Old Photographs Of Isleornsay Isle Of Skye Scotland

Tour Scotland wee travel video of old Scottish photographs of Isleornsay, Scottish Gaelic: Eilean Iarmain, a village lying off the main Armadale to Sleat road on the Isle of Skye, Inner Hebrides. It overlooks, but is not upon, the island of Ornsay. The island itself shelters one of the best natural harbours in southern Skye. The location was exploited from the 18th century or earlier by the MacDonalds who owned this part of Skye. Emigration from the Highlands and Islands was endemic in the 19th century and the company that ran the Isleornsay store, MacDonald and Elder, acted as emigration agents from the early 1800s. In 1822 they advertised that they were able to " to fit out transports for the conveyance of passengers from Inverness and the West Coast of Scotland to the east coast of Canada. " In the 1830s a programme of assisted passages to Australia from the Sleat peninsula was organised. The William Nicol sailed to Sydney from Isleornsay in July 1837 with 322 passengers including 70 families from Sleat. At the time it was reported that so many local people wished to emigrate that the ship could not accommodate all those who wanted to embark. Ornsay was the principal location for the international bestseller, The Ice Twins, by S K Tremayne, published in 2015.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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