Land Reform Heroes Jailed in Inverness Castle

Those reformers embodied the Spirit of the Highlands, eventually achieving positive crofting legislation in Westminster, but much remains to be done today...

Land 'its ownership, usage and ecology' remain a vital cornerstone of Highland life, underpinning and interconnecting many aspects of our lives, including economy, culture, community, environment, resource usage, and more. Land is central to the Highland story, at both wider and personal level, influencing our sense of place, of belonging, our identity and sense of community, artistic creativity, the value we attach to our Gaelic cultural heritage, attitudes to and appreciation of the natural world, and indeed our hopes for future generations.

The dismantling of old clan and social structures of collective and mutual interest, and the imposition of enclosure, clearance and private landlordism, changed how land was perceived and used - from communal resource where soil, waters and produce were shared by the local community, to private commodity for individual exploitation and enrichment. The Highland Clearances inflicted dispossession and displacement on the indigenous people, with clearance to peripheral coastlines, often violently enforced eviction and emigration, poverty and depopulation. Meanwhile landlords grew rich from sheep farms, deer forests and the exploitation of vast estates, from which wealth they built magnificent palaces, such as Dunrobin Castle in Sutherland.

However, folk resisted throughout, leading to a land reform movement in the late 19th century. Overcrowded crofts led to land raids across the Highlands and Islands, where crofters collectively went to physically reclaim the land of their forebears. Inverness Castle, then a courthouse and prison, is at the heart of this story, as it was here many of the convicted crofters were incarcerated.

In April 1891, jailed land raiders were released from the Castle to cheering crowds and carried shoulder-high through Inverness streets. The law might have been on the side of the landlords, but the folk of Inverness proclaimed the crofters 'Na Gaisgich' - The Heroes. 19th century Gaelic poet, land and justice campaigner, Mary MacPherson, was likewise imprisoned in Inverness Castle, accused of theft but later absolved.

Those reformers embodied the Spirit of the Highlands, eventually achieving positive crofting legislation in Westminster, but much remains to be done today to bring about fundamental change in Highland land ownership.

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