In 1876, John T. Reid, an Edinburgh artist, went on a sketching tour of the Highlands and Islands. Numerous boats served the islands at that time and it was from the deck of the smart new 'St. Clair' launched just 5 months previously, that he sketched the Low Street of Arinagour. He did not land but watched the disembarkation of his fellow passengers.
'We had a bachelor party on board, who were out for a little merrymaking: an island marriage ball had wooed them from the desk of the counting-house, and having had a taste of the free air of these parts, and being good fellows well met, a few more days of healthful roving gave a gleeful appendix to the gaieties of the wedding. There was, as a matter of course, a clever punster and an old joker, and no end of reminiscences with a strong spicing of the comic element in them. The steward was not left to mourn that his bottles found no custom: there was treating and return treating, and one humble Highlander who could sing Gaelic songs was made the sink into which was poured the spirits bought by sundry odd pence; and, to the satisfaction' of those who deem it a noble accomplishment the filling a man drunk, this Celt was brought into that pitiable condition, and manifested the power of the spirits over his brain in a rather curious way, - he was for kissing all round; ... We had in addition to this party, - a doctor coming to visit his mother, who lived in Coll; a young Englishman with a fishing-rod, who had left a medical practice for a few days, to whip the burns of Coll and breathe the fine air; a minister's wife. a retired minister and his wife, both in delicate health; the Fiscal of Tobermory, who had a farm on Tiree; the Chief Constable and Sheriff Clerk from Mull, who came to investigate a case of suspected cattle poisoning; and a young Glasgow teacher, who came to be the guest of the Fiscal aforementioned.’
The population of Arinagour was 129 in 1876. It is now 85 and the population of the whole island a mere 179. In 1841 numbers peaked at 1500. The potato famine of 1846 and the clearances, slowing up but still grinding on, had the 1871 figure at 723.
Betty MacDougall has worked out who could have been looking out of the Low St. windows at the very upright complement of doctors, ministers, teacher and men of the Law, being ferried to shore as the artist sketched:
In 1876 the population of Arinagour was 129. This encompassed High Street (6 families), Low Street (I4 or 15 houses; it is difficult to be certain and certainly not included in the sketch), Arinagour Farm (6), Arinagour Inn (12) and Braloch (9). Braloch ruin can still be seen if you go up the back road to the church, cut down to the lochside and the ruin is at the side of the head of the loch.
Now to Low Street proper:
No. 1 had a family in each end (customary). An old widow with a companion in one end and a Flora MacKinnon from the East End with her young grandson who later was coachman at the castle, at the other. She was still there in 1881.
No. 2 had two families Colled Maclnnes, again one at each end. They were related to the Maclnnes family that lived in Tom nan Eun (the Coll Boy's house) and that family continued on there right into the present century and within living memory. The old lady that was the last of them was known as 'Ginty'
No. 3. This is my present house, There was a family MacKlnnon in it, related to the Sorasdal family, the twin's family, It was a son of this family, John, who met with a fatal accident at the building of Kilbrlde farm house In 1880, They were still at No, 3 In 1881.
No. 4 had just a travelling hawker in it at this time. By 1881 John MacDonald the ferryman's family had moved in, relations of Mary Lang.
No. 5. This is Katina's house, The MacDonald family were there at this time, Lachie Katina's deceased husband - was the last in Coll.
Then we have a gap where Dunara was built, completed in 1879 for the carpenter. I was always of the idea that perhaps an old house had been there before but It doesn't look like it from the sketch, Perhaps that opening was left for access to the back .for there was said to be rows of houses at the back, known as the Garadh Dubh (Black Dyke).
The list continues with 13 different families, most of them occupying one room but I cannot place them with any exactitude in the terrace as there are too many to fit into the 6 places left! Some of them in that list of 13 I do know were at the back, for instance, an ancestor of Mary Lang is in it and he was supposed to be in a ruin that can still be seen at the back of what used to be Neilly John's house.
Apparently, the shop and house were empty at this time but were certainly occupied soon after as I find from the Fiscal reports, by a family MacCorkindale, that was in Coll for quite some time; two families in fact, one was shopkeeper and the other, estate agent.'
These terraced houses and another row set further back to the left, High Street, were Coll's first example of town planning, the ordered streets in contrast to the haphazard thatched black houses scattered behind. They had tarred and felted roofs and had been built by Stewart, the landowner when the population started to rise in the first two decades of the 19th. century. Water and lavatories at the back were added in the mid 1930s.
Today, of the 11 Low Street houses (now divided into Main Street and Shore Street!) only four are permanently lived in. The rest are holiday houses but proudly belonging to relatives to Coll.
