Aignish Farm Raiders Monument

About

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The residents of Lewis suffered terrible hardships during the Clearances, as crofters and their families were forced from the land their ancestors had farmed for generations in favour of more profitable sheep and cattle farming. The sland’s inhabitants grew increasingly defiant towards an unjust and oppressive system of land ownership resulting in land raids.

On the 9th of January 1888, a large band of men and women from the Point Peninsula seized control of Aignish farm. The government responded by dispatching a band of heavily armed marines to take back control of the farm. 14 raiders were arrested and given jail sentences of up to 18 months.

Despite the short term failure of the raid, by 1905 the incidents at Aignish and many other places across the Highlands and Islands had seen public opinion shift decidedly in favour of the raiders. Aignish was divided by the government into a number of crofts for use by the people of Point, which are still in place to this day. Not all of the raiders lived long enough to see themselves vindicated.

The Aignish Farm Raiders Monument is one of three similar memorial sculptures commemorating the struggles of Hebridean families for land rights in the face of opposition from the government and landowners. There are further memorials at Balallan  and at Gress.

The monument was designed by sculptor Will Maclean and built by with stonemason Jim Crawford in 1995.