STRATHNAVER

Strathnaver is the ancestral home of the Mackays. It is a region in the very north-west of Scotland, corresponding to the northern part of the modern county of Sutherland. Some of the worst atrocities in the movement of Highland people took place in Strathnaver.  

"The valley of Strathnaver is as green fold of earth, the richest in that part of the country, a narrow twisting glen down which the black water of the River Naver runs from south to north, from the loch of its name to the Atlantic Ocean. The people who lived there in 1814 were Mackays, by name or allegiance, though the Countess was their Lord."

To visitors, Strathnaver can seem wild, empty and remote. But this appearance is deceptive: hidden in its landscape are features from all periods of history. Strathnaver is the broad, fertile valley of the River Naver, which flows from Loch Naver northward to the sea at Bettyhill on the north coast of Scotland.

It was once an important place and it gave its name to a medieval province, which as early maps show, stretched along the north coast of Scotland from Cape Wrath to Caithness. Strathnaver was the land of the Mackays, and it lay on the trade route between Scandinavia and Ireland. 'Sutherland' - the 'South Land' of the Vikings - referred originally only to the south east coast of the modern county, but gradually Strathnaver was absorbed. In the 19th century, Strathnaver became infamous for the Clearances when the Gaelic- speaking local people were thrown out of their traditional lands to make way for commercial  sheep farming. Some of them were 'resettled' on the coast and expected to take up sea fishing -although the coast is dangerous and very few had any boats, equipment, knowledge or experience to help them. Man moved away to Glasgow, England, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Clearances occurred all over the highlands, but the Strathnaver ones are probably the best known - partly because of the work of Donald Macleod.

A notorious factor responsible for many evictions was Patrick Sellar who is remembered to this day. He lived at the  house of Syre in Strathnaver