Stories that live on.

Indigo & the Island (Part two), a short story (Isean/Little Wing) and the photographs of James MacGeoch.

Aug 03, 2025

Hello a chàirdean,

I’ve moved the blog to www.gaelic.blog. Makes it easier to remember.

STORIES THAT LIVE ON

Sometimes when I write about stories from the past, it’s easy to feel they are so far distant that any repercussions from them have long since faded.

But they’re often not that distant from us. My own grandfather was born in the late 1800s. If you’re aged 63 or more, you were born closer to 1899 than to today.

I’ve written part two of the Indigo story. The first part is about the Skye connection to the industry and how it grew to become “one of the principal articles in the export trade of our Eastern Dominions (The Economic Journal).”

The second part explores the human cost of this – the Blue Rebellion by the indigo workers, land ownership systems which would make any 19^th century Highland landowner nod in approval, and the first political campaign by a young man called Mahatma Gandhi.

It’s a story which feels distant in some ways, but it is very much still with us. Here’s one example.

The growing season of indigo was complimentary to that of another crop – opium. And so, indigo plantations would often grow opium, sending it to China where people like James Matheson made a lot of money selling it. Let’s take a look at this quote from Jardine Matheson’s 2024 Annual Report where they “deliver superior, long-term returns to shareholders” from businesses “focused on Asia” with revenue of $35 billion in 2024 and profit attributable to shareholders of $1.47 billion. Other household names, such as Mitsubishi in Japan, also got their start in the opium trade.

Matheson bought the Isle of Lewis of course from the Seaforths in 1844. And although even the great academic Alexander Fenton talked of his ‘paternalistic’ approach to land ownership, first person accounts of the Clearances of Uig give a rather different picture. Even now, try to put a salmon net in the sea off the coast of Lewis and see what happens to you.

And so it goes.

Read Indigo & the Island Part Two in the browser.

Gaelic version / English version.

THE ‘AN DUILLEAG BHÀN’ PODCAST

The Gaelic language podcast, An Duilleag Bhàn, is now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. There’s English text versions to go with the Gaelic.

ISEAN / LITTLE WING – A Short Story.

I will publish a little bit of fiction for paying subscribers. However, you can get a seven day trial for free. Saying that, it’s probably worth waiting until there’s more fiction published here.

Read Isean (Gaelic) / Little Wing (English version)

I really appreciate all your support for the blog, taking the time to subscribe. Many thanks.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF JAMES MACGEOCH

There’s a little film section in the blog now. Some are in English and some are in Gaelic, with subtitles.

James MacGeoch had a singular determination to get to Sùlaisgeir to photograph the fowling tradition there, after the Second World War. It was a time of great change in a centuries old tradition. A generation of men had returned from the war, and soon all sorts of inventions were appearing on the island, like blondin cable ropeways and chutes powered by a motor purloined from some poor weaver who had been using it for winding pirns.

I was lucky enough to get permission to use some of MacGeoch’s photographs from his daughter Catriona MacGeoch in this five minute film. It’s in English, and there is a Gaelic version of the article here.

The photographs are copyright the Estate of James MacGeoch.

Films