Tour 16/16: Tir nan Og
'The tales are deep, the blood is strong;
and in dreams I behold the Hebrides'
Canadian Boat Song.

Tir nan Og
Main Map

2500 years ago, the Celts were a powerful political and ethnic force in Europe. They battled with the ancient Greeks and Romans, famously involved in the battle of Thermopylae in 279BC and the sack of Rome in 390BC. Their stronghold was the area along the Danube, and the Romans were at first unable to overcome them. They were famously fierce, with a love of fine jewellery, flash clothes and fighting. They feared nothing except the sky falling down, and believed so strongly in an afterlife they would make deals where the debt would be repaid in the hereafter. They spread across Europe, as far as the British Isles. However, they were not as well organised as other races, and slowly declined. When other races, like the Angles from Denmark, Saxons from Germany, and the Normans from France, began to invade Britain, the Celtic British (the Celts in Ireland were called Gaels; those in Britain, British) were left in command only in the less fertile and wilder lands of the west. The Gaels also invaded Britain from Ireland, via the Western Highlands; but eventually even these people were under pressure to give up their culture and way of life to the Victorian orthodoxy, as little as 100 years ago. The last stronghold of the Gaels in Britain became the Western Isles, and the language, Gaelic, threatened to become extinct. Things have slowly changed in recent years, and this small but surprisingly long group of islands, 160 miles from tip to top (the same distance as from London to Crewe), is looking outwards again. Along with the west of Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany in France, this is the last home of a unique and once large and proud culture.

The northernmost island, Lewis, is the largest in Scotland. Here on Lewis, one is struck by two things; the relative density of the population (although sparse, it is better populated than the rest of the Highlands), and the Gaelic language. Roadsigns are in Gaelic, snatches of conversations are in Gaelic - although people always speak English as well. With the Gaelic language comes the old culture of the Highlands, the ancient Irish folk tales, the knowledge of one's own geanology and clan history, and the old fashioned courtesy which people in rural areas have not altogether lost. To the south of Lewis lies Harris, which curiously, is treated as being a seperate island despite sharing the same landmass. Perhaps the high and rough hills bordering Lewis and Harris were a deterrent to the sea-going people of old who colonised these islands.

Stornoway, the only town in the Western Isles, is my least favourite place amongst all those I've visited in Scotland. Perhaps I caught it on a bad week, but I'd recommend getting out into the countryside to see the *real* Western Isles, quite different to Stornoway. Like Harris perhaps, the roughest and most barren part of the Western Isles, and maybe the whole of Scotland, with the bedrock nakedly bursting all too readily through the meagre scraps of covering turf. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, it remains the most scenic area in the whole of the Western Isles, and where Lewis has the prehistoric attractions, Harris has the beaches and the hills. The east coast of Harris is almost a moonscape, where the last roadless village in Britain, Rheinigidale, sat until a road was finally built in 1994. The east is barren (a pattern throughout the Western Isles and the opposite to the mainland) but the west is gentler, and has arguably the best beaches in the whole of Scotland; beaches which in warmer climes would be heavily developed with tourist resorts and attractions. Here it is deserted, for the visitor to enjoy on the occasional warm, still day.

South of Lewis & Harris lie the Uists, a long group of islands (the whole of the western Isles also go by the name of 'Eilean Fhada', or Long Island) connected by causeways. As in Harris, the east coast is rocky, mountainous, and largely uninhabited, while the west is one long beach, open to the full Atlantic rollers. The beaches in the Western Isles - beautiful, pristine, and totally undeveloped and empty - are easily the best in Britain, where on warm summer days it is not too hard - if a little cold and dangerous - to fantasise about uninhabited desert islands and swim naked in the sea. Wedged between the two coasts sits the machair, a sandy-soiled meadow with a beautiful blooming of sweet smelling wildflowers in early summer. Scotland and all the other islands fill the eastern horizon. The summit of Eaval on North Uist provides perhaps the most extraordinary panorama of all. This hill is hard to reach without a boat, and once on the top, one realises why. The land is pockmarked by more lochans than the eye can count, all packed together so tightly that there is more water than land; and anyone attempting to walk through this maze would deserve a certificate in navigation should they avoid getting lost. Equally, the coastline is so shattered and fragmented, and the sea so choked with little islands and rocks, that it seems more land than sea. All around to the north, south, and east, islands and mountains rise from the sea. Even to the west, the flat oceanic horizon is punctured by the shark tooth outline of St Kilda, the ultimate Scottish island.

