In 1830, the little Hebridean island of Lismore was one of the granaries of the West Highlands, with every possible scrap of land producing bere barley or oats. The population had reached its peak of 1500, but by 1910, numbers had dwindled to 400 and were still falling. The agricultural economy had been almost completely transformed to support sheep and cattle, with ploughland replaced by the now familiar green grassy landscape.

With reference to documentary sources, including Poor Law reports, the report of the Napier Commission into the condition crofters in the Highlands and Islands, as well as local documents and letters, this book documents a century of emigration, migration and clearance and paints an intimate portrait of the island community during a period of profound change. At the same time, it also celebrates the achievements of the many tenants who grasped the opportunities involved in agricultural improvement.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter One: War, Debt and Famine: Argyll in the 1840s
• Chapter Two: Allan Duncan MacDougall
• Chapter Three: The Improvement of Baleveolan
• Chapter Four: James Auchinleck Cheyne
• Chapter Five: The Lismore Clearances
• Chapter Six: Events on the Other Island Townships
• Chapter Seven: How Lismore Lost its People – and Held on to Some of Them
• Chapter Eight: Perspectives and Legacies
• Appendix 1: Lismore Households Visited by Commissioners of the Poor Law Inquiry in August 1843
• Appendix 2: Full Text of the Letter from Captain Pole to Sir Edward Coffin, 3 October, 1846 (Treasury Letters, 1847)
• Appendix 3: Three Lismore Tenant Families
• Appendix 4: The Fate of the Cottars: Case Histories of the Landless Families Resident in Kilcheran Township at the 1841 Census
• Sources
• Select Bibliography
• Acknowledgements
• Index