Township: Hynish

Map Reference:

Name Type: graveyard

Meaning: See The Burial-Place of the Big Women in Longships on the Sand.

Other Forms:

Related Places: An Cladh Beag

Information:Black, R., The Celtic Otherworld, p511:Footnote 896: ‘The Burial-Place of the Big Women’ is presumably Cladh nam Ban Mòra. It probably refers to nuns – ‘great women’ rather than ‘big women’? Niall M. Brownlie has not heard the name, but tells me that he thinks it may be identified with the Cladh Beag, of which Sands says (1881-82, p. 463): “At Hynish there is a meadow still called the Cladh beag, or little burial ground, where a chapel once stood; but the last farmer was a practical man, and used the church and tombstones to build stables and byres with. A stone with a cross on it is still to be seen forming part of the pavement at the farm-steading. On digging I discovered some of the mortar and stones of this ancient chapel.” ... See also Beveridge 1903, p/ 155; MacDougall and Cameron n.d.m, pp/ 99, 109; RCAHMS 1980, pp/ 135-36; Brownlie 1995, pp. 90-91.)
The Burial Place of the Big Women , Gregorson Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1902, p177

The Gaelic Otherworld, ed Ronald Black, p267:
Stones from a disused burying-ground called ‘the Burial –Place of the Big Women’ on the farm of Heynish in Tiree were used for building one of the farm outhouses. In this house a servant-man from Mull was sent to sleep. Through the night he was disturbed by his dog jumping into bed between him and the wall and, with its fore-feet resting upon his body, snarling fiercely at something he could not see. He heard feeble voices through the house saying, “This is the stone that was at my head.”

Nothing more came of this visit of the spirits than that the Mull man (who was likely the victim of a hoax) positively refused to sleep in that house again.

p511:Footnote 896: ‘The Burial-Place of the Big Women’ is presumably Cladh nam Ban Mòra. It probably refers to nuns – ‘great women’ rather than ‘big women’? Niall M. Brownlie has not heard the name, but tells me that he thinks it may be identified with the Cladh Beag, of which Sands says (1881-82, p. 463): “At Hynish there is a meadow still called the Cladh beag, or little burial ground, where a chapel once stood; but the last farmer was a practical man, and used the church and tombstones to build stables and byres with. A stone with a cross on it is still to be seen forming part of the pavement at the farm-steading. On digging I discovered some of the mortar and stones of this ancient chapel.” ... See also Beveridge 1903, p/ 155; MacDougall and Cameron n.d.m, pp/ 99, 109; RCAHMS 1980, pp/ 135-36; Brownlie 1995, pp. 90-91.

The Burial Place of the Big Women , Gregorson Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1902, p177.

Local Form:

Languages : Gaelic, English

Informants: Rev JG Campbell The Burial Place of the Big Women , Gregorson Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1902, p177