This is a past event
A King's Museum lecture given by Jill de Fresnes, from the Royal Commision on the Ancient and Historical Monuments for Scotland (RCAHMS)
Organised as part of the King's Museum lecture series by the Elphinstone Institute. £3 entry payable on the evening.
During the herring season, between April and December, thousands of women – the ‘Clann Nighean an Sgadain’ from the Western Isles, the ‘Herring Quines’ or ‘Fisher Lassies’ from the Northern Isles and East Coast travelled around the coast of Scotland and down to East Anglia, following the herring fishing. When the season was on in particular ports, they could be seen working at long troughs known as farlanes, mostly outdoors and near the piers or herring stations, gutting, salting and packing tonnes of herring into barrels bound for the markets of Russia, Germany or America.
This lecture will incorporate the voices and images of some of the women and men who worked in the herring fishing industry in the first half of the twentieth century.
Dr de Fresnes is editor of ‘The Travels and Travails of the Scots Herring Girls’ and has lived and worked in the fishing community of Mallaig on the North West coast of Scotland for over 20 years. This research focused on the work of women in the fishing communities of Scotland, in particular the Scots Herring Girls. She was particularly interested in using the memories of the women and families of fishing communities around the coast of Scotland, through oral and filmed history and contemporary photographs, and providing the opportunity for those involved in the history to play a part in the documentation of that history. She is currently putting together an exhibition of this work which will incorporate both the visual images and the voices of those involved.
- Speaker
- Jill de Fresnes, RCAHMS
- Hosted by
- Elphinstone Institute
- Venue
- MacRobert Building
- Contact