Township: Ruaig,Ruaig

Map Reference: Ruaig A

Name Type: agriculture

Meaning: The croft of Donald the son of the clerk of the Sliabh; or Hugh Clark

Other Forms: Croit Dhòmhnaill Chlèirich (MacDougall)- AMcL

Croit Dhòmhnaill Chlèirich an t-Slèibh

Croit Eòghainn Chlèirich (Clark) - AMcL

Related Places:

Information:Eòghann MacArthur from Loch an Air in Caolas was helping Dòmhnall Chlèirich at the harvest. He was related to the family. Suddenly he stood up in the field from working at a stook and a glazed look came over his face. "He's over the side!" he cried. "Oh! They've got a rope on him," and a minute later he shouted, "It's alright! He's safe!" They worked out it must have been one of Donald's sons he was talking about, as he was at sea somewhere in the Mediterranean. One of the men who was working alongside Eòghann that day thought he would put the matter to the test. Without telling anyone he went down to the Scarinish pier the day Donald's son was coming home off the ferry on leave. He took him to one side and asked him what had happened to him on that exact day and that exact time. The man told him that he had been in a bosun's chair over the side of the boat when the knot holding him had slipped and he had fallen into the water while the boat was in the harbour. Luckily he had been seen and a rope had been thrown down to him and he was hauled back on board - Angus MacLean, Scarinish, 2/1996.

Compare this with an older version of the same story in The Gaelic Otherworld, ed Ronald Black, p254:

EVENTS AT A DISTANCE
Some sixty years ago a seer in Ruaig, Tiree (the neighbouring village to the preceding), was one day employed in the harvest-field tying sheaves after the reapers, a work assigned to old people. One of his sons was away in the Ross of Mull for a cargo of peats. All of a sudden the old man cried out: Och! Och! Mo chreach! ''Alas! Alas! My loss!"
His children gathered round him in great anxiety as to the cause of his distress. He told them to wait a minute, and in a short time said it was all right - his son was safe. It turned out that at the very time of his exclamation the boat in which his son was, on its way from the Ross of Mull, was run into by another boat at am Bac Mòr (the Dutchman's Cap, a peculiarly shaped island on the way), and his son was thrown overboard but was rescued in time. The view of this incident which his mystic gift gave the seer was the cause of his exclamation.



Local Form:

Languages : Gaelic

Informants: Angus MacLean, Scarinish, 2/1996 and 3/2010