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The island of Vatersay as well villages at Northbay and Eoligarry on Barra are owned by the Scottish Government.

They are just over a century old and were created after desperate crofters raided land to create crofts suitable for subsistence agriculture.

In 1900 three-quarters of Barra was under the control of just three farmers. The 2000 poverty stricken population was squashed into the remaining 6000 acres of inadequate land mostly rock and peat which was unfit to raise crops.

For five years the government had ignored their pleas for land so islanders rose up and seized Northbay farm. Following the practice of land raiding across the Hebrides they marked out crofts and allocated them by ballot.

The payment of rent for the occupied land did not accommodate the harsh absentee landlord Lady Gordon Cathcart who demanded the forced removal of the raiders. Six months later, however, she struck a deal to sell about 3000 acres at Northbay and Eoligarry to the government which formed nearly 60 crofts across the two villages.

At the same time to the south, people from around Castlebay, Kentangaval and Glen took identical action. They invaded Vatersay that winter by sailing across the strait and pegging out plots. More raids occurred in Spring at planting time with six fishing boats laden with raiders. The government purchased a paltry 60 acres which failed to satisfy islanders.

So in 1906 another raid took place with around 50 men, women and children moving into the 20 house they built. Lady Cathcart refused to accept their rent money and the government could not afford her price to buyout the island. Ten raiders were subsequently sentenced to two months in an Edinburgh jail but planted crops on Vatersay immediately on their early release.

Screaming headlines deploring the crofters’ condition condemned the London government. Within three months it capitulated, paying the extortionate price of £6,250 for the island. It was broken into the existing 58 crofts where some offspring of the raiders still reside.