Sula Sgeir

Not to be confused with Sule Skerry.

Sula Sgeir

Scottish Gaelic name	Sula Sgeir or Sùlaisgeir
Old Norse name	Súlasker
Meaning of name	Gannet Skerry
Location
Sula Sgeir Sula Sgeir shown within Scotland
Coordinates	59°5′44.25″N6°9′23.37″W / 59.0956250°N 6.1564917°W / 59.0956250; -6.1564917
Physical geography
Island group	North Atlantic
Area	15 ha [1]
Highest elevation	(Near Sròn na Lice) > 70 m
Administration
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	Scotland
Council area	Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
Demographics
Population	0
References	[2] [3] [4]
Sula Sgeir Lighthouse Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar
Lighthouse and Cairn on Sulasgeir
Coordinates	59°5′37.47″N6°9′31.97″W / 59.0937417°N 6.1588806°W / 59.0937417; -6.1588806
Foundation	concrete base
Construction	metal tower
Height	5 m (16 ft)
Shape	square parallelepiped with lantern
Markings	white tower
Power source	solar power
Operator	Rona and Sula Sgeir National Nature Reserve
Focal height	74 m (243 ft)
Range	11 nmi (20 km) [5]
Characteristic	Fl W 15 s

Sula Sgeir is a small, uninhabited Scottish islet in the North Atlantic, 18 kilometres (9+1⁄2 nautical miles) west of Rona. One of the most remote islands of the British Isles, it lies approximately forty nautical miles (seventy kilometres) north of Lewis and is best known for its population of gannets. It has a narrow elongated shape running north-northeast to south-southwest, and is approximately 900 m long by typically 100 m wide (apart from a central headland projecting a further 100 m on the easterly side). ^[4]

A ruined stone bothy called Taigh Beannaichte (Blessed House) can be found on the east headland, Sgeir an Teampaill. A small automated lighthouse on the south end at Sròn na Lice is regularly damaged by the huge waves which break over the island during rough North Atlantic storms. Despite this, the island has diverse flora.^{[ citation needed ]}

Etymology

Aerial view of Sula Sgeir

The modern name is from the Old Norse súla, "gannet" and sker, "skerry". ^[3] In the 16th century Dean Munro referred to the island as "Suilskeray". ^[6] Macculloch's 1819 Description refers to "Sulisker", ^[7] an Anglicised spelling that is still occasionally used. ^[8] There is Suleskjer, a skerry in Utsira, Norway which has a name with a similar origin; there is also a Sule Skerry in Orkney.

Geology

The island is made of hard gneiss rock, the summit of a submarine mountain. Erosion causes the bedrock to shear into long flat pieces. The sea has created a series of interconnected sea caves and tunnels throughout the southern part of the island. During big Atlantic storms, waves break right over the top of Sula Sgeir. ^[9]

History

Map of Sula Sgeir.

Saint Brianhuil ^[10] or Brenhilda, the sister of St Ronan of Iona and North Rona, is said to have lived on Sula Sgeir as a recluse. ^[11] She was reportedly found dead in a bothy with a cormorant's nest in her ribcage. ^{[12] [13] [9]} The poets Karla Van Vliet and David Wheatley have written poems about her. ^[14]

Sula Sgeir has a special place in the seafaring history of the men of the Ness district on Lewis. Dean Munro visited the Hebrides in 1549 and his is one of the earliest accounts written about the Western Isles. His description of Sula Sgeir mentions that the men of Ness sailed in their small craft to "fetche hame thair boatful of dry wild fowls with wild fowl fedderi". ^[6] How long before 1549 the Nessmen sailed to Sula Sgeir each year to collect the young gannets for food and feathers is not known, but it may be assumed that it was a tradition for centuries. That tradition is still carried on today. A 1797 census report written by the Reverend Donald McDonald states:

"There is in Ness a most venturous set of people who for a few years back, at the hazard of their lives, went there in an open six-oared boat without even the aid of a compass." ^{[15] [9]}

The flesh of the young gannet or guga is regarded as a delicacy in Ness today though, for others, it is an acquired taste. It was a popular meat in earlier times in Scotland. In the sixteenth century it was served at the tables of Scots kings and was a favourite with the wealthy as a ’whet’ or appetizer before main meals. In the autumn of each year, a group of 10 Nessmen set sail for Sula Sgeir to kill a maximum of 2,000 young birds. They set up residence for about two weeks in stone bothys. Working in pairs, the men take the fledglings from their nests with poles, catching them around the neck with a rope noose, then killing the birds with a blow to the head. They bring home their catch to meet an eager crowd of customers. The demand is often so great that the birds have to be rationed out to ensure that each person does not go without a taste of guga. In 2009, a single guga fetched £16. ^[16] 1953 saw the last journey under sail for the guga hunt, thereafter a fishing trawler was used, although it was still a five-hour trip. ^[9]

The Sula Sgeir hunt, which would otherwise be illegal under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, receives an annual licence from the government, which allows it to continue. Scottish Natural Heritage, which is now responsible for granting the licence, states that the hunt is sustainable, although it has been criticised by animal welfare groups. The Scottish SPCA describes it as "barbaric and inhumane" and believes it causes unnecessary suffering to the birds, with many taking several blows to be killed. ^{[17] [18]}

Sula Sgeir, with North Rona, historically formed part of the Barvas estate on Lewis, but a community buy-out of the estate from the Duckworth family in 2016 did not include the two islands, which would apparently have increased the purchase price by £80,000. ^[19]

Fauna

There are some 5,000 breeding pairs of gannets on Sula Sgeir, which they share with other bird species such as black-legged kittiwakes, common guillemots, puffins, northern fulmars and in the summers of 2005 to 2007 a Black-browed Albatross was resident in the gannet colony. ^{[20] [9]}

Together with North Rona, Sula Sgeir was formerly a national nature reserve because of its importance for birdlife and grey seal breeding. It remains a protected area for nature and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Protection Area.^{[ citation needed ]}

Media and the arts

Sula Sgeir Lighthouse stands on the south-west part of the island.

