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A memorial for the Flannan Isles lighthouse keepers has been unveiled.

The three keepers at the islands off Lewis vanished without trace in December 1900, a mystery which has intrigued many over the past 117 years.

The lighthouse keepers - James Ducat, Thomas Marshall, and Donald Macarthur from Breasclete - are thought to have been overwhelmed by wild weather.

When off duty the keepers lived with their families in Cnoc Mòr in Breasclete where the local community commissioned the memorial.

Designer James Crawford created a bronze wave sweeping over a sandstone lighthouse sitting on a Lewisian gneiss boulder.

Christina Maclean, a cousin of Donald Macarthur, one of the men tragically lost, unveiled the memorial located by Tigh na Mara on the village shoreline where the lighthouse ship would transport the keepers to the island.

Mrs Maclean said: “I think people now accept it was an act of providence.

“The sea at the Flannans is unbelievably rough and it would have been bad weather” at the root of the incident.”

Lighthouse tender Hesperus discovered the light unlit on Boxing Day 1900.

A small squad rowed ashore and found the island deserted. The last log entry was from a fortnight earlier on 15 December but there was no trace of the keepers.

The memorial was unveiled by Christina Maclean, a relative of one of the keepers

Flannan Isles memorial marks mystery of vanished lighthouse keepers

25 December 2017