Not so blue Skye

Australian travel writer Graham Simmons wanted to see Skye up close and personal. So he and his friends hiked their way around it.

Few places on earth call forth such lyrical longing as the Isle of Skye. The colours of Skye are a total eye-symphony – lime-green moss on weathered black rocks, yellow-dock spikes and red hawthorn berries, and the emerald shades of fir and pine trees over grassy meadows. Sadly, the same cannot always be said for the music of Skye.

In the village square of Portree, “capital” of the island, a lone piper was labouring through an exceedingly mangled repertoire. Among the crowd watching the piper was a kilted skinhead, talking on a mobile phone. The question arose: just where do you hang up your mobile phone when
you're wearing a kilt?

I didn't get to find out, as the band accompanying the piper suddenly struck up yet another butchered “tune”. Nevertheless, it was still possible to feel the music evoking the soft patter of rain on heather, and multicoloured clouds soaring over craggy peaks.

An upbeat air of new-found cultural pride is in evidence all over the Isle of Skye, with close to half the population now speaking Gaelic. The Aros Centre, just out of Portree on a scenic arm of Loch Port Rígh, is dedicated to this full-scale Gaelic revival.

Following a prolonged population decline during the ruthless Clearances of the 1800s, the population of Skye is now rising at a fast rate, for the first time in 150 years, and many island children are being taught Gaelic as a first language. Near Armadale, in the south of the island, a Gaelic language college draws students ...

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• By : Graham Simmons
• In : Travel
• Issue : 13
• Page : 36
• Words : 1,345