The Western Isles - The Rough Guide to Scottish Highlands and Islands - page 294

GAELIC IN THE WESTERN ISLES
All Ordnance Survey maps and many road signs are exclusively in Gaelic , a di cult language
to the English-speaker's eye, with complex pronunciation (see p.421), though the English
names sometimes provide a rough guide. If you're driving, it's a good idea to pick up a
bilingual Western Isles map , available at most tourist o ces. We've put the English equivalent
first in the text, with the Gaelic in parentheses.

6 Brief history

The Western Isles were first settled by Neolithic farming peoples around 4000 BC.
They are remembered by scores of remains, from passage graves through to stone circles
- most famously at Callanish (Calanais) on Lewis. Viking colonization gathered pace
from 700 AD onwards - as evidenced by the islands' place names, the majority of
which are of Norse, not Gaelic, origin - and it was only in 1266 that the islands were
returned to the Scottish Crown. James VI (and I of England), a Stuart and a Scot,
though no Gaelic-speaker, was the first to put forward the idea of clearing the
Hebrides, though it wasn't until after the Jacobite uprisings, in which many Highland
clans disastrously backed the wrong side, that the Clearances began in earnest.
The isolation of the Outer Hebrides exposed them to the whims and fancies of
merchants and aristocrats who caught “island fever” and bought them up. From the
mid-eighteenth century onwards, the land and its people have been sold to the highest
bidder. Some proprietors have been well-meaning but insensitive - like Lord Leverhulme ,
who had no time for crofting and wanted to turn Lewis into a centre of the fishing
industry in the 1920s. Others have simply been autocratic, such as Colonel Gordon of
Cluny , who bought Benbecula, South Uist, Eriskay and Barra, and forced the inhabitants
onto ships bound for North America at gunpoint. Almost everywhere crofters were
driven from their ancestral homes, robbing them of their particular sense of place. Today,
memorials and cairns dot the landscape, commemorating the often violent struggle which
accompanied this period.

ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE THE WESTERN ISLES

By plane There are scheduled flights from Glasgow,
Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen to Stornoway on Lewis,
and to Barra and Benbecula. Be warned: weather condi-
tions are notoriously changeable, making flights prone to
delay and even cancellation. On Barra, the plane lands on
the beach, so the timetable is adjusted with the tides.

By ferry CalMac car ferries run daily from Ullapool to
Stornoway; from Uig, on Skye, to Tarbert and Lochmaddy;
and from Oban to South Uist and Barra, via Coll and Tiree
(Thurs only). The timetables quoted in the text are summer
frequencies - check W calmac.co.uk for the latest and
always book ahead.

GETTING AROUND
By car and by ferry A series of causeways makes it
possible to drive from one end of the Western Isles to the
other with just two interruptions - the ferry from Harris to
Berneray, and from Eriskay to Barra. If you're going to take
the ferry, it's advisable to book in advance.

By bus The islands have a decent bus service, though there
are no buses on Sundays.
By bike The wind makes cycling something of a challenge
- head south to north to catch the prevailing wind.

Lewis (Leodhas)
Shaped rather like the top of an ice-cream cone, Lewis is the largest and most populous
of the Western Isles. Nearly half of the island's inhabitants live in the crofting and
fishing villages strung out along the northwest coast, between Callanish (Callanais) and
Port of Ness (Port Nis), in one of the country's most densely populated rural areas. On
this coast you'll also find the best-preserved prehistoric remains - Dun Carloway (Dùn
Charlabhaigh) and the Callanish standing stones - as well as a smattering of ancient