Trip to Littleferry
Took a wee trip to LittleFerry near Golspie to see and hear about the battle that took place there in the days before the Battle of Culloden, in 1746.
I took a few photos of the trip. It was a broadly nice day with a stiff wind at times.
We started out trip up at Dunrobin Castle and learned a little about who the big names of the day were; Sutherland, MacKay, Munro, Cromartie and MacKenzie.
We then stopped by the Church of Scotland which was, then, newly built and only several years old. (No photo, apologies).
Then we heard of the hunk of the story, if you will, Hugh Munro who was a Lord Flasheart type figure who managed to shoot a jacobite on the shore whom was attempting to take a boat, seemingly after this he took off his plaid and ran down the road to Littleferry and out of Golspie's Fishtown.
The monument
The monument was erected in 2022 and is made of a stone that was taken from land nearby, an orkney sandstone if memory serves.
It overlooks the area where the battle is understood to have taken place and is now farmland and forestry, as seen in the photo.
The cross, I thought, was interesting as it is designed from a pendant cross that was found in the Leanach Cottage. The circles within the cross itself represent the 12 apostles.
The cross, itself, is missing some of the lower beam and thus apostles.
The end of the trip was out at the pier in Littleferry itself. I thought it was a telling spot as there was a lot of boat travel taken during the period taken up to the battle and had the jacobites attempting to flee, though many did not manage it.
The photo, I hope, shows the power of the water there and the difficulty that would have been had leaving had the tide been going the opposite-than-intended direction. I am told that the water level rises and drops somewhere between 6-8ft!
Many seals and Eider ducks now happily travel the short gap.
It is an interesting bit of history, one that a large group will likely not enjoy as the romantic heroes (Jacobites) did not succeed. How it played into the outcome of Culloden is up for debate, personally I don't think it would've altered much had Jacobites succeeded or successfully retreated from there.
Other, probably rubbish, writing
I've written a piece on Jacobite Poetry and one of my earliest pieces was on Clan Fraser and Lord Lovat who have a fascinating history and one that I only touch upon there.