The Outer Hebrides or Western Isles, sometimes known as Na h-Innse Gall or the Long Isle/Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. The islands are geographically coextensive with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland. They form part of the archipelago of the Hebrides, separated from the Scottish mainland and from the Inner Hebrides by the waters of the Minch, the Little Minch, and the Sea of the Hebrides. Scottish Gaelic is the predominant spoken language, although in a few areas English speakers form a majority.
The Isle of Lewis (Scottish Gaelic: Eilean Leòdhais or simply Lewis is the northern part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island of the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides archipelago in Scotland. The two parts are frequently referred to as if they were separate islands. The total area of Lewis is 683 square miles.
Ross and Cromarty, sometimes referred to as Ross-shire and Cromartyshire, is a variously defined area in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. There is a registration county and a lieutenancy area in current use, the latter of which is 8,019 square kilometres in extent. Historically there has also been a constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, a local government county, a district of the Highland local government region and a management area of the Highland Council. The local government county is now divided between two local government areas: the Highland area and Na h-Eileanan Siar. Ross and Cromarty border Sutherland to the north and Inverness-shire to the south.
Stornoway is the main town of the Western Isles and the capital of Lewis and Harris in Scotland.
Leverburgh (Scottish Gaelic: An t-Òb is the second largest village, after Tarbert, in Harris in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Leverburgh is within the parish of Harris. In 1971 it had a population of 223.
Back is a district and a village on the east coast of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, situated on a coastal area known as Loch a'Tuath, or Broad Bay. Back is within the parish of Stornoway, and is situated on the B895.
Clan MacNeacail, sometimes known as Clan MacNicol, is a Scottish clan long associated with the Isle of Skye. Tradition states that, early in its history, the clan held the Isle of Lewis, as well as extensive territory on the north-western mainland. The earliest member of the clan on record is one 14th century John "mak Nakyl", who is recorded amongst Edward I of England's powerful West Highland supporters during the Wars of Scottish Independence. John Barbour's 1375 epic, The Brus, suggests that by 1316, the clan had switched allegiance to Robert I, and made a decisive intervention in the new theatre of Anglo-Scottish conflict in Ireland. The marriage of an heiress to the MacLeods of Lewis brought a severe loss of lands and power in the following generation, forcing the clan chiefs to relocate to the surviving estates on Skye. However, the MacNeacails retained local significant influence: serving, according to tradition, as members of the Council of the Lords of the Isles and as custodians of the cathedral church of the Western Isles at Snizort. In the 17th century, members of the clan began to Anglicise their surname from the Scottish Gaelic MacNeacail to various forms, such as Nicolson. Today the English variants of the Gaelic surname are borne by members of the clan as well as members of unrelated Scottish families, including the Lowland Clan Nicolson.
The Napier Commission, officially the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands was a royal commission and public inquiry into the condition of crofters and cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
Aignish is located northwest of Knock and east of Stornoway on the east coast of the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. The township is at the island side of the isthmus connecting to the Eye peninsula. Aignish is within the parish of Stornoway, and is situated on the A866 between Stornoway and Portnaguran.
Lews Castle is a Victorian era castle located west of the town of Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland. It was built in the years 1844–51 as a country house for Sir James Matheson who had bought the whole island a few years previously with his fortune from the Chinese Opium trade. It was designed by the Glasgow architect Charles Wilson.
Gress, a hamlet on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, is adjacent to the larger village of Back. Gress is within the parish of Stornoway. Between 1919 and 1921, Gress – along with nearby Coll and Tong – was the scene of several land raids.
Garynahine is a settlement on Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Garynahine is situated at a T-junction where roads from Stornoway, Uig and the west side of Lewis all meet. The roads are the A858 and the B8011. Garynahine is within the parish of Uig.
Tong is a village on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, 4 miles northeast of the main town of Stornoway on the B895 road to Back and Tolsta. The population of the village is 527. Fishing forms part of the local economy.
