about
Fank: Fang (Gaelic): sheepfold; sheep pen; stell; stall; turf stell; bucht; stell enclosure.
Fangan is an ongoing work recording the stone built fanks of Mull, Iona and surrounding islands.
A fank is a structure built of stone in which to pen and handle sheep. The size of a fank often reflects the number of sheep in its hirsel*.
In the 1830s Mull had a population of around 10,000. By the 1880’s it was less than 4,000. What happened in between was a horrific period of great suffering and adversity. The islands experienced several years of potato famine, the collapse of the kelp industry and the Clearances where thousands of men, women and children were removed, often forcibly, from their homes and transported across the world or relocated locally without choice.
I began by photographing a neighbour’s fank. He was retiring, ending a deep family connection with that parcel of land, and who knew what the future for the farm, the fank, the land would be. I took photographs to acknowledge that history. This led me to investigate other stone fanks on the island.
During the process of recording over 50 stone fanks on Mull and surrounding islands, I slowly began to understand the huge changes that these structures marked in the way of life here and realised that they told a story that I felt needed to be heard. These photographs are the beginning of telling that story, of recognising the complex history these fanks represent.
Most of the fanks we see now were built post Clearances when large flocks of sheep were introduced by lairds and landowners. Wool was a valuable commodity.
Before the Clearances householders and cottars would have kept a small number of sheep or goats and cattle, shared common grazing on the hills and worked runrig to grow their crops. They would have only needed a small fank, perhaps a couple of pens like the one at Reudle.
It was common for the stone from nearby empty dwellings to be used in the building of a fank.
At Glencannel, the fank was built on the site of a burial ground and some of the grave stones were used in the fank walls. It is reputed here that it was said ‘there should be nothing left for people to come back to’.
At Kilbeg, the fank is reputed to have been built on the site of a chapel.
Stone fanks still in use on the island: Ensay, Burg (Ardmeanach), Burg (Torloisk), Dhiseig, Glenbyre, Glengorm, Knock, Laggan, Rhaol, Scoor and Traigh na Cille (Torloisk).
*Hirsel – the land grazed by a particular flock of sheep