History of Camuscross

People came to the area from other parts of south Skye, and it was probably at about this time that Barabhaig, which had been quite extensively populated, was cleared and so some of the people from there may have come into Camuscross and Duisdale Mòr.

It was said that in the 1830s that the shop was one of the busiest on the north-western seaboard. The fact of having a shop at the pier was a strong attraction for fishermen as there were very few piers on the west coast at that time. The fish were exported internationally, with records showing a ship leaving Isleornsay for Gdansk in 1831 and also herring sent to Norway with deal boards returning.

However, while the business in Eilean Iarmain may have been successful there appears to have been hardship in the crofting townships. During the potato famine of the later 1840s, Chidhe a chlachaig (the small pier in Camuscross bay) and Rathaid a chomataidh [‘the committee road’, named after the committee which distributed meal to people made destitute at this time] were both built using local labour. Sixty-year-old John Martin, the Camuscross delegate to the Napier Commission, the government enquiry whose report led to the creation of crofting as a legal form of tenure, recalled that it was before his birth that the village had been laid out in crofts. It may be to this era of impoverishment that he referred when he remarked to the Commission:

There is no doubt it has put them [the Camuscross people] to very great inconvenience and hardship that their holdings were reduced, and the land was exhausted with constant cultivation during the past sixty years

Other related developments took place when fishing was at its height in Eilean Iarmain. The house across the road from the telephone kiosk was the police station for Sleat, and, reflecting the amount of maritime traffic in the Sound of Sleat, the lighthouse on Eiean Sionnach was built in 1857. For a short period in the 1850s there was a school in Camuscross, on the site of the tacksman’s house, called Sgoil na ‘Letties’ – it is said to have been supported by someone called Lettie/Letty.

Until the 1870s the hotel at Isleornsay was the single storey building on the right hand side of the road as Eilean Iarmain is approached. In this decade it was replaced by the current hotel.

As previously noted, following the clearance of the crofters at Duisdale, what is now called Duisdale Hotel was built by Lachlan Mackinnon as a home for his sisters. Sleat Local History society notes that the ‘house was turned into a hotel in 1933. It was requisitioned by the navy in the second war, and was not returned to civilian use until 1947, when it reverted back to being a hotel’. The church at Duisdale, called St Columba’s, was opened in 1901.

Duisdale was also the location of the school that served Camuscross, Duisdale and Drumfearn. It was built in 1876 and closed in 1976, following which it was the home for several ventures including a woolen mill and a Gaelic TV company.

The fishing industry in Eilean Iarmain began to decline in the late nineteenth century. Unsuccessful efforts were made in the early twentieth century to establish a deep-water harbor in the bay. However, the creation of rail heads in Mallaig and then Kyle of Lochalsh marked the end of Eilean Iarmain’s days as a major fishing port.

For most of the twentieth century, Camuscross and Duisdale followed the same pattern of social decline as the rest of Skye and much of the west Highlands. By 1971 Sleat’s population was less than half of its total at the start of the century. Young people continued to drain away, and Camuscross in the early 1970s was described as ‘a village full of bachelors, spinsters and old couples whose children had moved away’. There was only one child from the village in Sleat’s primary school. Crofting activity was also ebbing, and reached a low point in the 1980s in Camuscross, although more crofting was still happening on the larger crofts of Duisdale.

However, in the early 1970s, ownership of the Sleat peninsula passed out of the hands of Clan Uisdean after more than 500 years. The northern part of the peninsula was bought by a young banker called Iain Noble. Of the many developments he instigated over the following three decades perhaps the most important has been the Gaelic college, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, at Kilbeg. These ventures have brought new life to the area. Young families have moved or returned to these villages, and there are more families working their crofts. Today, two minibuses full of children leave Camuscross each morning, and Duisdale has its own bus-full too. The creation of the Camuscross and Duisdale Initiative, and the developments we are taking forward, is a prime example of bringing to life to the area.