Ronald John MacLean MBE, boat building

In 2023 Ronald John MacLean was awarded the MBE for services to traditional boat building and heritage crafts follwing a nomination from Heritage Crafts.

Ronald represents an unbroken line of boat builders who, over 150 years, have provided as many as one thousand workboats to the island communities of the Hebrides. He has preserved an entire style of vernacular boat building (the Grimsay workboat of Scotland) through his craft skills, teaching and interpretation of the tradition. He has designed accredited courses in Traditional Boatbuilding Skills, and with his gifts as a teacher devised a curriculum to transmit the Grimsay boat tradition through Gaelic boatbuilding terminology.