Kilmonivaig

Inverness

The Kilmonivaig report in the 1845 Statistical Account, 14, 503 ff, was by Rev John MacIntyre.

'This is the most mountainous parish perhaps in the kingdom .... The length of this parish from south to north is about 60 miles, and its greatest breadth, 20. It is bounded by the parish of Kilmalie [Kilmallie] on the west; by Fortingal on the south-east; by Laggan on the east; by Glenelg and Kintail on the north; and by Boleskine on the north-east.'

'the very locality where the songs of Iain Lom and other Jacobite bards were allowed to leaven the whole mass of society with Jacobite sentiments .... After the Rebellion was suppressed, Charles Edward found shelter for some time in the sequestered glens of this parish, and some of the inhabitants experienced the tender mercies of the Duke of Cumberland.'

'The hills and glens of this parish afford the most excellent pasture for sheep and black-cattle, particularly the former. It is supposed that there are upwards of 100,000 sheep reared in the parish every year. Some of the sheep farms are upwards of 100 square miles in extent.'

'Perhaps there is no part of the Highlands where nature has done more, and landlords so little, for the benefit of the inhabitants, as some parts of the parish of Kilmonivaig. In Glenspean alone, there are upwards of 40,000 acres of excellent soil which, by the application of skill and capital, could be brought into cultivation. Thus, in the course of thirty years, the value of land might be increased tenfold .... Under a proper system of management, the people would have strung inducements to active exertion; and the present practice of spending a great part of their time in idleness, or in balls, raffles, shinty-matches and whisky-shops would disappear. An improved system of husbandry, introduced into Lochaber, would be of signal benefit to a great portion of the Highlands. It would render meal and potatoes plentiful, and keep in the country the money sent out of it every year to procure these necsssaries of life. Great quantities of butcher-meat could be reared, and easily sent to the Glasgow and Liverpool markets by means of the steam-boats. Ireland is not the only country that suffers from the system of middlemen and absenteeism.'

Population

Date	Population
1831	2869
1841	2791
1851	2583
1881	1928

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