Sarah Egan's Page

The picture from the collection of Uig Historical Society shows a group of sailors aboard HMS Carmania during the Great War.  HMS Carmania was a Cunard liner (built 1905) which was converted into an Armed Merchant Carrier, and later served as a troopship.  In the very early stages of the war, on 14 September 1914, she engaged…See More

When the call for volunteers came in August 1914, a huge number of men from the islands made their way immediately to Stornoway and from there to Kyle of Lochalsh, and eventually to one of the Channel ports. The most pressing military need at the time was for infantrymen, not for ships' crews, so the Naval Reservists found…See More

Seonnaidh Gorabhaig, John Maclean, was born in the tiny village of Ungeshader, Lewis, in 1888. He was unmarried and remained in the family home at No. 3 with his brother Peter ("the Coll") and latterly Peter’s wife Effie. The two brothers built Taigh na Coll themselves in the 1930s, carrying the stone in from half a mile away.Seonnaidh served in the Royal Naval Reserve and was called up in 1914 to join the First Naval Brigade. He was posted to Antwerp and was taken prisoner, a brutal experience…See More

During the Second World War, five Macdonald brothers from the village of Valtos, Uig, Isle of Lewis, served at sea. The five sailors were sons of Donald and Christina Macdonald 22 Valtos.Their mother Christina (nee Maciver), formerly of 25 Valtos, had lost two brothers in the First World War. Norman Maciver serving on a destroyer was swept overboard and lost in 1915 and Murdo Maciver in the Canadian Seaforths was killed in action in France 1916. Donald Macdonald, the father of the five young…See More