The Immeasurable Wilds: Travellers to the Far North of Scotland

Fearchair A Ghuna: A Ross-shire Nomad

I recently acquired this CDV photograph of Fearchair A Ghuna ('Farquhar of the Gun'), a well-known figure in 19th century Ross-shire.  The museum in Inverness has supplied a biography of the man online.

Born in 1874 in Strathconon, his family seems to have been quite affluent, some of the wealth coming from smuggling. After several confrontations with excise officers (and perhaps a blow to the head after his employer in Redcastle struck him on finding that Fearchair had let the cattle he was minding stray into a cornfield), Fearchair adopted the life of an eccentric wanderer. The museum describes him as being "dressed in rags, chains and feathers...he carried a large sack on his back." Some of these accessories can be seen in the CDV, though not the sword and pistols that often hung from his belt, nor the huge gun of six barrels, his most prized possession. It was this gun that gave him his name. He apparently could be seen "entertaining crowds with his own humorous version of a prayer."

Fearchair died in 1868, aged 84.