Strathglass

Strathglass is a strath or wide and shallow valley in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland down which runs the meandering River Glass from the point at which it starts at the confluence of the River Affric and Abhainn Deabhag to the point where, on joining with the River Farrar at Struy, where the combined waters become the River Beauly. Although less densely populated than was formerly the case, Strathglass has played an important role in Scottish history, both secular and religious, and in Scottish Gaelic literature.

The River Glass running through the strath

Geography

The A831 road runs southwest from the vicinity of Erchless Castle up the length of Strathglass and serves the village of Cannich which is the largest settlement within the valley. The road then runs east from here via Glen Urquhart to Drumnadrochit beside Loch Ness. A minor road continues southwest up the valley from Cannich towards Glen Affric.^[1] Strathglass was also followed by a line of electricity pylons but that has been replaced by a line of new pylons across Eskdale Moor to the east of the strath. Both flanks of the valley are heavily wooded; on the higher ground to the northwest, beyond the forests are the moors of Struy Forest and Balmore Forest.

History

Strathglass has been carved out by water and glacial action along the line of the Strathglass Fault through Loch Eil Group psammites of the Loch Ness Supergroup. The northeast–southwest aligned fault is a Caledonoid tectonic feature. The floor of the valley is formed from alluvium deposited by the river, backed by remnant river terraces in places.^[2]

The Christianisation of the Picts and Gaels of Strathglass is believed to have been spearheaded by Irish missionaries of the Celtic Church from Iona Abbey, during the Abbacy of St Columba's kinsman and immediate successor, St Baithéne mac Brénaind, who is referred to in Strathglass as St Bean.^[3]

Beginning on 27 May 1700, underground Catholic Bishop Thomas Nicolson had visited Strathglass. In his later Report, the Bishop had described the region, unlike the Hebrides, as so abundant with trees that the local population lived in wattle and daub houses instead of dry stone and thatch crofts. The Bishop explained, "They are called Criel Houses, because the larger timbers are interlaced with wickerwork in the same way baskets are made. They are covered outside with sods, or divots. All of the houses on the mainland, wherever we went, are built in this fashion, except those of the lairds and principal gentry. Strathglass is partly inhabited by Frasers, whose chief is Lord Lovat, and partly by Chisholms under the Laird of Strathglass. These latter are all Catholics."^[4]

According to Odo Blundell, "When writing of Strathglass on a previous occasion, I mentioned that, 'from the Reformation to the beginning of the [19th-]century, the Catholics in the Aird and in Strathglass received no more support from the two chief families of the neighbourhood, namely, the Frasers and the Chisholms, than was to be expected from the heads of clans who looked upon all their clansmen, whatever might be their religion, as members of their own family."^[5]

Both clans Chisholm and Fraser of Lovat were involved in the Jacobite risings and, after the Battle of Culloden, Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat became the last man in the United Kingdom to be executed by beheading.

Before his emigration to the Colony of North Carolina in 1773, Iain mac Mhurchaidh, a poet from Clan Macrae in Kintail, composed a poem bidding farewell to the people of Strathglass, whom he praised, according to Colin Chisholm, for, "their well known hospitality and convivial habits; the musical sweetness and modest demeanor of their matrons and maidens, uncontaminated by modern fashions and frivolities."^[6]

According to Alexander Mackenzie, the once heavily populated Strathglass began to empty of its people, first through voluntary emigration and the estate clearances ordered by Mrs. William Chisholm of Chisholm in 1801, "In 1801, no less than 799 took ship at Fort William and Isle Martin from Strathglass, The Aird, Glen Urquhart, and the neighbouring districts, all for Pictou, Nova Scotia; while in the following year 473 from the same district left Fort William for Upper Canada, and 128 for Pictou. Five hundred and fifty went aboard another ship at Knoydart, many of whom were from Strathglass. In 1803, four different batches of 120 souls each, by four different ships, left Strathglass, also for Pictou; while not a few went away with emigrants from other parts of the Highlands."^[7]

For these reasons, Odo Blundell commented ruefully in 1909 that the language, customs, and oral tradition of Strathglass were better preserved in Nova Scotia than at home.^[8]

Local residents

• John Farquharson (Scottish Gaelic: Maighstir Iain,^[9] an-tAthair Iain Mac Fhearchair) (1699–1782), was a nobleman from Clan Farquharson, an outlawed Jesuit priest based from a cave at Glen Cannich, and popular folk hero in the Scottish folklore of Lochaber and Strathglass.
• Fr. Alexander Cameron (Scottish Gaelic: Maighstir Sandaidh, an t-Athair Alasdair Camshròn) (1701 – 19 October 1746) a nobleman from Clan Cameron and a Roman Catholic priest. Prior to the Uprising of 1745, Fr. Cameron ran a highly successful apostolate for the still illegal and underground Catholic Church in Scotland in both Lochaber and Strathglass. After the Battle of Culloden in 1746, Fr. Cameron was captured by the British Army and later died aboard a prison hulk anchored in the Thames River. He is currently being promoted by the Knights of St Columba for Canonization by the Roman Catholic Church.
• John Chisholm (1752-1814), Catholic priest, Bishop, Vicar Apostolic of the Highland District, and composer of Christian poetry and hymns in the Scottish Gaelic language. Three of the bishop's hymns appeared in the 1893 Gaelic hymnal edited by Fr Allan MacDonald.^[10]
• Aeneas Chisholm (1759–1818), a Roman Catholic priest and bishop who served as Vicar Apostolic of the Highland District.
• Catriona Nic Fhearghais, war poet and wife of a Clan Chisholm Tacksman, blacksmith, and armorer, William Chisholm of Inis nan Ceann, Strathglass. Catriona composed one of the most iconic verse laments in Scottish Gaelic literature after her husband fell fighting with the Jacobite Army at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. The resulting Gaelic song has been covered and recorded by important traditional singers, including Flora MacNeil, Mary Ann Kennedy, Anne Lorne Gillies,^[11] and Julie Fowlis.^[12]