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:

MacDonnells Race: Rathlin Island, Islay and danger on the seas

Musician Phil Cunningham's BBC programme 'The narrow sea, the farthest shore' (2022) explores the cultural links between the west of Scotland and the north east of Ireland across the Narrow Channel. Islay is mentioned a number of times and in particular the skipper of a boat who regularly travels this journey today tells him about a turbulent stretch of water by Rathlin Island, near Ballycastle in County Antrim:

'This particular place is just known as MacDonnells Race* because when you get a fast flow of water it is known as a race. A family of four brothers went over to Islay to celebrate and get all the goods they needed and on the way back they hit a very bad piece of very fast water and the boat sunk on them and the four brothers were drowned so they christened if after them'

Of course that got me searching for details of this tragic event. Another version of the tale is given by Anne Winter in her account of sailing between Islay and Rathlin Island in 2019:  'We could see rough water to the north east of the headland: the MacDonnell race, named after the MacDonnell brothers, who were drowned returning to Rathlin when they were caught in a vicious tide race.  Their father watching from land raised his arm as if to move the boat’s tiller to steer them out of harm’s way.  Legend has it that his arm stayed in the same position for the rest of his life'. Winter mentions visting the Rathlin Island Boathouse museum so assume she picked up this story there.

The name goes back to at least the mid-19th century.  The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle published an article in February 1856 on 'Rathlin Sound and General Directions for the North Channel, Ireland' by R. Hoskyn, Admirality Surveyor for the NE Coast of Ireland. Hoskyn writes that 'Off Altacarry Head a rocky bank extends two thirds of a mile to the northward; where from thirty fathoms it deepens to ninety in a distance of two cables further. The tide, in its passage across it  forms a race known as McDonald Race'. 'Sailing Directions for Ireland' published by the United States. Hydrographic Office (1934) likewise warn of 'overfall extending 1350 yards from the shore, called Macdonald Race'

I haven't found any specific historical report of the four drowned brothers, perhaps it is a local legend based on an actual happening more than 170 years ago, though there are other strong historical connections between Rathlin and the MacDonald name. Rathlin Castle was the base for the MacDonnells (sometimes spelt MacDonalds) in their bid for control of parts of Antrim, ended by an infamous massacre in 1575 when English forces led by John Sorreys and Francis Drake stormed the island. The MacDonnells had branched off from the Islay based MacDonalds of Dunyvaig. That's another story but it shows how the history of Islay is bound up with happenings in Ireland just as much as in Scotland.

In any event, newspaper reports do list plenty of maritime tragedies with Rathlin and Islay connections.

For instance, in 1856 a Mr Mann of Portrush was on his was way by sea to Islay when he found an upturned boat. There was no sign of the crew, believed drowned after capsizing on their way from Ballycastle to Rathlin (Belfast Morning News, 10/6/ 1858). In 1917 a Rathlin Island fireman, M'Guilkin was one of three seamen who drowned when the Clyde Shipping Company's tug Flying Falcon was caught in a storm off Islay (Londonderry Sentinel, 11/10/1917).

The wreck of  the schooner Nations at Rathlin Island was reported in the Ballymoney Free Press (11/3/1880), with the boat going down on its way from Islay to Larne with a cargo of grain. The crew survived, though the Captain's brother had been drowned a year earlier after being washed overboard from the same boat. The captain pronounced the boat to be 'an unlucky vessel' and intriguingly seems to blame the prophesy of an Islay woman:  'The captain, who is a native, attributes the disaster to a woman in Islay. When his brother was about to start on his fatal voyage this woman said "broad as your shoulders are, you'll never return again". Since that she said the same to another native of the Island and he too was lost. The captain is not quite certain that she had the power to injure the vessel, but he strongly suspects she had'. That raises the whole folklore of 'the sight' in Islay, in particular the ability to predict somebody's death, another interesting topic in its own right.

* The spelling is variously given in different places as MacDonnell, McDonnell, McDonald, MacDonald or any of the above with an s a the end.

Update - On twitter (30/1/22) Douglas Cecil, a Rathlin Islander and ferry skipper, tells me that 'there is a small stone cairn built on the cliffs of the North Side of Rathlin which looks directly across to McDonnells Race where the father was said to have been keeping a lookout from'