Barra Head - Traditional Economy and Culture

Traditional Economy and Culture

During the 19th century agriculture was based on crops of barley, potatoes, oats, turnips and cabbages and livestock including sheep and cattle. Ponies were kept, although their use may have been to transport materials to the lighthouse, and goats were also recorded in 1863. Berneray lacks peat, which had to be brought over from Mingulay at considerable effort. The harvest of the seas remained important, with the island a base for exploiting the rich stocks of white fish by fishermen from several local islands. Seabirds were also an important part of the economy, supplying both food and feathers for sale. Such was the abundance that in 1868 a single fowler caught 600 birds in six to eight hours.

Visiting in 1818, William MacGillivray, professor of Natural History at Aberdeen University wrote:

On reaching Berneray we landed and soon after betook ourselves to a hut which we found cleared for our reception. We dined on roasted mutton, wild fowls' eggs, bread, butter and whisky. The goodman of the house came home with a basketful of eggs from the rocks, and some birds he had caught.

The travel writer Isabella Bird arrived in 1863 aboard the Shamrock receiving an "outrageous welcome" from the islanders, despite the fact that amongst the Gaelic-speaking locals only a few had "some very lame sentences in English". She wrote approvingly that her hosts were "well-dressed, cleanly and healthy looking" and of the "delicious cream, in large clean, wooden bowls." Duncan Sinclair, the only Protestant on the island purchased a Bible and there was much bartering and bargaining with the islanders paying for their purchases in dried fish. Bird concluded that the island was:

Far out into the Atlantic, exposed to its fullest fury, and generally inaccessible, yet has nursed a population before, rather than behind, those of the other Hebrides. Without any advantages or other religious ordinances than are supplied by the annual visit of a priest from Barra, these very interesting people thirst for education, and would make considerable sacrifices to obtain it.

In 1851 several of the island's children were described as "scholars at home" and later some youngsters attended the school on Mingulay. The Barra School Board created a "sub-school" on Berneray but it can never have had even as many as ten children in attendance and it closed in 1887 after a few years of operation.