Highland Clearances - Shiabha

Very difficult to do the 617 format justice on a tiny scan...

Taken at Shiaba on Mull, an abandoned village 'cleared' in the 1840's during the Highland Clearances. It's a beautiful but sad place.
Here's more info:
http://website.lineone.net/~romhc/shiaba.htm
For more info on the Clearances see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances

Photo taken as part of a wider project on Clearance sites, and to be matched with this poem by the poet Iain Crichton Smith.

‘The Clearances’

The thistles climb the thatch. Forever
this sharp scale in our poems,
as also the waste music of the sea.

The stars shine over Sutherland
in a cold ceilidh of their own,
as, in the morning, the silver cane

cropped among corn. We will remember this.
Though hate is evil we cannot
but hope your courtiers heels in hell

and burning: that to hear
the thatch sizzling in tanged smoke
your hot ears slowly learn.