Eriskay - Outer Hebrides

As a half-day historic paddle, circumnavigation of the Island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides would be hard to better.

Eriskay is the first of those stepping stones leading to the Atlantic exposed greatness of Barra Head. It is poor land, a mile wide at its north end facing across the sound to South Uist, three miles long on its east and west coast and narrowing to a southern point.

We left from the beach Coilleag a’ Phrionsa (Gaelic for the Prince’s cockleshell strand) where on 23 July 1745 Prince Charles Edward Stuart landed from a French warship to launch the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, a rebellion which ended bloodily at Culloden outside Inverness on 16 April 1746, the last major battle fought on British soil, itself followed by the harrowing of the Gaelic Jacobites, collapse of clan society and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s flight across the Little Minch from South Uist to Skye.

Colonel Gordon of Cluny purchased Eriskay together with Barra, Benbecula and South Uist in 1838, allowing some of the crofters evicted from South Uist to settle on Eriskay as the land was considered too barren to support even sheep. It thus remained a haven for oral traditions, Hebridean music, the Catholic faith and the Gaelic language.

On 5 February 1941 at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, the unescorted Harrison line freighter “Politician” foundered in the Sound of Eriskay on its way to America. Its cargo included 246,000 bottles of whisky. Having rescued the crew, the islanders salvaged the whisky with the result that the whole population rapidly became blind drunk, the story immortalised in Compton Mackenzie’s “Whisky Galore”. The book and Ealing Studios film fail to recount the subsequent imprisonment of 19 islanders following their prosecution by Customs & Excise for possession and consumption of un-dutied liquor.

The Island is now joined by causeway to South Uist. We paddled eastwards with the tide through the gap left in the causeway for migrating whales, wondering, were we to encounter a west-going whale, whether under the rules of navigation kayaks give way to whales.

Our trip ended in the island’s pub “Am Politician” which displays a trophy bottle of the salvaged whisky and flies the flag of the Harrison Line. There, with a pint each of Clansman ale, we toasted the memory of Charles Edward Stewart and talked of other islands and future visits

…. and the rest is history.

Peter Hargreaves

9 August 2005