Island Of Barra Hotels

Castlebay Hotel, Isle of Barra, HS9 5XD, Scotland. Find the best deal, compare prices and read what other travelers have to say at TripAdvisor.

A Family from Barra Beryl Martin grew up as Pat Ridge, daughter of Nellie and George. George worked at the Municipal Milk Department; Nellie fostered children, to whom she was mostly cruel. Roaming Wellington as a child and schoolgirl, Pat started work at the Zig Zag factory at 14; she ran away from home at 21, never to see Nellie again. In 1985, the Adult Adoption Information Act was passed and Pat Hawthorne (now with a name bestowed by marriage) set off to find the family she learned about only in her 50s - the "family from Barra". Her natural mother had died only a few years before she met her two brothers, and discovered a family ready to claim her. Barra, the smallest island in the Hebrides, was the original home of the Martin family, to which Beryl Martin, in her 60s, returns, locating Scottish cousins and reclaiming her own history.

Imray Chart C65: Cinan to Mallaig and... Barra.

Barra and South Uist, Vatersay and... Eriskay Maps.

Barra and Vatersay / Barraigh Agus... Bhatarsaigh Map.

Barra: From the Clans to the Clearances... - History and Archaeology on the Isle of Barra C.850-1850 AD. This large, well-illustrated book is the culmination of fifteen years of historical and archaeological research into the history of Barra and its people from the time of the Vikings to the notorious clearances of 1850/51, as revealed by archaeology and hundreds of historical documents tucked away in archives in Scotland, England, Italy and Canada. The book describes the homes and workplaces of the population from Kisimul Castle and Eoligarry House, to the blackhouses and shielings of the ordinary clansmen. It pieces together their way of life, and for the first time uses archaeology to reveal just what it was like to live in a blackhouse. There is also a special study of the township of Balnabodach, one of the most romantic settings in the whole of the Hebrides where one of the most notorious dramas of the Clearances was played out. There is also a chapter by renowned Canadian historian J L Bumsted.

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