Sraths

Following Prebble's 'Culloden' noticed at reference 1, I have been turning the pages of his 'The Highland Clearances', clearances which started in the aftermath of Culloden and continued for getting on for a hundred years, well into the nineteenth century. Read would be rather too strong a word for this rather stodgy book. Perhaps tastes in such matters have changed.

The economic imperative seems to have been that the rough ground of the Highlands, say pretty much all the land to the north west of Edinburgh and certainly that to the north west of the Great Glen, in so far as it was good for anything, was much better for sheep than it was for people, particularly given the strong demand for both wool and mutton down in the mill towns of the rich south.

And one of the big elements of this, according to Prebble, was the Cheviot breed of sheep from the border country. Far superior to the antique and unimproved sheep of the clans.

So the people had to go, many of them to Canada, in conditions rivalling those of the slave ships before them.

But a big takeaway for me has been the word 'strath'. Lots of the people involved lived in strath something or other, and eventually I realised that this must be a word for the relatively flat lands along the middle stretches of rivers, the stretches between the estuary at the seaside and the glens up in the hills. Middle stretches of relatively good farming land which used, before the coming of the sheep, to support people.

So Strathclyde and Strathspey to name two of the better known. But no Strathfirth, with both Bing and Google making an unusual nil return. And with at least two such, running north, on the screen shot included above. Confused by the presence of a River Strath and a Strathy Point.

According to OED, a Scotch word, similar to but distinct to the various Gaelic words from the far north west, from Wales and from Ireland. To my surprise it gets just a very modest three column inches, with the reel getting two more. I had expected more.

PS: along the way I gave some more thought to Ireland. Why was the evolution of Ireland so different, despite so many similarities? Which prompted thoughts of population, and I wanted to get an analysis giving me the population of the constituent parts of what was the United Kingdom from, say, 1700 to the present. But, for once, the Internet failed me. I was quite unable to find anything of the sort. It was relatively easy to get these populations for individual years, particularly recent years. But a long run of years, something requiring some reasonably serious statistical skills, was not to be had. At least I failed to find one. But for the record, we have in 2016, in round numbers: England 55m, Scotland 5m, Wales 3m, Northern Ireland 2m and Eire 5m. With the two parts of Ireland having been a much larger part of the whole two hundred years ago, but not having grown since, unlike England. With the rounding hiding the fact that Scotland presently has more than half a million more people than Eire. With the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man combined rounding to zero. British Virgin Islands and such like places out of scope. England at the time of the Norman Conquest, maybe 2m. England at 1800, probably 10m. Takeaway: the Internet does not do everything you might want it to do for you.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/05/table-top-sale.html.

Reference 2: http://cheviotsheep.org/.

Reference 3: https://www.cheviotsfromcheviot.co.uk/.