The islands of South Uist and Barra are a little more relaxed in attitude than the ones to the north. One finds little shrines with the Virgin Mary on hilltops and roadsides, a sight unknown in the rest of Scotland. This area has had long historic links with Ireland. How? Well, the clans of the Highlands and Islands had various origins. Although everyone with the same surname identifies with the history of the clan chief, it was a common practice in old times for someone to take the surname of the local chieftain, whether they were born with the same name or not. Thus it is not strictly true that every MacDonald, for example, is descended from a distant, semi-legendary warrior; only the clan chief can claim that as fact. These cheiftaincies were founded in various ways; perhaps a grant of land from the king, before law and order was the norm; perhaps taken in battle from another chief; perhaps the only organised or recognised group in the area when central authority became more remote. Generally the first chiefs were Normans, from France; Vikings, from Norway; or Gaels, from Ireland. In Barra, the chieftain was most certainly of Irish origin.

From the summit of Barra, one looks down over the castle in its bay and an archipelago of small islands with gorgeous beaches stretching to the distance. Most of these islands were once inhabited, but no more - except for Vatersay, now connected to Barra by a causeway built to stem depopulation from the island. One of the islands, Mingulay, once lost touch with Barra, and the chief sent a boat to investigate. The people feared the worst, and thought that Mingulay had been struck by the plague raging across Europe at that point. One man got off the boat to investigate. On discovering that his fears were founded, and everyone was dead, he returned and shouted his news to the boatcrew. Frightened of catching anything, they immediately pushed off and wouldn't let the man, a MacPhee, back onto the boat. A year later they returned to pick him up, but until then, the unfortunate castaway had climbed the highest hill on the island and scanned the horizon, looking for a boat to save him. Ever since then, the hill has been called MacPhee's Hill in commemeration of that feat of endurance and survival. Barra is the last and smallest of the major islands in chain of Eilean Fhada, but in some ways it is the most charming of all. The people are friendly and open, and less prone to melancholy than those in the more Protestant north. The island itself is the perfect size for a relaxing short holiday - not too big that you cannot see it all, but not so small that it becomes claustrophobic. Kissimul Castle, perched on a rocky islet in Castlebay, is probably the most picturesquely situated castle in all Scotland - and there is some competition in that regard. And, uniquely (in Europe and perhaps further afield), the twice-daily scheduled flight from Glasgow lands on the beach - the only airport where opening times are dictated by the tides!

We have travelled the length and breadth of Scotland. I have told you a bit about my country and shown you some pictures. I hope you have enjoyed it. There is one more place to see, a place I have yet to go, the most isolated, mysterious, romantic place in Scotland; St Kilda.

So, farewell kind visitor. I hope you found something of interest and worth in this site. If you did, don't forget to tell your friends. If you think anything should be added or changed, send me a mail! Cheerio, and haste ye back!


