Here are this years winners:
Best Achievement for Argyll: Eilidh Steel, with fellow musician Joy Dunlop a close second.
Best Tourism Initiative: Jura Passenger Ferry, with Fiddle Folk / Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop a close second.
Best Environmental Initiative: Islay Energy Trust – way out in front from a early stage, with Seil Community Garden Project in second.
Best Community Initiative: Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop, with the Finlaggan Centre development on Islay a close second.
Best Homecoming Event, Joint winners: The Columba Ceilidh Trail and the Islay Festival in a thrilling last hours dead heat and with Inveraray’s Spirit of the West Festival in second.
Best Major Event: Royal National Mod, a standout winner with the Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon and 10k Run in second.
Best Community Event: Mull of Kintyre Half Marathom and 10k Run, with the Meur Chruachain pre-Mod Ceilidh a close second.
Best Arts Programme: Fiddle Folk / Lochgoilhead Workshop, a runaway winner with the Meur Chruachain Summer & Winter Ceilidhs in second.
Best Activity Website: Islay Wilderness Guide, ahead of Islay Shipping Blog in close pursuit.
Best Wildlife Website: Mull Eagle Watch, a long way ahead, with Islay Birds a good second.
Best Community Website: The Carradale Goat, with a very close dead heat for second between Arrochar and Tarbet and the Kintyre Forum.
Best Local Newspaper: The Oban Times, a flyaway winner with the Ileach a good second.

Check out the ForArgyll website for the full overview

What can you do to support the Jura Passenger Ferry? Visit the ForArgyll website and go to the page forargyll.com/forargyll-votes-2009/. Here you can submit one vote per category. The Jura Passenger Ferry is the only Jura related website. Another Jura related candidate is the Ileach, Islay and Jura Newspaper, and there are several participants from Islay. Enough for everyone I should say so please go to the ForArgyll website and vote. Thanks very much.

Islay’s summer Sunday bus service, a late evening bus from Campbeltown to Southend and the Thursday night Jura to Islay service could be among the first to suffer. Lack of funds meant a successful Sunday bus service around Islay could only run from May to September this year, though 1,700 people used it.
Mr Blades said: ‘Given the subsidy level, this service is vulnerable and it means it may not be possible to have it in 2010.’ A 12-seater bus runs from Jura to Islay and back each Thursday evening, allowing a late night shopping trip or a visit to the swimming pool for islanders. Though it is nearly full each time, ferry costs increased the subsidy needed and ‘serious consideration’ would be given to its future, said Mr Blades. He added the council aimed for a subsidy of £3.50 or less per passenger and routes costing much more would need to be examined. Councillor Donald Kelly urged full consultation with communities to look at boosting services, before any cuts were considered. The council is reviewing all public transport provision.

We studied the population if Jura during the second half of the nineteenth century through the records provided by the national censuses and watched it drop from 1158 to 614 during the fifty years from 1841 to 1891. We know tha tmany families left the island, both to emigrate and to settle on the mainland. Much of the period during which this exodus took place is give the term ‘The Clearances’, in the Highlands and Islands at large. We must now see whether this description applies to Jura. Was Jura ‘cleared’ of people to make way for sheep and deer, and to allow the landowners to gain bigger incomes than those supplied by the rents of the settled tenants? Miss Campbell insisted to the Commission that nothing of the kind ever took place on the island. ‘Not one single family was ever evicted from their dwelling’ she said, ‘and those who left did so voluntarily, because they preferred to go.’

There are other stories from these times that say that there was some sort of clearance which is about the Cnocbreac eviction in the 1840s. Initially there were five families living there and later only one family was left. The others were relocated elsewhere on the island, in better housing than before, and under the same laird. This doesn’t sound like a clearance in the true sense of the word.

Many people who’s ancestors came from Jura, and who are now living far away from their ancestors homeland, have an interest in finding out where their ancestors lived, worked and who they were. Because of the mass migration many records have gone lost but there are still several sources where information can be obtained. If you are searching for your ancestors from Jura the following information, links and resources could be of any help. Providing you have done some basic research and have knowledge of your family tree, it is possible to access a complete range of Parish, Census and Statutory Registers in several places in Scotland to continue your investigation.

ScotlandsPeople is a partnership between the General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland, The Court of the Lord Lyon and brightsolid (formerly Scotland Online). ScotlandsPeople is the official online source of parish register, civil registration, census and wills & testaments records for Scotland. They are holding over 50 million records, making the ScotlandsPeople database one of the worlds largest resources of genealogical information and one of the largest single information resources on the Web. The website address is www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

Jackie Davenport from the Argyll and Bute Council is the Council Archives and Administration Manager. She has a special Archives email address for Genealogy related questions. Your enquiries can be sent to archives@argyll-bute.gov.uk

Another interesting Jura Genealogy resource is provided by the members from the Jura e-mail list. By “subscribing” to this mailing list, you will become part of a loop of people who are researching their ancestors from the Isle of Jura, Scotland, and the related lines of their study. To SUBSCRIBE, send an e-mail to: SCT-JURA-L-request@rootsweb.com with the word subscribe as your message. you will receive a welcome message with instructions for sending messages to the list.

Below is an interesting collection of links to various resources that might be of help. The links are provided by Gavin, a regular visitor of this blog.

