The Ullapool Herring Boom

Fishing has been a way of life for generations of Scots over the past 250 years and more. Around Scotland’s saltwind swept coastline, thriving ports and village communities grew up from Newhaven on the Forth,Anstruther and Pittenweem along the East Neuk of Fife, north to the rocky cliffs around Aberdeen and Fraserburgh and over to the sheltered harbours of Mallaig, Tarbert and Ullapool of the West Highlands.

The idyllic whitewashed village of Ullapool curves around a natural peninsula on the shores of Loch Broom, where the eponymous sunshine-yellow flowers blossom along the roadside in spring time.

The port was created by the British Fisheries Society in 1788 when fishing became an organised industry at the height of the herring boom. There was no market at the time for fresh fish - herring had to be cured in brine as white herring or smoked as kippers.

The fishermen went to sea while the women – the famous ‘herring girls’ with their fingers wrapped in protective bandages – gutted, split, salted and packed the fish in whisky casks. This was a flourishing time for Ullapool but work was always dependent on the vagaries of weather, sea and fish – perhaps because of over-fishing there were sparse herring catches by the 1840s.

Boom times followed lulls. From the early 20th century it was thriving again with fishing trawlers from Ireland, Germany, Holland, Russia and Eastern Bloc countries roaming the Scottish seas.

The massive Klondykers, fish processing factory cargo ships, were a common sight moored off shore in Loch Broom while lorries lined the harbour wall to export thousands of tons of herring to Continental Europe.

By the 1990s, Klondykers and lorries were declining while local fishermen were turning to mackerel and other shellfish to make a living. The tide had turned.