Highland Clearances; communities fight back

Aim

Highland Clearances replaced people with sheep 200 years ago. We tell how communities in Coigach & Strathnaver are fighting back today.

The Highland Clearances may feel like ancient history. But 250 years ago, the map of north Scotland looked very different. 

People lived in fertile inland straths and had been there since the Bronze Age. By contrast the barren rocky coastlines were relatively empty. 

But all that changed because of economic decisions taken by the Duke of Sutherland and his factor Patrick Sellar who put sheep and deer on the land and people on the harsh north coast where many died trying to become fishermen in stormy seas. No wonder thousands emigrated.  

One elderly crofter died after Patrick Sellar burned homes to force people out. He was charged with culpable homicide and arson but somehow acquitted. And the clearances went on.

So Strathnaver in Northwest Sutherland became perhaps the most completely cleared glen in Highland Scotland. And today the emptiness remains. 

But communities are taking a stand to put their language, traditions and native trees back on the map. Descendants of those cleared families are recovering their confidence, culture and place on the land. 

The tiny community of Skerray planted a woodland 25 years ago using native trees from the Gaelic alphabet and placed stones from Patrick Sellar's Syre estate at its centre. 

Meanwhile, twelve miles south, locals bought the Rosal Clearance Village site and are set for an emotional reunion of descendants this summer, when Gaelic Psalm singing will be heard in Strathnaver again.

And in Coigach near Ullapool, a stunning stone circle is being constructed to celebrate the women who won – resisting the factors’ men five times in the 1850s and saving the peninsula of Achiltibuie from clearance and desolation. 

It was perhaps the first successful story of resistance in those brutal times. We'll be there this summer to film descendants unveiling the new monument to those brave women and we'll re-enact the moment when hundreds gathered on the beach to repel the boats coming to evict them. 

I’m fundraising to tell both of these stories in two new films with Steve Rawson who made the Missing Forests film with me in 2025 (200k views online). 

This year I've also screened Finland; the happiest country across 25 cinemas and community venues in Scotland with Q&A - financed by 228 generous contributors to my first crowdfunder. 

We will send the Clearance film links to crowdfunder contributors first, then take them on a cinema run across Scotland in the autumn (four cinemas have already expressed an interest) and thereafter it'll be available for everyone on Youtube.

These are parts of our history every Scot should know.

If you can help, we’d really value your support.

Many thanks to Neil and Maggie Sutherland, Eddie Docherty, Gillian Albiston Blyth, Susan Martin , J&E Fraser and Iain Hunter who helped get us this far by sending donations after one mere mention on my podcast last year. You are stars. 

Thanks also to https://www.themathesontrust.org/ for allowing us to use the powerful Gaelic Psalm singing at the start of this video.

This project successfully funded on 4th June 2026