Eigg

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Eigg (Gaelic Eige) is one of the Small Isles, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. It lies to the south of the isle of Skye, and to the north of the Ardnamurchan peninsula. Eigg is 9 kilometres long from north to south, and five kilometres east to west. With an area of twelve square miles, it is the second largest of the Small Isles after Rùm.

After decades of problems with absentee landlords, the island was bought in 1997 by the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust, a partnership between the residents of Eigg, the Highland Council, and the Scottish Wildlife Trust. At the time, the population was around 60; in 2005 it was 87.

The ceremony to mark the handover to community ownership took place a few weeks after the 1997 General Election and was attended by the Scottish Office Minister, Brian Wilson, a long-standing advocate of land reform. He used the occasion to announce the formation of a Community Land Unit within Highlands and Islands Enterprise which would in future support further land buy-outs in the region.

The first major project of the Heritage Trust was An Laimhrig, a new building near the jetty to house the island's shop and Post Office, a tearoom, craft shop, toilet and shower facilities. The next project is to provide a mains electricity grid, powered from renewable sources. At present, individual crofthouses have wind, hydro or diesel generators.

There is a sheltered anchorage for boats at Galmisdale in the south of the island. In 2004 the old jetty was extended to allow a roll-on roll-off ferry to dock. The Caledonian MacBrayne ferry "Loch Nevis" sails a circular route from Mallaig around the four "Small Isles" - Eigg, Canna, Rùm and Muck. There is also a small passenger ferry, the M V Sheerwater which operates between Eigg and Arisaig on the mainland.

The main settlement on Eigg is Cleadale, a fertile coastal plain in the northwest. It is known for its quartz beach, called the "singing sands" on account of the squeaking noise it makes if walked on when dry.

The centre of the island is a moorland plateau, rising to 393 metres at An Sgurr, a dramatic stump of pitchstone, sheer on three sides. Walkers who complete the easy scramble to the top in good weather are rewarded with spectacular views all round, of Mull, Coll, Muck, the Outer Hebrides, Rùm, Skye, and the mountains of Lochaber on the mainland.

[edit] History

Bronze age and iron age inhabitants have left their mark on Eigg. The monastery at Kildonan was founded by an Irish missionary, St. Donnan. He and his monks were massacred in 617 by the local Pictish Queen. In medieval times the island was held by Ranald MacDonald. A lengthy feud with the MacLeods led to the massacre of the island's entire population. They had taken refuge in a cave on the south coast, and they were suffocated by a fire lit at the entrance.

By the nineteenth century, the island had a population of 500, producing potatoes, oats, cattle and kelp. When sheep farming became more profitable than any alternative, land was cleared by compulsory emigration - in 1853 the whole of the village of Gruilin, fourteen families, was forced to leave.

The Scottish geologist and writer Hugh Miller visited the island in the 1840s and wrote a long and detailed account of his explorations in his book The Cruise of the Betsey published in 1858. The book includes a description of his visit to the Cave of Frances (Uamh Fhraing) in which the whole population of the island had been smoked to death by McLeods from Skye some hundred years earlier. Miller was a self-taught geologist; so the book contains detailed observations of the geology of the island, including the Scuir and the singing sands. He describes the islanders of Eigg as "an active, middle-sized race, with well-developed heads, acute intellects, and singularly warm feelings".