Portree On HIstory Visit To Isle Of Skye Inner Hebrides Scotland

Tour Scotland very short travel video clip, with Scottish music, of the harbour on ancestry, genealogy, history visit to Portree, Isle of Skye, Inner Hebrides. The current name, Port Rìgh translates as " king's port ", possibly from a visit by King James V of Scotland in 1540. However this etymology has been contested, since James did not arrive in peaceful times. The older name appears to have been Port Ruighe, meaning " slope harbour." Portree is the home of a fictional professional Quidditch team in the Harry Potter universe called the " Pride of Portree. The main street running parallel to the back of the harbour is Bank Street. This is perhaps best known for the Royal Hotel. In an earlier guise, as MacNab's Inn, this was where Bonnie Prince Charlie bade farewell for the last time in 1746 to Flora MacDonald, who had famously conveyed him " Over the Sea to Skye ". Portree saw other sad departures later in the 1700s, when Skye folk, fleeing poverty and overpopulation, boarded ships bound for North America. James Boswell, visiting Skye in 1773 noted: " Last year when the ship sailed from Portree for America the people on shore were almost distracted when they saw their relations go off. This year not a tear is shed. The people on the shore seemed to think they would soon follow. " More would have left had not an unusually enlightened laird, Sir James Macdonald, developed Portree as a fishing port from 1771. From 1826 Portree hosted weekly steamers from West Loch Tarbert via Tobermory, Isleornsay and Kyleakin, while from 1851 the weekly ship between Glasgow and Stornoway called here. In the 1820s Thomas Telford built roads across Skye linking Portree with Uig and Kyleakin. He also built Portree's pier. 1846 brought potato famine to Skye, and during the following fifty years clearance and emigration of a large part of the population, many through Portree, took place. Better times followed, and by 1894 there were daily steamer services to Strome Ferry, and other links to places as far afield as Ullapool, Oban, Lochinver and many ports in the Western Isles. All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

View the most recent Tour Scotland photographs.