• In 2009, director Mike Day sailed with the guga hunters to Sula Sgeir and filmed on the island over a 10-day period. The resulting film was commissioned by BBC Scotland and broadcast in January 2010. ^{[21] [22]}
• Scottish writer Peter May uses the setting of Sula Sgeir describing the annual expedition in his crime story The Blackhouse in 2011 (first published in a French translation in 2009). ^[23]
• Robert Macfarlane describes the hunt at Sula Sgeir in his book The Old Ways: A Journey On Foot. He does not participate in the hunt, but circumnavigates the rock in a small craft at the same time as the arrival of the hunters. ^[24]
• In 2018, BBC Alba aired Sulasgeir: An t-Sealg/The Hunt, a Gaelic-language documentary about the traditional annual guga hunt held on Sulasgeir by members of the community of Ness on Lewis. ^[25]

See also

• North Rona
• List of outlying islands of Scotland
• List of lighthouses in Scotland
• List of Northern Lighthouse Board lighthouses
• List of Important Bird Areas in the United Kingdom

Notes

1. A figure of 1.244 km² for the land area of Rona and Sula Sgeir is provided by Wood, L. J. (2007). MPA Global "Rona and Sula Sgeir" mpaglobal.org. Retrieved 8 September 2009. Haswell Smith (2004) p. 326 gives 109 ha for North Rona. Sula Sgeir is therefore c. 15.4 ha.
2. General Register Office for Scotland (28 November 2003) Scotland's Census 2001 – Occasional Paper No 10: Statistics for Inhabited Islands . Retrieved 26 February 2012.
3. Haswell-Smith (2004) p. 315
4. Ordnance Survey. OS Maps Online (Map). 1:25,000. Leisure.
5. "Sula Sgeir Lighthouse". World of Lighthouses. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
6. Monro (1549) "Suilskeray" no. 162
7. Macculloch (1819) p. 204.
8. Scoresby (2009) p. 67
9. Macfarlane, Robert (2013). The Old Ways. London: Penguin Books. pp. 120–123. ISBN   978-0-141-03058-6.
10. "Saint Ronan's Dick Harris". saintronans.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2023.
11. "Saint Ronan's Dick Harris". saintronans.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2023.
12. Harvie-Brown, J. A. & T.E. Buckley (1889). A Vertebrate Fauna of the Outer Hebrides. David Douglas. Edinburgh. p. XLVI.
13. "Poem of the week: St Brenhilda on Sula Sgeir by David Wheatley". The Guardian. 13 December 2010.
14. "Poem of the week: St Brenhilda on Sula Sgeir by David Wheatley | Poetry | The Guardian". theguardian.com. Retrieved 22 March 2023.
15. Statistical Account of Scotland. Edinburgh. 1797. pp. 271–272.
16. Culture Hebrides: Guga by Scott Hatton Archived 20 December 2009 at the Wayback Machine
17. First catch your gannet... then prepare for a challenge to nose and tastebuds, theguardian.com, 31 January 2006.
18. Cliffhanger for a bloody tradition as last of Scotland's gannet hunters set sail, theguardian.com, 25 August 2010.
19. David Kerr, Community buy £700,000 Western Isles estate, PressandJournal.co.uk, 17 April 2016.
20. BBC News (9 May 2007) No romance for lovesick albatross Retrieved 29 June 2007.
21. "The Guga Hunters of Ness: creating the programme". www.bbc.co.uk. 19 January 2011.
22. "The Guga Hunters of Ness". 24 November 2010. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
23. "The Blackhouse by Peter May". Undiscovered Scotland. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
24. Macfarlane, Robert (2012). The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot. Hamish Hamilton. p. 136. [W]e saw the guga men standing on the steep rock that slopes to the landing point. [...] They looked out at us, unsmiling. [...] They knew the boat, and they knew Ian [Macfarlane's captain], but the implication was clear enough: Keep away, this is our day, our rock.
25. "Sulasgeir: An T-Sealg/The Hunt" . Retrieved 16 March 2018.

References

• Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN   978-1-84195-454-7.
• Macculloch, John (1819) A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, Including the Isle of Man. Constable.
• Macculloch, John (1824) The highlands and western isles of Scotland, in letters to Sir Walter Scott. Longman.
• Monro, Sir Donald (1549) Description of the Western Isles of Scotland . William Auld. Edinburgh - 1774 edition.
• Scoresby, William (2009). The Arctic Whaling Journals of William Scoresby the Younger. Ashgate Publishing.

Further reading

• Atkinson, Robert (1995). Island going. Birlinn. ISBN   978-1-874744-31-3.

• Beatty, John; Brian Jackman (1992). Sula: Seabird Hunters of Lewis. Michael Joseph. ISBN   978-0-7181-3634-5.

• Murray, Donald S. (2008). The Guga Hunters. Birlinn. ISBN   978-1-84158-684-7.

External links

• News article on 1912 journey (via Archive.org)
• Charles Tait Photographs of Sula Sgeir
• Guga Hunters