1 Angus McGowan

Belfast’s foremost local historian actually lives about 12 miles from the district, in Kilmuir, a crossroads on the way to Montague. The son of Jessie Murchison of Point Prim and Malcolm Campbell McGowan of Kilmuir, Angus is as true and ardent a Scot as can be found.

Since his pilgrimage with his wife Mary Nicholson to Scotland a few years ago, he has spent much of his time researching and talking about Selkirk settlers and his own heritage. For this man, Belfast and K ilmuir on Prince Edward Island and Uigg and Kilmuir on the Isle of Skye, are treasured spots: they are the places of his ancestors.

When I went back to Skye seven years ago [1978], all I knew [was] that the McGowans came from Kilmuir, Skye, and the Campbells

came from Uigg, Skye — I’m a descendant of them — and they settled up here...in the 1850s... . That’s all I knew. So I went to Uigg and started inquiring, found the Campbells, and then the Campbells told me about the McGowans. They pronounce it Ma—Goo—an.

And there was no McGowans left.... Then I heard a story that was told to me by two different people. There was a McGowan family — I didn’t get the date but it was from the [time of the] Highland Clearance, when the landlords was putting them off [the land]. And this McGowan man — I think his name was John — had a large family, and he had a big lot of land rented from the landlords. He complained to the landlords about not getting justice, so the landlords ordered him off.

And then there was a place called Scarrabrick. It was, I think, east of Portree... . The Nicholsons was there, my wife’s people, and a whole lot more. The landlord put them off in 1825: put them off, put the sheep there.

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