Traigh Scarista on Harris

A house in the rough landscape of Harris

The standing stones of Callanish

A traditional house of the Highlands and Islands

A Lewis township

The remains of Dun Carloway broch on Lewis

A typical beach in the Western Isles

The Uists

Looking towards Eaval across the flooded bog of North Uist

Howmore Youth Hostel, South Uist

Windswept islands in the Sound of Harris

Castlebay on Barra

One of the many beautiful and deserted beaches in the Western Isles

The plane lands on Barra

Kissimul Castle in Castlebay harbour
 

Land of the sagas MAIN MAP Home

An t-Eilean Fada: Anyone visiting the Western Isles is recommended to take their time over it. The weather can be harsh, cold, misty and windy, and on such days one wonders what the attraction is. But on a sunny day the wide horizons, superlative beaches, teeming birdlife, friendly natives, and, for the walker, unique hill views of land and water are memorable. One might have to wait a while for those sunny days, but when they come, they are well worth the wait. Islanders know this, and taking one's time has become a way of life. Little is so urgent that it precludes the chance to take time out for a chat with one's neighbour, or offer a stranger a lift. These islands are very religious, especially in the north, and the Sabbath remains a special day, long after the rest of Britain has abandoned rest for DIY centres and amusement parks. One can then see the members of the strict Calvanist Free Church of Scotland walking to church, their all-black attire contrasting in a picturesque manner with their pale skins, pale beaches and green hills. Even those who do not attend church observe the Sabbath, and any stranger out walking on a Sunday will be followed by a blizzard of twitching net curtains and disapproving looks. The southern half of the islands are more relaxed and remain Catholic, one of the last places in Scotland; any other areas where Catholicism thrives tend to be areas which had large numbers of Irish immigrants in the 19thc.

One of the defining characteristics in the recent history of the Western Isles is loss of population. Everywhere there are signs of emigration, or more sadly, seaborne disaster. My own great-grandfather's family is the perfect example. Of eight siblings, all of whom were born in Stornoway, an astonishing six left to wander the globe - for London, Paris, America, South Africa, Australia, and China, with my great-uncle drowning at sea on his return to Scotland to be married. Although Gaelic culture today is becoming less marginalised, one could say that it will not really be safe until the Western Isles show a healthy population increase. Indeed the whole Highlands could benefit from a freedom from centralised bureacracies, which run their remits for the benefits of their majority (i.e. urban) populations. (back)
Lewis: Lewis is largely a flat brown moor of little interest, ringed by an occasionally wonderful coast (most especially at Uig on the west coast). The moor is used for peat, a fuel made from dead compressed plant matter. Because the west of Scotland is so wet, yet also the climate is quite cool, rain does not have the chance to evaporate and forms deep, wet bogs. These bogs are not muddy in the way a dusty track becomes muddy after heavy rain. The peat bogs are so full of water and heavy with undecayed, compressed plant matter that their stickiness and oozieness are unique. I would stick my neck out and say that mud from upland Britain is the finest mud in the world. These peats take a long time to dry out, but once they do, provide a fuel source almost comparable to coal, and far superior to wood.

There are few old houses on Lewis, as until 100 years ago people lived in thatched rubble cottages known as 'tighean dubh' or 'black houses.' Black, because they lacked chimneys, and the fire in the middle of the earthen floor would exit through a simple hole in the roof. It is easy for someone from a recently colonised country like South Africa to imagine people 100 years ago living under very different conditions, but in Europe, where people have been living in towns for centuries, it is mind boggling - indeed, one Swedish archaeologist in the early 20th century described a beehive cell as "the only building I have seen built within living memory to stone-age principles". People today obviously do not want to live in such conditions, and the modern houses, though grey and boxy, are weatherproofed and comfortable. Some of the really old ruins, however, are interesting, and are what should really draw the visitor to Lewis. A small area around East Loch Roag hosts an extraordinary complex of 5000 year old standing stone circles, most of them quite modest except for the famous Callanish, said to be second only to Stonehenge in importance. I have visited Stonehenge, and it was something of a disappointment - crowds and 20thc clutter detract from the monument to make it little more than a showpiece, a magnificent animal caged in a zoo. Callanish, however, enjoys the freedom of its natural environment, and seems all the more impressive for it, especially early or late in the day, when one can be guaranteed solitude. It is made from the local gneiss, the oldest rock in the world, an ancient stone that weathers with a wood-like grain to provide Callanish with its characteristic gnarled appearance. The broch of Dun Carloway is only a few miles from Callanish, and the folk museum at Shawbost showing the very different way of life people had just a hundred or so years ago is nearby. (back)
Ancient Irish Literature: Ancient Irish literature has come down to us in the form of several cycles, the most important of which being the Ulster cycle. This tells the epic story of a war between Irish rulers which started over a dispute about a cow, and introduces the semi-supernatural hero Cuchullain - perhaps not as well known as the more Arthurian Fingal in the Ossianic cycle, but an infinitely stranger, more ancient, and - in terms of literary merit - superior figure. (back)
Barra: It has been said that the most perfect of all Scottish islands, the one with the best blend of size, intimacy, sociability, native culture and natural beauty is Barra. There are arguments about this, of course! The island's airport is unique, and the timetables tide dependent, for the terminal building is a shack by the beach and the runway is the beach itself. Not every plane can land on such a surface, and plans are afoot to build a concrete runway elsewhere. One cannot deny progress of course, but this is one custom so unique it will be a shame when the service ends. The seat of the Clan MacNeill, Kissimul Castle, rises from a rock in a bay, inaccesible except by boat. It was said that the MacNeills were the best boatmen along the whole coast, and they were notorious pirates who terrorised the whole coast as far south as England. The MacNeills, however, felt so secure in their stronghold, reputedly built in 1030, that one chief, on finishing his evening meals, would send his herald up to the castle ramparts and have him proclaim 'The MacNeill, having finished his repast, grants that the Lords and Kings of the World may now dine!'

When Kissimul castle was beseiged one day by other expert seamen, the vikings, the chief was worried as there was not enough food to last a week. Then the kitchen girl had a clever idea - the castle occupants hung a cowhide over the ramparts, dyeing it a different colour each day. The vikings thought they had a whole herd of cattle inside, rather than just one cow, and, being unprepared for a long seige, went home.

Many castles in Scotland have tales like these and more, and, although the castles may be small and often ruinous, an investigation of their history pays dividends. The events often surpass for interest those associated with many far larger and more impressive castles in other countries. (back)
St Kilda: St Kilda is a miniature archipelago 40 miles from the nearest other land in the Western Isles. Everything about it is in superlatives, from the highest seacliffs in Britain, the highest (196m) seastacks, the largest gannet population in the world, the most spectacular scenery. If a child were to draw a craggy, cliff-girt North Atlantic island, it is a fair bet it might look like St Kilda, with its constant cloud of screaming seabirds. Even the story of its colonisation is a fascinating, if possibly mythical, one. The MacLeods and the MacDonalds both claimed uninhabited St Kilda. In order to decide ownership, they had a boat race, the first clan to reach the islands being the winner. They rowed over forty miles of rough sea, and on approaching the island were neck and neck. With just a few yards to go, the MacDonalds pulled ahead, at which point one of the MacLeods chopped his hand off, and threw it onto the beach. It was the first hand to touch St Kilda and the MacLeods won ownership. The people who lived on St Kilda had their own culture. They lived off seabirds and were excellent climbers. An overhanging ledge above a jawdroppingly exposed cliff is known as the 'Lover's Stone.' Any man who wanted to take a wife had to prove his bravery and surefootedness by standing, on one leg, at the very end of this stone, with a 400m drop to the sea, until the elders were satisfied that he had what it would take to provide for a family in such a harsh environment. The ruler of St Kilda was always the oldest woman on the island, and people could be cut off from the outside world for months at a time by fierce winter storms. St Kilda slowly became a tourist attraction, and Victorians arrived by steamboat to gawp at the quaint natives, with a culture as primitive as those in Africa which was being explored at the same time - and Britain was the most advanced nation in the world at that point! The locals became sick of this intrusion, and also realised that the outside world had far more temptations than it previously had; and in 1930, by their own request, the St Kildans were evacuated to the mainland and the island remains uninhabited to this day. St Kilda was the first, and, until recently, the only place in Scotland to be a World Heritage Site. (back)