Labour shadow minister’s Iolaire connection

A leading Labour politician is visiting the Western Isles for talks on Gaelic broadcasting and to re-establish a family connection to the Iolaire tragedy.

Chris Bryant MP, Labour’s shadow minister for digital industries, is due in Stornoway on Monday for discussions with MG Alba, the provider of the Gaelic television channel, and with independent TV producers.

But the Cardiff-born politician also has a family ties to the islands and the HMY Iolaire tragedy which claimed the lives of 201 servicemen returning to Lewis on New Year’s Eve 1919.

Chris’s great-grand uncle was John Finlay Macleod, the Nessman who managed to swim ashore from the Beasts of Holm and secure a line across which some 40 men were rescued from the floundering ship.

When Mr Bryant was invited to Stornoway by the MG Alba to learn more about the Gaelic TV industry he quickly realised there was an opportunity to explore his Iolaire connection.

Chris said: “I am really looking forward to meeting with the Gaelic TV industry and exploring how a Labour government could help move the channel into the digital realm.

“But I am also very keen to explore the Iolaire story and my own family’s involvement. I’ve read about it but this will be the first time I will have visited the site and met the people.”

Torcuil Crichton, Labour’s candidate for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, will accompany Chris on his visit.

He said: “The first time I met Chris, more than a decade ago, he explained how he had a Torquil in his own family and extensive Scottish connections including a distant relative who swam ashore with a rope from a sinking troop ship at the end of WWI.”

“It could only have been one ship and we quickly established his family connection to Ness, to John Finlay MacLeod and to the Iolaire. It’s quite an incredible story.”

Mr Crichton will take Chris Bryant to the Iolaire memorial site at Holm and also to Sheòl an Iolaire, the tidal sculpture he created in Stornoway harbour with artist Malcolm MacLean to commemorate the tragedy.

Iain Macleod, the grandson of John Finlay, has kept the family tree which verifies the connections.

Iain explained: “Chris’s great grandfather was Rev Donald F Macleod, the elder brother of my grandfather, John Finlay MacLeod.”

“Rev Macleod was minister at Gardner Street Church of Scotland [with a strong Hebridean Gaelic-speaking congregation] in Glasgow until his death in 1923. He married an Applecross lady, Annie Gracie, and they had two children, Katherine and Torquil. Katherine was a GP in Glasgow and Chris Bryant’s grandmother.”

In a dash of extra colour to the Bryant family story Katherine’s husband was Jack Lawson Goodwin who worked in shipbuilding on the Clyde and also played for Rangers FC.

Iain Macleod added: “The couple had two children, John and Anne Goodwin. Anne married a Welshman, Rees Bryant and they had two children, Chris and Rhodri. That’s how Chris and I are related.”

During his visit Mr Bryant is due to attend a Stornoway Historical Society’s monthly lecture in the comhairle chamber in Stornoway where Malcolm MacDonald, the author of “The Darkest Dawn”, the story of the Iolaire tragedy, will give a talk.

The event is open to all and begins at 7pm on Monday in Comhaire nan Eilean Siar council chamber in Stornoway

Labour Shadow Minister’s Iolaire connection

26 November 2023