A programme to identify how many Hebridean islanders quit their homelands for new opportunities abroad has revealed more than 17,000 people made this decision.
The three-year Emigration Digitisation Programme at Seallam! Visitor Centre in Northton in Harris has collated the information and now a new exhibition titled, Na h-Eilthirich – The Emigrants reveals even more about the circumstances behind Hebridean emigration.
Convener of Western Isles Council, Alex MacDonald officially opened the new exhibition this week. Alex himself was born in Argentina and returned to Lewis as a Spanish-speaking child who also spoke Gaelic – English entered his vocabulary later.
The exhibition has a centrepiece of a map of the world showing people going not just to Canada, USA and Australia but to places like Freetown, Sierra Leone, to St Helena with ex-Emperor Napoleon, to Curacao with the Army, to Jamaica and South Korea and to Iceland in Viking times.
The illustrated exhibition follows the trail from the Carolinas to Hudson’s Bay with the fur trade, Cape Breton to Quebec and then Ontario and the Prairies of Canada.
Hebrides today brings you news from stornoway and the western isles
Welcome
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