General information:
www.theargyllcolonyplus.org
A history of Jura emigration
Argyll Colony Plus
Gary McKay’s website

Some links to family trees/information:
Descendants of Alexander McDougald
Welcome To Clan Lindsay
The Kenneth Black Family
Journey to Jura by by Elizabeth Buie
Alexander McPherson of Jura

In May 1946 Orwell, still picking up the shattered pieces of his life after he became a widower, took the train for the long and arduous journey to Jura. He told his friend Arthur Koestler that it was “almost like stocking up ship for an arctic voyage”. It was a risky move; Orwell was not in good health. The winter of 1946-47 was one of the coldest of the century. Barnhill, overlooking the sea at the top of a potholed track, was not large, with four small bedrooms above a spacious kitchen. Life was simple, even primitive. There was no electricity. Orwell used Calor gas to cook and to heat water. Storm lanterns burned paraffin. In the evenings he also burned peat. He was still chain-smoking black shag tobacco in roll-up cigarettes: the fug in the house was cosy but not healthy. A battery radio was the only connection with the outside world. He was working at a feverish pace. Visitors to Barnhill recall the sound of his typewriter pounding away upstairs in his bedroom. Then, in November, tended by the faithful Avril, he collapsed with “inflammation of the lungs” and told Koestler that he was “very ill in bed”. Just before Christmas, in a letter to an Observer colleague, he broke the news he had always dreaded. Finally he had been diagnosed with TB.

By mid-November, too weak to walk, he retired to bed to tackle “the grisly job” of typing the book on his “decrepit typewriter” by himself. Sustained by endless roll-ups, pots of coffee, strong tea and the warmth of his paraffin heater, with gales buffeting Barnhill, night and day, he struggled on. By 30 November 1948 it was virtually done. Nineteen Eighty-Four was published on 8 June 1949 and was almost universally recognised as a masterpiece, even by Winston Churchill, who told his doctor that he had read it twice. Orwell’s health continued to decline. In October 1949, in his room at University College hospital, he married Sonia Brownell, with David Astor as best man. It was a fleeting moment of happiness; he lingered into the new year of 1950. In the small hours of 21 January he suffered a massive haemorrhage in hospital and died alone at the age of 46.

The fact that Orwell wrote his book in Barnhill, situated in the north of Jura, is a reason for some to undertake a pilgrimage to the Isle of Jura and follow into the footsteps of this famous writer. Barnhill still is a very remote place, cars are not allowed and to get there you have to leave your vehicle four miles before Barnhill on the side of the road, or better track. From there it’s a beautiful walk into solitude and remoteness, following the same track George Orwell had followed in 1945 for the first time.

On the website orwell today you can find a travel report of a couple who made a pilgrimage to Barnhill in August 2004. It’s interesting to read that almost nothing has changed in the last six miles or so and only little has changed in the journey from Kintyre to Jura. I’d like to quote a paragraph from the travel report:

We walked to the car – put our boots in the ‘boot’ – and then began the drive up the island to where the road ends and the walk to Barnhill begins. Two miles after driving past the manor house at Ardlussa – and opening and closing two gates to keep the cows contained – we came to the end of the road for cars and parked in the space available there. Just beyond the point where the trail to Barnhill begins a solitary white horse was watching us. I went up to try and pat him but he walked away before I reached him. He didn’t seem to want his picture taken.

My feelings as we began the walk to Barnhill are hard to explain. I kept thinking of the words written on a biscuit tin I’d used for years, “The road to a friend’s house is never long”. I felt that I was truly going to visit a friend, a friend who I very much wanted to see. We weren’t in any hurry and stopped a few times to take photos. The weather was absolutely perfect with glorious sunshine but not too hot. My husband walked ahead of me most of the way but sometimes we’d walk side by side and talk about Orwell. After walking for an hour and a half or so we made a bet to see who would be the first to spot Barnhill. Not long after that we came to the crest of a hill and there it was! It appeared all of a sudden and all at once!

Barnhill image by Alan Gerrard licensed for reuse Creative Commons Licence

Jura Paupers Cottage 1910

The Paupers’ Houses The 1861 census records five paupers, all widows or widowers. It was hard for an ageing widow to be self-sufficient. Peat had to be cut, water brought from the well, roof to be thatched, etc. However, the community looked after those who needed help and stacks of peat have been built for their winter fires. The houses are now holiday homes.

The paupers are of course no longer there and the houses are now available as holiday accommodation but it still is interesting to see how the cottages have changed over time. When I saw the old image I tried to find a similar one of the current situation and found it on Uli Sauers Jura pages. When I sent Uli an email he kindly agreed to let me use it on the Jura blog, the result can be found below. An image from more or less the exact same spot, more than hundred years later.

Paupers Houses Today

These five images come from the brochure for the sale of The Jura Estates (64,000 acres) when they were auctioned by Messrs Knight Frank & Rutley in 1923. Besides Ardlussa House you can find images of the Tarbert hunting lodge, Lagg and two images of Inverlussa. The image I have included is from Ardlussa lodge. I have also included an image of Ardlussa House from 2008 just to show you that much has remained the same since 1923. The black and white image was taken from the east whereas my image was taken from the north and shows the view from the road.

Ardlussa House