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Updated 06/29/2020

 


Tarbert Fair

Tarbert Fair is one of the oldest approved fairs in Tarbert, being held, since 1705, on the last Thursday of July every year. The fair started after the Scottish Parliament passed an “Act in favour of Archibald Mackalester of Tarbert to hold four yearly fairs and a weekly mercat at the Toun of East Tarbert.”

Tarbert is a village in the west of Scotland, in the Argyll and Bute council area. It is built around East Loch Tarbert, an inlet of Loch Fyne, and extends over the isthmus which links the peninsula of Kintyre to Knapdale and West Loch Tarbert.

Tarbert has a long history both as a harbor and as a strategic point guarding access to Kintyre and the Inner Hebrides. The name Tarbert is the anglicized form of the Gaelic word tairbeart, which literally translates as "carrying across" and refers to the narrowest strip of land between two bodies of water over which goods or entire boats can be carried (portage). In past times cargoes were discharged from vessels berthed in one loch, hauled over the isthmus to the other loch, loaded onto vessels berthed there and shipped onward, allowing seafarers to avoid the sail around the Mull of Kintyre.

The annual cattle sale which used to accompany Tarbert Fair is no longer but the shows and amusements that arrive every year keep children bursting with excitement