Islay is the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Known as "The Queen of the Hebrides", it lies in Argyll and Bute just south west of Jura and around north of the Northern Irish coast. The island's capital is Bowmore where the distinctive round Kilarrow Parish Church and a distillery are located. Port Ellen is the main port.
Islay is the fifth-largest Scottish island and the eighth-largest island of the British Isles, with a total area of almost . There is ample evidence of the prehistoric settlement of Islay and the first written reference may have come in the first century AD. The island had become part of the Gaelic Kingdom of Dál Riata during the Early Middle Ages before being absorbed into the Norse Kingdom of the Isles.
The later medieval period marked a "cultural high point" with the transfer of the Hebrides to the Kingdom of Scotland and the emergence of the Clan Donald Lordship of the Isles, originally centred at Finlaggan. During the 17th century the power of Clan Donald waned, but improvements to agriculture and transport led to a rising population, which peaked in the mid-19th century. This was followed by substantial forced displacements and declining resident numbers.
Today, Islay has over 3,000 inhabitants, and the main commercial activities are agriculture, malt whisky distillation and tourism. The island has a long history of religious observance, and Scottish Gaelic is spoken by about a quarter of the population.Mac an Tàilleir, Iain (2004) (PowerPoint) Linguae Celticae. Retrieved 19 September 2012. Its landscapes have been celebrated through various art forms, and there is a growing interest in renewable energy in the form of wave power. Islay is home to many bird species such as the wintering populations of Greenland white-fronted and barnacle goose, and is a popular destination throughout the year for birdwatchers. The climate is mild and ameliorated by the Gulf Stream.
Name
Islay was probably recorded by Ptolemy as Epidion,Watson (1994) p. 37 the use of the "p" suggesting a Brittonic or Pictish tribal name.Watson (1994) p. 45 In the 7th century Adomnán referred to the island as Ilea,Watson (1994) p. 85-86 and the name occurs in early Irish records as Ile and as Íl in Old Norse. The root is not Gaelic and is of unknown origin.
In 17th-century maps, the spelling appears as "Yla" or "Ila", a form still used in the name of the whisky Caol Ila."Atlas of Scotland 1654 – ILA INSVLA – The Isle of Ila". Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved 20 July 2013."Atlas of Scotland 1654 – IVRA INSVLA – The Isle of Jura". Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved 20 July 2013. In poetic language, Islay is known as Banrìgh Innse Gall, or Banrìgh nan Eilean"Visitors" . Highlands and Islands Airports. Retrieved 22 March 2012. usually translated as "Queen of the Hebrides" and Eilean uaine Ìle – the "green isle of Islay" A native of Islay is called an Ìleach, pronounced .
The obliteration of pre-Norse names is almost total, and placenames on the island are a mixture of Norse and later Gaelic and English influences.
Port Askaig is from the Norse ask-vík, meaning "ash tree bay" and the common suffix -bus is from the Norse bólstaðr, meaning "farm".
Gaelic names, or their anglicised versions such as Ardnave Point, from Àird an Naoimh "height of the saint", are very common.
Several of the villages were developed in the 18th or 19th centuries, and English is a stronger influence in their names as a result. Port Charlotte for example, was named after Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of 5th Duke of Argyll and wife of the island's then-owner, Colonel John Campbell (1770–1809) of Shawfield and Islay.
Geography
Islay is long from north to south and broad. The east coast is rugged and mountainous, rising steeply from the Sound of Islay, the highest peak being Beinn Bheigier, which is a Marilyn at 1,612 feet (491 m). The western peninsulas are separated from the main bulk of the island by the waters of Loch Indaal to the south and Loch Gruinart to the north.Murray (1966) pp. 22–23 The fertile and windswept southwestern arm is called The Rinns, and Ardnave Point is a conspicuous promontory on the northwest coast. The south coast is sheltered from the prevailing winds and, as a result, relatively wooded.Murray (1966) p. 32 The fractal coast has numerous bays and sea lochs, including Loch an t-Sailein, Aros Bay and Claggain Bay. In the far southwest is a rocky and now largely uninhabited peninsula called The Oa, the closest point in the Hebrides to Ireland.Murray (1966) p. 30
The island's population is concentrated mainly in and around the villages of Bowmore and Port Ellen. Other smaller villages include Bridgend, Ballygrant, Port Charlotte, Portnahaven and Port Askaig. The rest of the island is sparsely populated and mainly agricultural. There are several small freshwater lochs in the interior including Loch Finlaggan, Loch Ballygrant, Loch Lossit and Loch Gorm, and numerous burns throughout the island, many of which bear the name "river" despite their small size. The most significant of these are the River Laggan which discharges into the sea at the north end of Laggan Bay, and the River Sorn which, draining Loch Finlaggan, enters the head of Loch Indaal at Bridgend.
There are numerous small uninhabited islands around the coasts, the largest of which are Eilean Mhic Coinnich and Orsay off the Rinns, Nave Island on the northwest coast, Am Fraoch Eilean in the Sound of Islay, and Texa off the south coast.
