125316: Miavaig Uig

Miabhaig

 In 2005 the late Mr Angus H Smith of 7a Carishader reminisced about Miavaig.  In the 1920s the village was the hub for Uig, being the main port for supplies. 

“My first memories, before I was school age, was of going to Ceit Bheag’s shop in Miavaig. The provisions came over on the launch from Callanish, a couple of times a week. I remember only that she had sweets, ‘conversations’ with writing on them. She would take them from a jar and put them in a bag she had made out of folded paper. Some say she provided tea for people coming off the launch. This may have been Uig’s first tea room. Ceit Bheag was nighean Niall a Fhraoich from Callanish

The Department of Agriculture puffer brought building materials to the pier. A man called Ross was in charge of the store, which was on the site of MacConnell’s shed today. When the puffer came in, the Carishader and Uigen men would gather to offload it. Some of them worked on board the puffer, some receiving the cargo on the quay and other heaved goods into the store. The Department of Agriculture supplies were for the croft houses. There were planks of wood, corrugated iron sheets, roof slates, nails, rolls of felt, cement and bricks. My mother’s brother, Aonghas Ruadh Uisdean was employed to regularly turn the bags of cement, so that the cement wouldn’t set.

William MacRae the registrar for Uig and Bernera lived at Miavaig House, he owned some of the land and kept some livestock. One of the Mathesons of Aird had lived in Bothag Iain ’ic Eachainn, at the pier road end. It is thought he lived here while the old pier was being built. At low tide at the present pier, you can still see the original stonework. He was a very skilled stonemason who also built the sturdy walls you can still see at A’Chairidh at the Miabhaig end of the Glen.

My brother looked after the village cattle, they had to be tended all day, as the Timsgarry Farm boundary was nearby. If the cattle strayed they had to pay to get them back. The cattle were poinded in An Cul Taigh a natural pen, you can still see it in the Glen. I remember my grandfather saying he once had to pay a shilling to get the cattle back from the Glebe Lands.

My great grandfather ‘An ’ic Aoidh, lived in Miavaig before the farm was made. The ruins of his house are inside Miavaig Farm, on the hillside as you approach the Glen from the south. His son Hugh Uisdean ’an ‘ic Aoidh came to No 2 Carishader. He was called after the Rev Hugh Munro the incumbent at the Old Established Church at Baile na Cille from 1778-1823

The only church in Miavaig in the 1920s was the United Free Church at Ceann Langabhat, the minister was the Rev Norman MacLeod from Habost, Lochs.

In my time there was a Police Station in Miavaig. I believe that Constable Macinnes was the last policeman stationed there. Afterwards Dr Grant moved from Garynahine to live in the Police Station and from the 1930s, there was a district nurse based at the Nurses Cottage in Miavaig

The mail came from Callanish and I remember the postman passing us in his gig, as we walked from Carishader to Loch Croistean School in the snow. There was also a smiddy in Miavaig, the blacksmith was Murdo Macleod, Gobha nan Uigean. As an elderly man, rain, hail or snow, he walked from Uigen to light the paraffin lamps in the church.

Miavaig in my young days, really was the centre of Uig

Interview by Magaidh Smith 2005.