The claim of crofting does not pertain to crofters only but to all the people of Scotland and what they do and can contribute to the journey of recovery now and in the future.  The histories of these places and people show that in the face of fearsome trouble when people get organised – not just locally, but regionally, nationally and even internationally – then they make an appreciable difference to the circumstances of their own lives, and the lives of future generations.

A’ gabhail ealla: tagradh chroitearachd –  Taking Stock: The Claim of Crofting

March 2012, Skye

The series of arts and cultural events A’ gabhail ealla: tagradh chroitearachd –  Taking Stock: The Claim of Crofting includes

Òran Mòr na Croitearachd or The Big Song of Crofting – three hundred school children in Skye have been writing songs and creating stories of their own about these lives and times.

5 March – 16 March, Broadford, Edinbane, Dunvegan, Portree, Sleat Primary Schools, Plockton and Portree High Schools

Ri Gualainn a Chèile or United We Stand – with scenes from ‘The Cheviot, The Stag and The Black, Black Oil’ in a unique professional performance, with Lesley Riddoch, Andy Wightman, George Gunn, Aonghas MacNeacail, Babelfish and many others, with pupils from Elgol, Sleat and Portree performing their own songs this will be a ceilidh to remember.

Friday 16 March – Sabhal Mor Ostaig – 7.30pm

The original set from ‘The Cheviot, The Stag and The Black, Black Oil’  painted by artist John Byrne will form the centrepiece of the exhibition  – Croitearachd ann an òran agus sgeul or Crofting in Song and in Story.

13 – 24 March, Sabhal Mor Ostaig

Aonghas Dubh who is himself from a crofting family in Uig on Skye has also been commissioned to write a new poem in Gaelic and English celebrating crafting, its harshness and its strength.

This poem will receive its first public reading on Friday March 16 at Sabhal Mor Ostaig as part of Ri Gualainn a Chèile / United We Stand.

This month The Crofters Commission, created in 1955 in the wake of The Taylor Commission Report, ceases to exist and is replace by The Crofting Commission on 1^st April 2012.  This project and the events on Friday 16^th March in Skye explore the history of the crofting system from the 1880s until the present day.

Crofters Commission Convenor Drew Ratter said: “Fifty-five years is a long time in the life of any organisation, and the fetish of modernisation has been used to strike down most of the Crofters Commission’s historical peers: the HIDB, The Red Deer Commission, the Hydro Electric Board. The list is long.”

He continued: “Such bodies made the Highlands and Islands a distinctive region, and without doubt they all contributed to the astonishing renaissance of that region, which permits us to gather in a living community, and surrounded by school children, today.  The Highlands and Islands are standing at a crossroads again today, as in the 1950s. Population decline was arrested with the coming of electricity – among other things – and the Crofters Commission has played its part in helping to arrest that decline.

It never managed to please everybody. In fact often it failed to please anybody, but that was part of its function. Best to be angry with the Commission than with your neighbours.

We are not here to look to the future – that would be lese majeste. We are here to celebrate a future of which I am very happy to be part. “

These events are sponsored by Jean Urquhart MSP and are funded by a range of public agencies and organisations in the Highlands and Islands.

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www.crofterscommission.org.uk

Source: Open Book