Priest Island (Scottish Gaelic: Eilean a' Chlèirich) is a small, uninhabited island in the Summer Isles off the west coast of Scotland.

Priest Island
Scottish Gaelic nameEilean a' Chlèirich
Meaning of namePriest Island
Location
Priest Island is located in Highland
Priest Island
Priest Island
Priest Island shown within Highland Scotland
OS grid referenceNB925025
Coordinates57°58′N 5°31′W / 57.96°N 5.51°W / 57.96; -5.51
Physical geography
Island groupSummer Isles
Area122 ha
Area rank136= [1]
Highest elevation78 m
Administration
Council areaHighland
CountryScotland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Demographics
Population0[2]
Lymphad
References[3][4]

History

edit

According to the Gazetteer for Scotland the island was an "early Christian retreat" and that it has several stone circles.[5] Haswell-Smith refers to "three prehistoric stone circles" and a "prehistoric stone circle ... beside the burn" that had been dug up and placed there by the naturalist John Harvie Brown.[6]

Harvie Brown visited the island on July 4, 1884, and "saw the remains of old crofts, and a curious and perfect circle of stones, lying flat on their sides with the smaller ends towards a common centre, and sunk flush with the surface of the short green sward". Harvie Brown noted the "highly polished surface of these nine stones when I first saw them in situ .... as if done by human hands (or feet)". On his second visit he found the stones gone, and on his fourth visit, in 1903, he searched for the stones in the surrounding area, collected nine he was fairly sure were the originals, and placed them in a new location but in the original plan. His drawing of the time shows a feature of circa 4 m in diameter. He also noted that there were "at least two, if not more, similar stone circles ... which were not far removed in distance from this principal circle, but these were of smaller dimensions and not formed with so perfectly flat stones".[7]

Frank Fraser Darling, who lived on the island for a while,[8] refers to Harvie Brown seeing "what he thought was a stone circle" and his reconstruction of the feature on an adjacent site: "they lie there still, and as the sheep graze over them, they do not disappear".[9]

Jim Miller and John Bellord, two men on the run from the law, aided and abetted by Geoff Green, hid on Priest Island for nearly a year, from September 1975 until the summer of 1976.[10] Their story made front-page headlines and was the subject of two television documentaries: BBC Everyman: Miller and Bellord, in 1980 and another made by Cineflix, a Canadian film company in 2008.

The 1794 Statistical Account states that "there is a large 'cove' on the south side of Priest Island, said to have been the alternative home of a 'Popish priest'."[8] According to the "Scotland's Places" website (which collates information from various national databases including RCAHMS) this "cove" is probably one of the caves on the island, possibly at NB927016 which "has been divided by a drystone wall from floor to roof with an opening for communication between the two compartments". They note that Fraser Darling found a midden there, although all trace of it has now gone. They make no reference to stone circles.[8]

Geography

edit

Priest Island is the outermost and most exposed of the Summer Isles, lying about 6 km off the west coast of Wester Ross.[11]

Wildlife

edit
 
Priest Island beneath Ben Mor Coigach.

Eilean a' Chleirich is owned and managed as a nature reserve by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. It is a SSSI and a Special Protection Area. Non-avian fauna includes pygmy shrews, otters and grey seals.[5]

Priest Island supports heath communities and a small amount of woodland. Enrichment from salt spray and bird guano enables more species-rich maritime heath and cliff communities to exist around the coast. The island has one of the largest storm petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus) colonies in the UK, together with other breeding seabirds.[11]

In the summer of 1960, a group from an English school studied some of the bird life of the island.[citation needed] Pupils and teachers from Whitgift School in South Croydon spent two weeks on the island with official permission to study and ring some of the birds, such as storm petrels at night time (netting and ringing) and shags on the cliffs in daytime. They took a month's supplies with them, including food, tents and equipment totalling quarter of a ton on a trek cart pulled over from Garve Station.

See also

edit

Notes and references

edit
  1. ^ Area and population ranks: there are c. 300 islands over 20 ha in extent and 93 permanently inhabited islands were listed in the 2011 census.
  2. ^ National Records of Scotland (15 August 2013). "Appendix 2: Population and households on Scotland's Inhabited Islands" (PDF). Statistical Bulletin: 2011 Census: First Results on Population and Household Estimates for Scotland Release 1C (Part Two) (PDF) (Report). SG/2013/126. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
  3. ^ Haswell-Smith (2004) p. 190
  4. ^ Ordnance Survey. OS Maps Online (Map). 1:25,000. Leisure.
  5. ^ a b "Overview for Priest Island". Gazetteer for Scotland. Retrieved 15 December 2007.
  6. ^ Haswell-Smith (2004) pp. 191-92
  7. ^ J A Harvie-Brown and Rev H A Macpherson (1904) A Fauna of the North-West Highlands & Skye.
  8. ^ a b c "Priest Island". Scotland's Places. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  9. ^ Frank Fraser Darling (1940) Island Years.
  10. ^ Daily Express newspaper January 5, 1977. article by chief crime reporter Norman Luck
  11. ^ a b "Priest Island SPA Description". Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Retrieved 15 December 2007.

Further reading

edit

57°57.5′N 5°30′W / 57.9583°N 5.500°W / 57.9583; -5.500