On Skye and the Promised Land, 1914–2014: Personal History and Highland Land Politics

Abstract

This article is a hybrid of various forms of prose, conventional historical narrative, memoir, and family history. It links World War I land agitation in the Scottish Highlands with later imaginings and rememberings of the region's land use politics, and with their enduring significance. At its heart is one small croft on the Isle of Skye and one Skye family. These are anchored in one of the many land raids of the Great War era and through it they connect with other crofting families, with the longer history of the region's land politics, and with the Highland Diaspora.