The Western Isles - The Rough Guide to Scottish Highlands and Islands - page 302

a diminutive sixth- or seventh-century cross from the Isle of Rona (see box below),
decorated with a much-eroded nude male figure, and thought by some to have been
St Ronan's gravestone; you can have tea and coffee here too.

Europie (Eoropaidh)
Shortly before you reach Port of Ness, a minor road heads two miles northwest to the
hamlet of EUROPIE (Eoropaidh) - pronounced “Yor-erpee”. By the road junction that
leads to the Butt of Lewis stands the simple stone structure of St Moluag's Church
(Teampull Mholuaidh), amid the runrig fields, now acting as sheep runs. Thought to
date from the twelfth century, when the islands were still under Norse rule, but
restored in 1912 (and now used once a month by the Scottish Episcopal Church for
sung Communion), the church features a strange south chapel with only a squint
window connecting it to the nave. In the late seventeenth century, the traveller Martin
Martin noted: “They all went to church… and then standing silent for a little time, one
of them gave a signal… and immediately all of them went into the fields, where they
fell a drinking their ale and spent the remainder of the night in dancing and singing,
etc.” Church services aren't what they used to be.

6

OFFSHORE ISLANDS
Though three men dwell on Flannan Isle
To keep the lamp alight,
As we steer'd under the lee, we caught
No glimmer through the night. Flannan Isle by Wilfred Wilson Gibson
On December 15, 1900, a passing ship reported that the lighthouse on the Flannan Isles
21 miles west of Aird Uig on Lewis, was not working. The lighthouse had been built the
previous year by the Stevenson family (including the father and grandfather of author Robert
Louis Stevenson). Gibson's poem goes on to recount the arrival of the relief boat from Oban on
Boxing Day, whose crew found no trace of the three keepers. More mysteriously still, a full meal
lay untouched on the table, one chair was knocked over, and only two oilskins were missing.
Subsequent lightkeepers doubtless spent many lonely nights trying in vain to figure out what
happened, until the lighthouse went automatic in 1971.
Equally famous, but for different reasons, is the tiny island of Sula Sgeir , also known as
“The Rock”, 41 miles north of the Butt of Lewis. Every August, the men of Ness (known as
Niseachs) have set sail from Port of Ness to harvest the young gannet or guga that nest in their
thousands high up on the islet's sea cliffs. It's a dangerous activity, but boiled gannet and
potato are a popular Lewis delicacy (the harvest is strictly rationed), and there's no shortage
of volunteers for the annual two-week cull. For the moment, the Niseachs have a licence to
harvest up to two thousand birds, granted by Scottish Natural Heritage who manage the island.
Somewhat incredibly, the island of Rona (sometimes referred to as North Rona), ten miles
east of Sula Sgeir, was inhabited on and off until the nineteenth century, despite being less
than a mile across, with up to thirty inhabitants at one time. The island's St Ronan's Chapel is
one of the oldest Celtic Christian ruins in the country. St Ronan was, according to legend, the
first inhabitant, moving here in the eighth century with his two sisters, Miriceal and Brianuil,
until one day he turned to Brianuil and said, “My dear sister, it is yourself that is handsome,
what beautiful legs you have.” She apparently replied that it was time for her to leave the
island, and made her way to neighbouring Sula Sgeir where she was later found dead with
a shag's nest in her ribcage. The island is now owned by Scottish Natural Heritage and is an
important breeding ground for Leach's storm petrel.
Clearly visible from the ferry to Lewis and Harris, the Shiant Isles ( W shiantisles.net), whose
name translates as “the enchanted islands”, sit in the middle of the Minch, five miles off the east
coast of Lewis. Inhabited on and off until the beginning of the last century, the islands were
bought by the author Compton MacKenzie in 1925, and then sold on to the publisher Nigel
Nicolson, whose family still owns them. The Shiants have wonderful cliffs of fluted basalt
columns that shelter thousands of seabirds, including pu in in the breeding season.