Geology and geomorphology
The underlying geology of Islay is intricate for such a small area. The deformed Palaeoproterozoic igneous rock of the Rhinns complex is dominated by a coarse-grained gneiss cut by large intrusions of deformed gabbro. Once thought to be part of the Lewisian complex, it lies beneath the Colonsay Group of metasedimentary rocks that forms the bedrock at the northern end of the Rinns. It is a quartz-rich metamorphic marine sandstone that may be unique to Scotland and which is nearly thick. South of Rubh' a' Mhail there are outcrops of quartzite, and a strip of mica schist and limestone cuts across the centre of the island from The Oa to Port Askaig. Further south is a band of metamorphic quartzite and granites, a continuation of the beds that underlie Jura. The geomorphology of these last two zones is dominated by a fold known as the Islay Anticline. To the south is a "shattered coastline" formed from mica schist and hornblende."Islay Geology" . Islay Natural History Trust. Retrieved 18 September 2012. The older Bowmore Group sandstones in the west centre of the island are rich in feldspar and may be of Dalradian origin.Strachan, R. A, Smith, M., Harris, A. L., Fettes, D. J. "The Northern Highland and Grampian Terranes" in
Loch Indaal was formed along a branch of the Great Glen Fault called the Loch Gruinart Fault; its main line passes just to the north of Colonsay. This separates the limestone, igneous intrusions and Bowmore sandstones from the Colonsay Group rocks of the Rhinns. The result is occasional minor earth tremors.
There is a tillite bed near Port Askaig that provides evidence of an ice age in the Precambrian. In comparatively recent times the island was ice-covered during the Pleistocene glaciations save for Beinn Tart a' Mhill on the Rinns, which was a nunatak on the edge of the ice sheet. The complex changes of sea level due to melting ice caps and isostasy since then have left a series of raised beaches around the coast. Throughout much of late prehistory the low-lying land between the Rinns and the rest of the island was flooded, creating two islands.
Climate The influence of the Gulf Stream keeps the climate mild compared to mainland Scotland. Snow is rarely seen at sea level and frosts are light and short-lived."Regional mapped climate averages: W Scotland" . Met office. Retrieved 22 March 2012. However, wind speeds average annually"UK mapped climate averages" . Met office. Retrieved 16 September 2012. and winter gales sweep in off the Atlantic, gusting up to ."Weather" . Islayjura.com. Retrieved 16 September 2012. This can make travelling and living on the island during the winter difficult, while ferry and air links to the mainland can suffer delays. The driest months are April to July and the warmest are May to September, which as a result are the busiest times for tourism. Sunshine hours are typically highest around the coasts, especially to the west.
Prehistory
The earliest settlers on Islay were nomadic hunter-gatherers who first arrived during Upper Palaeolithic to Mesolithic after the retreat of the ice caps at the end of the Last Glacial Period. A flint arrowhead, which was found in a field near Bridgend in 1993 and dates from 10,800 BC, is amongst the earliest evidence of a human presence found so far in Scotland. Stone implements of the Upper Palaeolithic Ahrensburgian culture found at Rubha Port an t-Seilich near Port Askaig by foraging pigs in 2015 probably came from a summer camp used by hunters travelling round the coast in boats.Kennedy, Maev (9 October 2015) "Swine team: pigs help uncover ice age tools on Scottish island" The Guardian. London. Retrieved 11 October 2015."Ice Age tools found on Islay thanks to herd of pigs". (9 October 2015) BBC News Retrieved 11 October 2015. Mesolithic finds have been dated to 7000 BC using radiocarbon dating of shells and debris from kitchen middens.Storrie (1997) p. 28 By the Neolithic, settlements had become more permanent,Storrie (1997) p. 29 allowing for the construction of several communal monuments.
The most spectacular prehistoric structure on the island is Dun Nosebridge. This Iron Age fort occupies a prominent crag and has commanding views of the surrounding landscape. The name's origin is probably a mixture of Gaelic and Old Norse: Dun in the former language means "fort" and knaus-borg in the latter means "fort on the crag". There is no evidence that Islay was ever subject to Roman military control although small numbers of finds such as a coin and a brooch from the third century AD suggest links of some kind with the intermittent Roman presence on the mainland. The ruins of a broch at Dùn Bhoraraic south east of Ballygrant and the remains of numerous Atlantic roundhouses indicate the influences of northern Scotland, where these forms of building originate.Armit, Ian "The Iron Age" in Omand (2006) pp. 52–53 There are also various crannogs on Islay, including sites in Loch Ardnave, Loch Ballygrant and Loch Allallaidh in the south east where a stone causeway leading out to two adjacent islands is visible beneath the surface of the water.
History
Dál Riata By the sixth century AD Islay, along with much of the nearby mainland and adjacent islands, lay within the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata with strong links to Ireland. The widely accepted opinion is that Dál Riata was established by Gaelic migrants from Ulster, displacing a native Brythonic culture (such as the Picts), but some scholars claim that the Gaels in this part of Scotland were indigenous to the area.Woolf (2012) p. 1, referring to Ewan Campbell, Saints and Sea-Kings: the First Kingdom of the Scots, (Edinburgh, 1999) pp. 11–15; "Were the Scots Irish?‟, Antiquity 75 (2001) pp. 285–92. Dál Riata was divided into a small number of regions, each controlled by a particular kin group; according to the Senchus fer n-Alban ("The History of the Men of Scotland"), it was the Cenél nÓengusa for Islay and Jura.