21866: Pairc Land Struggle Cairn
The Pairc cairn, built in 1994, is dedicated to the memory of the people of Lochs who laid claim to the dispossessed land of their forebears and challenged the authority of the State to spotlight the poverty and injustice they suffered under the oppression of heartless landlords. It is one of three such memorials in Lewis, designed by Will Maclean and built by Jim Crawford. The others are at Aignish and Gress.
The monument on the hillock overlooking the Lochs road, south of Balallan, is built with stones from the ruined homes of the original land raiders. It has three entrances to an iron staircase that leads to an observation platform.
Signifying the three districts of South Lochs, Kinloch and North Lochs, the entrances are matched by three protruding stones on top of the monument which represents the confrontation at Seaforth Head, the reading of the Riot Act and the encampment.
Angus "Ease" Macleod, Calbost and Marybank, wrote of the memorial:
The 42,000 acre Park Deer Forest still stands there as a reminder of the absurd Highland Landownership system. Almost all of the long-suffering indigenous population was obliged to leave. The land struggle of our ancestors was commemorated in 1994 by raising a memorial in Lewisian gneiss stone just south of Balallan where the North Lochs Park Deer Raid demonstrators left the road and marched into the Deer Forest with pipers at their head in order to announce to the world that they were exasperated and could not take any more. We are immensely proud of the social reforming land struggle of our ancestors and we are sure that it is not in vain.
Detailed papers regarding the establishment of this cairn and the two others are made available online by the Angus Macleod Archive.
Record Location
Details
- Record Type:
- Historical or Archaeological Site
- Type Of Site:
- Cairn
- Period:
- 1994
- Record Maintained by:
- CECL
Related Media
Cuimhneachan nan Gaisgeach
Inscription on Pairc Memorial cairn