Islands of lost souls

Scotland has numerous islands. Some of them are inhabited, others are deserted. More than 80 of them used to have inhabitants, but the locals left for several different reasons. Marieke McBean investigates

Scotland’s national tourist organisation, VisitScotland, says there are 790 Scottish islands, whereas Hamish Haswell-Smith, author of the book The Scottish Islands, a Comprehensive Guide to Every Scottish Island says there are 165, but that’s because he only counts islands that are bigger than 40 hectares.

At least 80 islands that are deserted these days, used to have inhabitants. Why did the locals leave, and what makes the islands interesting nowadays? It is impossible to mention all islands here. What we can do instead is stick to a few examples; islands that are all interesting in their own way.

St Kilda is wrongly famous as an island. It is in fact a cluster of islands, and for more than 2,000 years, people have lived on the main island of Hirta.

St Kilda is the remotest part of the British Isles and lies 41 miles west of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides. The island’s remoteness made the St Kildans unaware of many events on the mainland. On one occasion, the minister of Hirta was praying for the health of King William. It turned out he had been praying for the king’s health several months after his death. The minister quickly changed his prayers to ‘his majesty’ and it was only months after that, that he found that Great Britain’s new ‘king’ was Queen Victoria.

St Kilda has always had quite a large population; in 1695 it had about 180 inhabitants and in 1810 it is thought there were as many as 200. The islanders ate mainly seabirds and made a small income by selling f.....

To read the rest of this article you can buy this issue or subscribe to Scotland Magazine to have every issue delivered direct to your door.

By Marieke Smegen

Section : Scottish History

Page number : 60