GEORGE  MACKAY  BROWN

Photo Gallery ~ Village of Braal, Sutherland

Mhari Mackay, mother of GMB, was born in 1891 in Braal, Strathy, Sutherland
(locally pronounced and now spelt Brawl) .
Aged 19, she married John Brown from Stromness, Orkney in Strathy in 1910.

She sang as she worked, in a kind of low contented croon . . . perhaps the half-destroyed music of the Celtic bards, and the work-chants, lived on in her.

from  For the Islands I Sing
© Estate GMB 1997

 


Single track road to Braal, Strathy, Sutherland today, with one inhabited croft and the ruins of 5 or 6 others along the old grassy road on the hill in the distance.

 


Remains of the Mackay Croft, Braal, Strathy, Sutherland.
The only remaining inhabited croft in Braal today can be seen 
to the left of the picture.

In that small house and all over the north and west of Scotland, Gaelic was spoken.  

from  For the Islands I Sing
© Estate GMB 1997

 


Interior of Mackay croft, May 2001

. . . parents croft was a ruin, a ruckle of stones on the side of a hill.

from  Andrina
© GMB 1983

 


View from the Mackay croft at Braal

Back to Photo Gallery Index

photographs © Sue Tordoff 2001

|  Site Index  |  Photo Gallery Index  |