Will’s Residency

“A Part of Who We Are”, a short film.

As someone who usually has to follow a very specific brief given to me by a client, I found the freedom to create something of my own inspired by a museum object or theme a very exciting, but also quite daunting task, especially as there are so many starting points one could choose. Of course the Clearances form a core reason for the museum’s establishment, but after talking to people during my research trips, I felt that any reference to the Clearances in the film would have to be from an alternative perspective than a straightforward historical account. Following my initial visit in April, I spent a week in May having lots of meetings with numerous people who could offer advice on a number of themes that I had identified from the museum ranging from the Clearances, to fishing, emigration, industry and ceilidhs and created a first draft film outline. I realised that the place that kept returning to me in my mind was the ruined village of Poulouriscaig, two miles from Armadale. Poulouriscaig is a coastal resettlement village where people cleared from Strathnaver were moved to and I’d met Chris Mackay, whose people came from there. His wife, Margaret had told me that Poulouriscaig was “famous for its ceilidhs” and that “you could always tell there was a ceilidh in Poulouriscaig because you’d see the lights of the lanterns making their way up the hill”. This image stuck in my mind. What really struck me was that this isolated village: a difficult place to get to, to live in and make a living – created as a result of a forced displacement of people from their ancestral homes - was nevertheless a welcoming place where you could socialise and share language, stories, music and culture. This is when I had the idea for “A Part of Who We Are”: a film that tells the story of Poulouriscaig, its famous ceilidhs – and explores the ongoing role and social tradition of ceilidhs in today’s Mackay Country.