" Lonely Colonsay - an Island at the Edge " by Kevin Byrne

This is now in stock, was published on 19th July. The price in Colonsay is £17.50 plus postage contribution (£1.50 anywhere within Europe) and R.R.P. elsewhere is to be £35.00. For now, it is only availably directly from this site. An advance copy was submitted for independent review which we hope to receive soon and will publish here.

This is an entirely new guide to Colonsay and Oronsay , the result of years of study, listening to stories and investigation on the ground. It is arranged by geographical area rather than by timeline so that instead of just going from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age etc., it describes an individual area in depth. Thus the reader can read up all about (say) Balnahard one evening, and then spend the following day exploring that specific farm, following a suggested walking route. This book includes references to many historic sites, to genealogical information and to local stories hitherto unpublished. Many unrecorded or "lost" historic sites are identified.

It is anticipated that many readers will be very familiar with Colonsay and Oronsay, and may wish to comment or offer additional information of their own. As has become our practice, we will facilitate such feedback through an on-line Readers' Forum .

Very accurate Ordnance Survey map references are included.

290 pp. with maps plus an extensive photographic section.

Order page is here

" THE BOOK OF ISLAY " facsimile edition

This is an extraordinary book, originally produced in 1895 in a limited edition, copies of which now change hands for many hundreds of pounds. It contains an invaluable introduction, plus 648 pages of main text including Genealogical Tables. The text consists of 259 important source documents, including translations and scholarly notes. The Appendix includes much additional material including early 18th. century Rent Rolls of Islay. It is A4 in size and the reproduction is absolutely superb. For detailed information, please see this page.

Our stock of 250 copies has been selling well - there are now only about 50 copies in hand. We have not had a chance to update the prices to reflect the newly-increased postage charges, so this is still a good time to buy. We will be doing some house-keeping on the site quite soon.

Canada : As mentioned elsewhere, we cannot use normal postal services to send a book of this size to Canada. Instead, we are using a courier service (at £31.00 carriage per copy) but are discounting the cost to some extent.

Everywhere else : If you order direct from our site, we include post and packing without additional charge - see link below.

Purchasing: "The Book of Islay" is on sale here and is also stocked by Roy's "Celtic House" of Bowmore in Islay. It is on special offer at www.amazon.co.uk as well.

Feedback : We have created a Readers' Forum for your feedback. " The Book of Islay " has clearly proved of great interest to Ileachs worldwide, and it seems worthwhile to try to promote exchange of information - so we have established a Forum on this site for that very purpose. It may be that readers know of additional resources that might be of interest to family historians, or perhaps they can supplement some of the material in the book itself. If you have purchased a copy, please use the forum to post an independent review.

IRISH GENEAOLOGY: "The Byrnes and the O'Byrnes" :

Order from this site via Volume 1 or Volume 2 and get them both at 45% discount.

An outstanding piece of work by Daniel Byrne-Rothwell, this book is described in great detail elsewhere on the site. There has been an excellent response from our readers and two additional volumes are now in preparation. The set will become a treasured family heirloom, nothing of this nature exists elsewhere and House of Lochar is proud to have been able to publish it. To purchase the first two volumes, please go to the special order page . If you just need further information, follow the links from here .

Feedback: We have created a Readers' Forum for your feedback.

Special Offers

We continue our "two for the price of one" offer, post-free within the UK. Please note that full details of the books appear elsewhere on the site, but to enjoy the special offer you MUST order direct from this special page .

Tales of Whisky & Smuggling by Stuart McHardy: this has always been a very popular title - see details in our main catalogue. We are delighted to announce that it is readily available once more and is joining our growing list of classic titles which we can ensure will remain in print and available immediately from our own warehouse.

The Railways of Scotland

All five volumes in our classic series are once again available from stock - although they are a series, each one is a stand-alone title in its own right. If you use these lines, or live near them, or have a railway-buff in the family, these books will be of interest:

Volume 1: The West Highland Railway

Volume 2: The Highland Railway

Volume 3: The Great North of Scotland Railway

Volume 4: The Callander & Oban Railway

Volume 5: The Skye Railway

In addition, we have a facsimile edition of a brilliant guidebook:
"Victorian Travel on the West Highland Line"

UNIQUE STUDY OF SCOTLAND'S COUNTER-REFORMATION

So Strange a monster as a Jesuiste-The Society of Jesus in Sixteenth Century Scotland "
by Michael Yellowlees

During the turbulent reigns of Mary Queen of Scotland and James VI, the Jesuits played a significant role in preserving Catholicism in the land of John Knox. This book examines the political and religious aims of the Society of Jesus at this time and, at a human level, tells the story of the small number of young Scots who joined one of the spiritual elites of the Catholic church and were revered or reviled by their countrymen. 1 899863 88 5 £18.99 HB

This magnificent book was well reviewed though briefly in the Catholic Observer and in the Scotsman. More significantly the Catholic Herald devoted nearly half a page to the work and calls it "a pioneer study that clears dense mist from an obscure enterprise".

This site provides completely secure purchasing facilities and our warehouse in Colonsay is devoted to the supply of retail customers, whom we are able to normally supply "post-free" within the UK. Charges to other destinations are calculated by weight - customers may purchase any title with the minimum of fuss. Under "Postage options" simply select your destination (within UK, within Europe or "Rest of the World") and the total price including airmail postage will be clearly indicated.

We have adopted PayPal as our method for secure transactions, which enables us to accept all major cards as well as PayPal itself.  You will find that the facility now exists throughout this site, and is also on our domestic site - Post free purchasing within UK