The Iolaire Impact
Dr Iain Robertson and Professor Marjory Harper
Thursday 13 October 2022
As part of the Highland Archaeological Festival
On New Year’s Day 1919 HMY Iolaire struck rocks close to the entrance to Stornoway harbour on the isle of Lewis and sunk with the loss of over 200 men. The vast majority were service personnel returning to the Outer Hebrides at the war’s end. To lose so many men was a huge blow to island communities who would have been, in a traditional economy, heavily reliant on their input and support. It is reasonable to say that this disaster impacted on every household on Lewis especially. There is equally no doubt that this impact, when coupled with Spanish Flu, T.B., and the mass emigration of the 1920s, resonated both emotionally and materially across the rest of the century. Indeed, only since the last quarter of the twentieth century has there been open discussion and commemoration of the disaster within the community.
The talk will discuss the findings of the research project, asking why silence was the main form of coping and recovering from this collective trauma. The project has brought together researchers at the Centre for History, UHI, and the Iolaire Centre – an island-based organisation established to create a heritage centre which tells the story of the Iolaire tragedy and the consequences which flowed from it. The aim is to assess long term impact and discern the ways in which people coped with, remembered and commemorated the disaster. In short, to explore the socio-cultural legacy of the disaster.
Margaret Ferguson - Portrait from the Iolaire 100, C.2019
Dr Iain Robertson is a Reader in History at the Centre for History, UHI. He has a special interest in historical geography, with a particular focus on the twentieth-century Highlands and Islands. He joined the Centre for History in September 2015, having previously been with the University of Gloucestershire for a considerable period of time. He completed his PhD at Bristol University, where he researched the historical geography of acts of social protest in the Highlands between the two World Wars.
Professor Marjory Harper is Visiting Professor at the UHI Centre for History. Her main research area is the Scottish diaspora. She has a particular interest in oral history, and in migration and mental health. Her two most recent publications are an edited collection, Migration and Mental Health: Past and Present (2016) and a monograph: Testimonies of Transition: Voices from the Scottish Diaspora (2018) which is shortly to appear as an audio book.