Dundee-born actress cast for Highland Clearances film

Molly O'Brien says she is excited at the prospect of playing the lead in Last Footsteps of Home

An 18-year-old actress has been cast in the lead role in a new short film about the Highland Clearances.

Molly O'Brien will portray Kate McPherson, a young woman who was among 80 people forced off land in Sutherland and emigrated to Canada in the 1800s.

Born in Dundee, O'Brien has had roles in theatre, small films and TV and has worked as a background artist on the Outlander television series.

Filming on Last Footsteps of Home starts in September.

Locations will include Brora, Golspie and the Strath of Kildonan.

Laidhay Croft Museum, which is a 200-year-old thatched longhouse in Dunbeath, will also feature.

One of the film's locations Laidhay Croft Museum is a 200-year-old longhouse

O'Brien, who was brought up in Blairgowrie and now lives in Glasgow, said: "When I first heard about the role of Kate McPherson I was very excited.

"The Highland Clearances is a subject that interests me greatly, especially in the light of the fact that although they took place hundreds of years ago, similar examples of people having to leave their homes and go elsewhere can be seen all over the world today.

"It is a privilege to be involved in a project that is telling Kate McPherson's story in this way.

"She really was an amazing woman - her life inspires me and symbolises the determination of we as Scots in the quest for a better life."

Handmade snowshoes

Starting in the late 18th Century and running into the 19th Century, the Highland Clearances saw townships occupied by generations of families cleared to make way for large-scale sheep farming and the rearing of deer.

Landowners were seeking to "improve" their estates in line with the industrial revolution. Their hope was to make more capital from the land by running shooting estates, or starting industrial-scale livestock farming.

In some cases people who had lived on the land for generations left voluntarily, while others were forcibly evicted and their homes burned and demolished.

Once in Canada, Ms McPherson and the others cleared from Sutherland had to walk 100 miles (161kms) to the colony in wintry conditions in handmade snowshoes.

They were eventually settled in the Red River colony.