but a default way of speaking ingrained from their earliest years.