On the face of it there seems little commonality between the period of clearance in the late 18th and first half of the 19th century and population decline in more recent years.

After all a widespread popular view has it that the number of people in the Highlands and Islands fell in earlier times because the population was cleared from the land to make way for large sheep farms.

The Herald: The Emigrants, memorial statue showing evicted Highlander family during Highland clearances at Helmsdale, SutherlandThe Emigrants, memorial statue showing evicted Highlander family during Highland clearances at Helmsdale, Sutherland (Image: Getty)

Eviction on that scale has not been possible since the Crofters Holding Act of 1886 which gave small tenants security of tenure. Therefore any comparisons between the era of clearance and today seem pointless and misconceived.

But the popular view does not convince and is not supported by hard evidence.

Of course, clearance was widespread and caused population movement within and from Scotland.

The Herald: remnants of a clearance village in Sutherland remnants of a clearance village in Sutherland (Image: Getty)

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In my book The Scottish Clearances:A History of the Dispossessed 1600-1900 (Penguin pbk 2019) I argued that much the more fundamental engine of population decline and out-migration in the nineteenth century was the exodus from the Highlands, as elsewhere in rural Scotland, to the towns and cities of the Lowlands, because of the new and massive concentration of urbanisation and industrialisation expanding across the Forth-Clyde valley and beyond.

The Herald: The Hielanman's Umbrella in Glasgow where displaced Highlanders gathered The Hielanman's Umbrella in Glasgow where displaced Highlanders gathered (Image: Newsquest)

Simply put, it was the availability of work, a veritable explosion in job opportunities, coinciding with rising rural population and the the threat of unemployment rather than clearance, which drew people south in ever-increasing numbers.

The old rural-urban migration continues to this day.

That is where commonality exists between past and present, not simply in the Highlands but, with only some exceptions, in the movement from country areas, villages and small towns across Scotland.

Urbanism offers jobs, higher and further education, entertainment, social interaction, leisure facilities and social ‘buzz’.

These have long proved irresistible for generations of young people from country areas not only in Scotland but across the world.