A local customs officer estimated about 2,000 cases were taken by islanders, though another source puts the figure higher at 7,000. Official salvage crews recovered most of the cargo. In 1941 the courts tried 32 men, of whom one was found not guilty, nine not proven and others fined or jailed for between 20 days and two months. The hold was destroyed with gelignite in August 1942 to stop further theft. The lost banknotes led to the redesign of Jamaican currency.
The novel Whisky Galore (1947), by Compton Mackenzie, who lived on Barra, and the 1949 film are fiction, based loosely on these events. This record is an event of history, with no supernatural element, and is kept because the wreck is one of the best known stories of the island.
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