The Hebrides were settled early on in the settlement of the British Isles, perhaps as early as the Mesolithic era, around 8500–8250 BC, after the climatic conditions improved enough to sustain human settlement. There are examples of structures possibly dating from up to 3000 BC, the finest example being the standing stones at Callanish, but some archaeologists date the site as Bronze Age. Little is known of the people who settled in the Hebrides but they were likely of the same Celtic stock that had settled in the rest of Scotland. Settlements at Northton, Harris, have both Beaker & Neolithic dwelling houses, the oldest in the Western Isles, attesting to the settlement.
Breacleit is the central village on Great Bernera in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Breaclete is within the parish of Uig. Although the village name comes from a geographical feature rather than a steading it is generally believed to be an ancient settlement. The oldest building in the village is the thatched water mill by the shore of Loch Risay which was restored in the 1990s. It was formerly a tiny crofting and fishing settlement of just 12 crofts surrounding the natural harbour of Loch Beag but crofting has now ceased and holiday homes have taken over. The earliest clearly mapped reference is on Murdoch MacKenzie's first Admiralty chart surveyed in 1748. In 1851 J.M. MacKenzie, the Chamberlain to the estate owner Sir James Matheson, proposed that all the tenants of the village were to be evicted and sent to North America on the emigrant ship the SS Marquis of Stafford. This plan was not fully carried through however but it still had a great effect on the village leaving it with a population of just three families. This population was later supplemented through evictions elsewhere notably the clearances of Hacklete and Barragloum villages in the south of Great Bernera.
The Macaulay family of Uig in Lewis, known in Scottish Gaelic as Clann mhic Amhlaigh, were a small family located around Uig on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. There is no connection between the Macaulays of Lewis and Clan MacAulay which was centred in the Loch Lomond area, bordering the Scottish Highlands and Scottish Lowlands. The Macaulays of Lewis are generally said to be of Norse origin because of the etymology of their surname and also because of the islands' Viking Age past. However, a recent analysis of the Y-DNA of men with Scottish surnames has shown that a large number of Hebridean Macaulays are of Irish origin. In the 17th century, however, tradition gave the Macaulays an Irish origin. By the end of the 16th century the dominant clan on Lewis was Clan Macleod of The Lewes. Other notable Lewis clans were the somewhat smaller Morrisons of Ness and the even less numerous Macaulays of Uig. The Macaulays were centred in the area surrounding Uig on the western coast of Lewis, and had a deadly, long-standing feud with the Morrisons, whose lands were located on the northern coast around Ness. Today the Lewis surname Macaulay is considered to be a sept name of the Macleods of Lewis. There are two other nearby clans of Macaulays who may, or may not, be connected to the Lewis clan—the Wester Ross Macaulays, and the Uist MacAulays.
The Bernera Riot occurred in 1874, on the island of Great Bernera, in Scotland in response to the Highland Clearances. The use of the term 'Bernera Riot' correctly relates to the court case which exposed the maltreatment of the peasant classes in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and exposed the corruption that was inherent in the landowning class. The 'riot' was not fought in the streets or in the fields but in the Scots Lawcourts. It is notable as the first successful legal challenge to nineteenth century Landlordism in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and was the catalyst for future resistance in what became known as the Crofters War. Modern land reform in Scotland has its roots in the outcome of this event.
Lewis and Harris, or Lewis with Harris, is a single Scottish island in the Outer Hebrides, divided by mountains. It is the largest island in Scotland and the third largest in the British Isles, after Great Britain and the island of Ireland, with an area of 841 square miles (2,178 km2), which is approximately 1% of the area of Great Britain. The northern two-thirds is called [the Isle of] Lewis and the southern third [the Isle of] Harris; each is frequently referred to as if it were a separate island.
Lochalsh is a district of mainland Scotland that is currently part of the Highland council area. It is a hilly peninsula that lies between Loch Carron and Loch Alsh. The main settlement is Kyle of Lochalsh, located at the entrance to Loch Alsh, opposite the village of Kyleakin on the adjacent island of Skye. A ferry used to connect the two settlements but was replaced by the Skye Bridge in 1995.
A land raid was a form of political protest in rural Scotland, primarily in the Highlands. Land raiders threatened to seize, or seized, land which they claimed had been unfairly taken from them or their forebears. Landowners, and the law, regarded the protests as a form of squatting.
