Young Isle of Lewis women up until the 1950s, earned their first wage following the herring shoals. They gutted, salted and packed herring in barrels, the season commencing May 10th in Stornoway they travelled onward to places such as Shetland, Wick and Yarmouth. China cabinets in many Lewis homes used to display the souvenir plates and trinkets they brought home, after they were paid by the herring curer at the end of the season.
Around 2000, I interviewed island women who had followed the fishing, their story became the monologue Souvenir of Great Yarmouth written by Eric J MacDonald, Uig. I took this play to the Over 60s groups in Lewis, Kinlochbervie, Skye, Glasgow and the Maritime Festival at the Time and Tide Museum in Great Yarmouth. For further information, if your granny was a herring girl, both the English version Souvenir of Great Yarmouth and the Gaelic version Os Mo Chionn Sheinn an Uiseig, are on my website magaidhsmith.co.uk.
But during the first week of July 2025, a call from Radio nan Gàidheal highlighted the new exhibition Red Herring and Following the Fishing by High Life Highland’s Archive Service in partnership with Suffolk Archives, the Norfolk Record Office, and Tasglann nan Eilean. www.suffolkarchives.shorthandstories.com. The exhibition will be coming to Museum nan Eilean at Lews Castle in 2026. This phone call prompted me to highlight this part of Lochs history in Lochs News and give this industry’ s link to a contemporary event.
In the earlier days of the herring industry late 19c there were curing houses in Grimshader, Cromore and many other Lochs villages too. The thriving herring industry engaged fishermen from Lochs, fishing boats from Lochs and young Lochs women at the main herring ports every season, until the beginning of the Second World War.
Servicing this mobile industry, were island boys such as Torcuil MacIver, Torcuil Crag of Kipper Road Stornoway, but with a strong Ranish connection. He completed a four-year apprenticeship in 1932 with the well-known Stornoway Fish Merchant Duncan Maciver. Torcuil became a fully-fledged cooper, making herring barrels for the export market, which included the Baltic States.
In the 1930s Duncan MacIver had a yard in Great Yarmouth, where they marketed their Excelsior brand with the logo ‘Special North Atlantic Kippers’. Duncan MacIver’s yard was then, where Time and Tide the Museum of Great Yarmouth Life, is today.
At this time most transport was horse and cart, but Duncan MacIver had two Albion lorries with solid tyres. Torcuil and a workmate loaded them on the boat the Durham Coast, which called at Stornoway once a week. They sailed up the Manchester Ship Canal and then they drove the lorries across England to Great Yarmouth. On another occasion they sailed on a Coast boat around Cape Wrath, landing in Dundee and praying for the best, drove the lorries with no wipers to Yarmouth.
In Great Yarmouth in 1938 young Torcuil had to duck when thousands of herring girls went on strike. They wanted a wage increase of threepence, to earn a shilling between three of them, for gutting, salting and packing a barrel with herring. Torcuil said in 2004 “By golly I’ll tell you, the herring and the barrels were flying that day. Our girls worked hard for their money”.
Torcuil was a prisoner of war from 1940-45 and while being marched a long distance possibly in Poland, he sneaked behind a shed where to his disbelief he spotted, wooden barrels stamped Duncan MacIver Stornoway. The barrel ends had been removed, and they were being utilised in a drain. So near and yet so far.
The number of men called up during the war years 1939-45 affected the supply of fish, then a much-diminished demand for herring and post-war advances in engineering, resulted in less employment for thousands of women, the gutting being done mostly by machines after 1945.
The Achmore Bard, Donald MacKay captured the spirit, the bearing and the style of the hard-working Lewis herring girls in this Gaelic poem. It is well worthy of being included in a National Archive. Let’s see what we can do.
Clann-nighean an Sgadain
O Shealtainn gu Sasainn tha meas air a ’chaileig,
’S an gàire air gach cladach ri lìonadh na stòir,
De sgadan le lannan cho geal ris an tastan,
‘S na mìltean de bharail ga chuir aca air dòigh.
Gach iasgair is maraich’ a ghabhas an rathad,
Bheir iad urram don chaileig a tha tuigseach na dòigh,
Nighean an Sgadan ’s gun ghruaim air a mala,
Gach cuairt air a’ bharail ’s cur salainn ’s gach pòr.
Nuair thig gach iasgair ’s a’ mhadainn air tìr bho na mara,
Le shùilean làn cadal cumail fàire air a sheòl,
Ni gàire nan caileag e aotrom gu feasgair,
’S e ’s fhèarr dha gu fada na botal air bòrd.
Ma chì thu i feasgar an dèidh obair an latha,
Tha i grinn agus glan ged tha ‘tug’ air a còt’
Seall ri earball bean uasal sguabadh sràidean a’ bhaile,
Tha gach ceum ni a casan mar tonnag na loin.
Nuair thig i gu baile bidh aoidh air a chailleach,
Bidh aoidh air a’ bhodach tha a tuigsinn a dòigh,
“Arrears an fhearainn” falaichte na broilleach,
Nuair bheir i sin seachad ’s e an trustair ni òl.
Bidh aoidh air na balaich tha tuigsinn na caileag,
’S e tha ’n gnè a’ bhean tighe a bhith dìleas is coir,
’S i snasail leam fada na dòighean ’s na cleachdadh,
Na bhean uasal à Sasainn làn sìoda agus sròl.
’S i ’s uasal leam fada na dòighean ’s na cleachdadh,
Na bhean uasal thèid seachad ’s miotag ro sròin,
Còta na sgadan a tha mun a’ chaileig,
Tha h-èideadh cho snasail is i na bòtannan mòr.
Donald Mackay (Domhnall Nèill) 2 Achmore (1854-1932)
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