NaBloPoMo 2024 - day 10

Today is Remembrance Sunday, when we commemorate the Fallen from two World Wars, and conflicts before and after. Here in Lewis, the focus is quite strongly on the First World War. Out of 6,300 who joined up, more than 1,100 did not survive. Of that number, more than 200 drowned on 1st January 1919, when their ship, HMY Iolaire, sank just outside Stornoway harbour. Although the vessel ran aground on reefs, only 50 yards from shore, the atrocious weather and sea conditions made it impossible for a rescue to be mounted. Seventy-five managed to scramble ashore; the remains of 65 were never recovered from the sea.

This is a picture from an installation which has stood off South Beach in Stornoway since late 2018. Although the lighting has long since failed, and the posts are now decaying, this image of it depicts the outline of the Iolaire. Each of the posts denotes someone on board; the red lights indicate a life lost

NaBloPoMo - Armistice Day 2021

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 103 years ago, the guns fell silent. An Armistice had come into force, ending hostilities in what later became known as the First World War. Of the 6,200 people from the Isle of Lewis who signed up to serve King and country since August 1914, more than athousand had made the supreme sacrifice. Inthe mud and horror of the trenches in France and Flanders, the terror of Gallipoli, the dust of the deserts in the Middle East, and on the seas of this world. The cup of loss had not yet been fully drained, it was to become clear. At the very start of 1919, the ship taking some three hundred island sailors home from the war sank at the entrance to Stornoway harbour. 201 perished, and the bodies of more than sixty were never recovered from the sea. The grief cannot be imagined. 

When the clock strikes eleven, my thoughts will be with all who lay down their lives in the service of their country. 

A special thought though for those affected by the Iolaire tragedy. In my 17 years in Lewis, this has always struck me as a singularly poignant loss. 

Gus am bris an Latha agus an teich na sgailean

Bliadhna mhath ur

Happy New Year and welcome to 2020. The third decade of the 21st century has arrived. I am currently taking an on-line course in Gaelic, hence the post title in that language. It means Happy New Year.

Just before 2 am on New Year's morning, I found myself at Sheol an Iolaire, the memorial installation on South Beach to observe the moment 101 years earlier when HMY Iolaire struck rocks. She sank some time later, which claimed the lives of 201 sailors. The biggest loss of life in British waters in peacetime. The official commemoration, at 2pm at Holm Point, was cancelled because of an in-bound gale.

Iolaire

Tonight, as 2019 fades into 2020, New Year celebrations in Stornoway will be muted. It is now 101 years ago since HMY Iolaire sank off Holm Point, 1½ miles south of Stornoway, with the loss of 181 island sailors, and twenty other seamen from other places in the United Kingdom. One of the worst losses of life in British waters in peacetime. A major commemoration took place on 1st January 2019, and another event is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Several new memorials have been erected in and around Stornoway. The main memorial at Holm Point was upgraded and access improved ahead of last year's event. I shall post a number of pictures of all of these. The most memorable event last year took place at 2 am on 1 January 2019, which I attended.



Sheol an Iolaire


Memorial in the Carn Gardens


New access to the Holm Point memorial


Commemoration at 2 am on 1 January 2019

Iolaire

Over the 14 years I have been in Stornoway, I have made much of the maritime tragedy that was the Iolaire Disaster. In brief, in the early hours of 1 January 1919, the depot ship HMY (His Majesty's Yacht) Iolaire was bringing back nearly 300 sailors to Stornoway, after more than 4 years of war service. Upon approaching the entrance to Stornoway harbour, a navigational error drove the ship aground on a reef, the Beasts of Holm. More than 200 of those on board drowned, less than 80 survived. Of those who perished, the bodies of 60 were never recovered. The losses were keenly felt, and the tragedy was barely spoken of. It took 40 years for a memorial to be erected, on the shore above the place where the ship went down. It took a full century for a national commemoration to be organised.

In the evening of 31st December 2018, a torchlight procession wound its way through the streets of Stornoway. There were 201 torches, one for each man lost. I have never seen so many people in the town centre, on any occasion.





At 1.55 in the morning of 1st January 1919, sixty people met at the Iolaire Memorial on Holm Point, and a brief vigil was held. The RNLI lifeboat shone a light on the marker that stands on the Beasts of Holm reef, and the Coastguard provided lights for people to walk from the carpark to the memorial. The time was the exact time 100 years before when the Iolaire struck the reef.





At midday, some five hundred people congregated at the memorial. Prince Charles, the Lord of the Isles, read from the Bible and laid a wreath on behalf of the nation. A quarter of a mile offshore, the ferry Loch Seaforth was the scene of a separate commemoration, which resulted in 201 carnations being cast into the water by schoolchildren. A local diver went down to the remnants of the wreck to affix a wreath.



Stornoway has been very quiet since then.