A land raid was a form of political protest in rural Scotland, primarily in the

Highlands Highland is a broad term for areas of higher elevation, such as a mountain range or mountainous plateau. Highland, Highlands, or The Highlands, may also refer to: Places Albania * Dukagjin Highlands Armenia * Armenian Highlands Australia *Sou ...

History

A land raid was a form of political protest in rural Scotland, primarily in the

. Land raiders threatened to seize, or seized, land which they claimed had been unfairly taken from them or their forebears. Landowners, and the law, regarded the protests as a form of squatting. Land raids were particularly common in the

Hebrides The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebr ...

, but some of the most prominent cases occurred on the mainland, for example in

Wester Ross Wester Ross () is an area of the Northwest Highlands of Scotland in the council area of Highland. The area is loosely defined, and has never been used as a formal administrative region in its own right, but is generally regarded as lying to t ...

and in Sutherland. Examples include Coll, Lewis (1888) and the

Raasay Raasay (; gd, Ratharsair) or the Isle of Raasay is an island between the Isle of Skye and the mainland of Scotland. It is separated from Skye by the Sound of Raasay and from Applecross by the Inner Sound. It is famous for being the birt ...

Raiders (1921). In 1906, landless men from the island of

Barra Barra (; gd, Barraigh or ; sco, Barra) is an island in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, and the second southernmost inhabited island there, after the adjacent island of Vatersay to which it is connected by a short causeway. The island is name ...

crossed to

Vatersay The island of Vatersay (; gd, Bhatarsaigh) is the southernmost and westernmost inhabited island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, and the settlement of Caolas on the north coast of the island is the westernmost permanently inhabited place in ...

. The latter was a fertile island run as a single farm but its owner Lady Emily Gordon Cathcart had only visited once in 54 years. After the

cottars The Cottars are a Canadian Celtic musical group from Cape Breton Island formed in 2000. The group's current members are Ciarán MacGillivray, Fiona MacGillivray, Bruce Timmins, and Claire Pettit. History The Cottars were founded in late 2000 w ...

refused to leave, Cathcart took ten of them to court in 1908. The judge said the owner had neglected her duties, but still sentenced the men to two months in prison. In 1909, the Congested Districts Board bought the island and broke it up into 58 crofts. The

Seven Men of Knoydart The Seven Men of Knoydart was the name given, by the press at the time, to a group of land raiders who tried to appropriate land at Knoydart in 1948. The name evoked the memory of the Seven Men of Moidart, the seven Jacobites who accompanied the C ...

were returning servicemen who made an unsuccessful raid on land belonging to Nazi sympathiser

Lord Brocket Baron Brocket, of Brocket Hall in the County of Hertford, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 19 January 1933 for the businessman Charles Nall-Cain, 1st Baron Brocket, Sir Charles Nall-Cain, 1st Baronet. He was chair ...

in 1948.

History

See also

References

Further reading