Sunset from the Pier
My Grandfather (Allan McIntyre) was born and raised in Portnahaven. I never knew him, he died before I was born. My mother, Margaret McIntyre, married my father Thomas Graham in 1941. She was 39 when she married and I was born in 1946, the second of her two children, the elder being William.
From the age of 8, I was a regular to Portnahaven, usually spending the whole of the school holidays (8 weeks) with my mother’s cousin, Janet McIntyre in the family house, “Sydney” in Queen street.
I suppose the reason for indulging in this nostalgia is the fact that it occurred to me that the one of the constant threads in my life to date has been my association with Islay and in particular Portnahaven.
This is not to say that all my memories are happy ones. As a 12 year old left on his own for eight weeks, sometimes I was very lonely and unhappy. These memories are still vivid and although I have been a regular visitor to Portnahaven for the past 50 years, I cannot lose the melancholy feelings that still linger.
The point is: Most things in life are constantly changing whereas little in Islay changes and it’s appeal for me is that very fact!
Queen Street
Margaret McIntyre
I had an acquaintance who worked on Islay who told me that his workmates described Portnahaven as the place where there were “no clocks” .............. a very accurate description indeed!
Allan & Margaret
McIntyre with
Neily’s son
Allan McIntyre
Click on the Islay lifeboat image to take you to a slideshow of some Portnahaven scenes. These are in .swf format (Macromedia: flash)
Not advisable if you do not have “Broadband”