Mairi Riobach/Mary MacCrain (1737-1855?) - an 'Eccentric Centenarian' on Jura

A newspaper report from 1853 tells of an 'Eccentric Centenarian': 'There is living on the estate of Ardlussa, Jura, a woman named Mary MacCraig alias Mairi Riobach, who is now in her one hundredth and sixteenth year. She was born in the Island of Islay, and has been weakly in mind from her youth. She has led a wandering life, and has not a relation alive. She stands about four feet three inches in height, sings Jacobite songs, and dances a few steps of a hornpipe' (Elgin Courant, and Morayshire Advertiser, 11 November 1853).

There seems to be a little bit of uncertainty about her age and indeed name. Marc Calhoun, author of Beehive Dwellings of the Hebrides, has posted a picture of what is presumably her grave in the Kilchianaig burial ground at Inverlussa on Jura. The inscription reads 'Mary MacCrain died in 1856 aged 128. Descendant of Gillour MacCrain who kept 180 Christmases in his own house and died in the reign of Charles I'. 

image from Marc Calhoun blog

At Scotland's People there is a death register entry for a Mary MacCraine on Jura, giving date of death as December 22 1855 at Lussagiven and stating her age as 118 years - unsuprizingly the cause of death is stated to be 'old age'. Her birth place is actually given as Brosdale -  the name of a small island off the south of Jura, as well as a nearby area on Jura itself near to Jura House. Her father is listed as Donald McCraine, tenant farmer, and mother Mary McNeven.  So while there is some doubt about her date of birth she does seem to have lived to a ripe old age. I think we can be fairly confident that Mary MacCraine (in death certificate), Mary MacCrain (on gravestone) and Mary MacCraig (in 1853 press report) are all the same person.

1885 Ordnance Survey Map showing Brosdale on Jura

But what of her supposedly even more venerable ancestor Gillour MacCrain? There's a plaque in Jura's Kilearnadail cemetery (see photograph by Armin Grewe at his Islay Pictures blog) that repeats the 'kept 180 Christmases' claim and dates his death as 'about 1645' - plainly the plaque is more recent. This tale goes back to Martin Martin who in his 'A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland' (1703) recorded after a visit to Jura that 'Several of the Natives have liv'd to a great age. Gillouir Mack-Crain liv'd to have kept 180 Christmasses in his own house . He died about fifty years ago, and there are several of his acquaintances living to this day, from who I had this account'. 

Various explanations have been given for this, other than him being the longest living human. It has been suggested that locals were pulling Martin's leg, or that MacCrain may have been a Roman Catholic in a time when Catholics and Protestants couldn't agree on the calendar so you could theoretically have celebrated Christmas twice a year.   Old Weird Scotland  suggests that around this time 'Gaels celebrated “Big Christmas” (An Nollaig Mhòr) and New Year, “Little Christmas” (An Nollaig Bheag)' so again you could get in two Christmases a year - or 180 in a 90 year lifetime.

As for Mary MacCrain's  Islay connection mentioned in the 1853 article, who knows? Though in the course of at least 118 years I expect she must have crossed the Sound of Islay a few times!

A discussion of the MacCrain name which mentions Mary's grave, from The Highland News, 4 August 1900: