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Eriskay
Eriskay (Scottish Gaelic: Èirisgeigh), from the Old Norse for "Eric's Isle", is an island and community council area of the Outer Hebrides in northern Scotland with a population of 160. It lies between South Uist and Barra and is connected to South Uist by a causeway which was opened in 2001. In the same year Ceann a' Ghàraidh in Eriskay became the ferry terminal for travelling between South Uist and Barra. The Caledonian MacBrayne vehicular ferry travels between Eriskay and Ardmore in Barra. The crossing takes around 40 minutes.
The island is about 2+1⁄2 by 1+1⁄2 miles or 4 by 2.5 kilometres. The island is also associated with the Eriskay Pony and the Eriskay jersey (made without any seams).
There is a shop in Eriskay, a community centre and a local history museum.
Eriskay is important to the history of the Jacobite rising of 1745. On 2 August 1745 the privateer Du Teillay arrived there and temporarily put Prince Charles Edward Stuart and the Seven Men of Moidart ashore upon the island. The sandy beach where the Prince first set foot upon Scottish soil is still called in his honour Coilleag a' Phrionnsa ("The Cockel Strand of the Prince").
In 1995, a memorial cairn was erected on Eriskay site with an inscription that includes the first stanza of Scottish Gaelic Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair's iconic song-poem Òran Eile don Phrionnsa:
According to the Napier Commission testimony of local resident John McCaskill, the islanders of Eriskay had consisted as recently as the 1830s and '40s of only three families and less than 30 people. They had been radically multiplied, though, during the subsequent phases of the Highland Clearances. The estate Factors, who considered Eriskay "agriculturally worthless", accordingly used the island as a dumping ground for evicted tenants from the many other islands owned by Colonel John Gordon throughout the Sound of Barra and the southern Outer Hebrides. For the most part, however, the newly arrived islanders of Eriskay belonged to the Catholic Church in Scotland and had their family roots in South Uist. Even so, for decades after Catholic Emancipation in 1829, there was still no resident Roman Catholic priest in Eriskay, and the island's population was largely served by visiting priests from St Peter's Roman Catholic Church at Daliburgh, South Uist. Such priests had walk down to "The Priests' Point" along the south coast and kindle a bonfire as a signal for Eriskay fishermen to sail over and ferry them across the Sound of Barra.[citation needed] The first St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church was stated to have been built in 1852, "shortly after the arrival of hundreds of evictees from South Uist and elsewhere. It was no more than a big stone crofthouse, a single-storey rectangle, at first with a thatch and later with a corrugated iron roof." The current St Michael's Roman Catholic Church stands atop Cnoc nan Sgrath, a hill overlooking the main village on Eriskay. It was built with stones and homemade mortar by the local population.(Scottish Gaelic: Maighstir Ailein). The site of the 1852 stone chapel is now marked by a Marian shrine with a statue of Our Lady of Fatima, overlooking the Sound of Barra.[citation needed]
Eriskay is also important to both Christian poetry and Scottish Gaelic literature. In his 19th century iconic song poem Eilein na h-Òige ("Island of the Young"), MacDonald praises the beauty of Eriskay, its wildlife, and the fondness of its people for telling tales from the Fenian Cycle of Celtic mythology inside the ceilidh house. He also commented upon the visits to Eriskay by Saint Columba, Iain Mùideartach (chief of Clanranald), and Prince Charles Edward Stuart.
Eriskay: A Poem of Remote Lives is documentary made in 1934 by early German documentary filmmaker Werner Kissling, was filmed on the island and is comprised 15m 40s of silent, black-and-white footage. An introduction was added and a sound track featuring narration, Scottish traditional music, waulking songs, and recorded conversations in Scottish Gaelic. Kissling's film formed the centre-piece of a "Hebridean Evening", hosted at the Marquess of Londonderry’s London residence, on Tuesday, 30 April 1935, in the presence of the Prince of Wales, Queen Mary of Teck, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Ramsay MacDonald, Macleod of Macleod and Cameron of Lochiel. The funds raised were used to build Eriskay’s first major road, running from the old pier at Na Hann in the north to the harbour at Acairseid in the south. While the roads have long since been upgraded, part of the old road, which is named Rathad Kissling ("Kissling Street") in the filmmaker's honour, still survives near Acairseid.
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Eriskay
Eriskay (Scottish Gaelic: Èirisgeigh), from the Old Norse for "Eric's Isle", is an island and community council area of the Outer Hebrides in northern Scotland with a population of 160. It lies between South Uist and Barra and is connected to South Uist by a causeway which was opened in 2001. In the same year Ceann a' Ghàraidh in Eriskay became the ferry terminal for travelling between South Uist and Barra. The Caledonian MacBrayne vehicular ferry travels between Eriskay and Ardmore in Barra. The crossing takes around 40 minutes.
The island is about 2+1⁄2 by 1+1⁄2 miles or 4 by 2.5 kilometres. The island is also associated with the Eriskay Pony and the Eriskay jersey (made without any seams).
There is a shop in Eriskay, a community centre and a local history museum.
Eriskay is important to the history of the Jacobite rising of 1745. On 2 August 1745 the privateer Du Teillay arrived there and temporarily put Prince Charles Edward Stuart and the Seven Men of Moidart ashore upon the island. The sandy beach where the Prince first set foot upon Scottish soil is still called in his honour Coilleag a' Phrionnsa ("The Cockel Strand of the Prince").
In 1995, a memorial cairn was erected on Eriskay site with an inscription that includes the first stanza of Scottish Gaelic Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair's iconic song-poem Òran Eile don Phrionnsa:
According to the Napier Commission testimony of local resident John McCaskill, the islanders of Eriskay had consisted as recently as the 1830s and '40s of only three families and less than 30 people. They had been radically multiplied, though, during the subsequent phases of the Highland Clearances. The estate Factors, who considered Eriskay "agriculturally worthless", accordingly used the island as a dumping ground for evicted tenants from the many other islands owned by Colonel John Gordon throughout the Sound of Barra and the southern Outer Hebrides. For the most part, however, the newly arrived islanders of Eriskay belonged to the Catholic Church in Scotland and had their family roots in South Uist. Even so, for decades after Catholic Emancipation in 1829, there was still no resident Roman Catholic priest in Eriskay, and the island's population was largely served by visiting priests from St Peter's Roman Catholic Church at Daliburgh, South Uist. Such priests had walk down to "The Priests' Point" along the south coast and kindle a bonfire as a signal for Eriskay fishermen to sail over and ferry them across the Sound of Barra.[citation needed] The first St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church was stated to have been built in 1852, "shortly after the arrival of hundreds of evictees from South Uist and elsewhere. It was no more than a big stone crofthouse, a single-storey rectangle, at first with a thatch and later with a corrugated iron roof." The current St Michael's Roman Catholic Church stands atop Cnoc nan Sgrath, a hill overlooking the main village on Eriskay. It was built with stones and homemade mortar by the local population.(Scottish Gaelic: Maighstir Ailein). The site of the 1852 stone chapel is now marked by a Marian shrine with a statue of Our Lady of Fatima, overlooking the Sound of Barra.[citation needed]
Eriskay is also important to both Christian poetry and Scottish Gaelic literature. In his 19th century iconic song poem Eilein na h-Òige ("Island of the Young"), MacDonald praises the beauty of Eriskay, its wildlife, and the fondness of its people for telling tales from the Fenian Cycle of Celtic mythology inside the ceilidh house. He also commented upon the visits to Eriskay by Saint Columba, Iain Mùideartach (chief of Clanranald), and Prince Charles Edward Stuart.
Eriskay: A Poem of Remote Lives is documentary made in 1934 by early German documentary filmmaker Werner Kissling, was filmed on the island and is comprised 15m 40s of silent, black-and-white footage. An introduction was added and a sound track featuring narration, Scottish traditional music, waulking songs, and recorded conversations in Scottish Gaelic. Kissling's film formed the centre-piece of a "Hebridean Evening", hosted at the Marquess of Londonderry’s London residence, on Tuesday, 30 April 1935, in the presence of the Prince of Wales, Queen Mary of Teck, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Ramsay MacDonald, Macleod of Macleod and Cameron of Lochiel. The funds raised were used to build Eriskay’s first major road, running from the old pier at Na Hann in the north to the harbour at Acairseid in the south. While the roads have long since been upgraded, part of the old road, which is named Rathad Kissling ("Kissling Street") in the filmmaker's honour, still survives near Acairseid.