Sula Sgeir

File:Sula Sgeir - geograph.org.uk - 1242208.jpg

The modern name is from the Old Norse súla, "gannet" and sker, "skerry". In the 16th century Dean Munro referred to the island as "Suilskeray".Monro (1549) "Suilskeray" no. 162 Macculloch's 1819 Description refers to "Sulisker",Macculloch (1819) p. 204. an Anglicised spelling that is still occasionally used.Scoresby (2009) p. 67 There is Suleskjer, a skerry in Utsira, Norway which has a name with a similar origin; there is also a Sule Skerry in Orkney.

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.{{cite book |last1=Macfarlane |first1=Robert |title=The Old Ways |date=2013 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=London |isbn=978-0-141-03058-6 |pages=120–123}}

File:Sula sgeir island.jpg

File:North Rona from the Island of Sulasgeir - geograph.org.uk - 1034211.jpg

Saint Brianhuil{{Cite web |title=Saint Ronan's Dick Harris |url=https://saintronans.co.uk/history/whowassaintronan.php |access-date=22 March 2023 |website=saintronans.co.uk}} or Brenhilda, the sister of St Ronan of Iona and North Rona, is said to have lived on Sula Sgeir as a recluse.{{Cite web |title=Saint Ronan's Dick Harris |url=https://saintronans.co.uk/history/whowassaintronan.php |access-date=2023-03-22 |website=saintronans.co.uk}} She was reportedly found dead in a bothy with a cormorant's nest in her ribcage.{{cite book|last=Harvie-Brown|first= J. A. & T.E. Buckley|year=1889|title=A Vertebrate Fauna of the Outer Hebrides|publisher= David Douglas. Edinburgh|page= XLVI}}{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/dec/13/david-wheatley-st-brenhilda-sula-sgeir|title=Poem of the week: St Brenhilda on Sula Sgeir by David Wheatley |newspaper=The Guardian|date=13 December 2010}} The poets Karla Van Vliet and David Wheatley have written poems about her.{{Cite web |title=Poem of the week: St Brenhilda on Sula Sgeir by David Wheatley {{!}} Poetry {{!}} The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/dec/13/david-wheatley-st-brenhilda-sula-sgeir |access-date=22 March 2023|website=theguardian.com}}

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". 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."{{cite book|title=Statistical Account of Scotland|year=1797|location=Edinburgh|pages=271–272|url=http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/sas/sas.asp/?monospace=&twoup=&nohighlight=&account=1&transcript=&session-id=06d5b2ab18650ef83be35da1239f84e2&naecache=15&accountrec=011603&navbar=&action=publicdisplay&parish=Barvas&county=Ross%20and%20Cromarty&pagesize=#pageimage}}

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 sail to Sula Sgeir to kill a maximum of 2,000 young birds.{{cite book | last=Murray | first=Donald S. | title=The Guga Hunters | publisher=Birlinn | publication-place=La Vergne | date=2015 | isbn=978-0-85790-765-3}} 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 kill the birds with a blow to the head. The demand is often so great that the birds have to be rationed. In 2009, a single guga fetched £16.[http://culturehebrides.com/heritage/guga/ Culture Hebrides: Guga by Scott Hatton] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091220235904/http://www.culturehebrides.com/heritage/guga/ |date=20 December 2009 }} 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.

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.[https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jul/31/foodanddrink First catch your gannet... then prepare for a challenge to nose and tastebuds], theguardian.com, 31 January 2006.[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/aug/25/scotland-hebrides-gannet-hunt Cliffhanger for a bloody tradition as last of Scotland's gannet hunters set sail], theguardian.com, 25 August 2010.

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.David Kerr, [https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/islands/western-isles/891141/western-isles-estate-purchased-by-community/ Community buy £700,000 Western Isles estate], PressandJournal.co.uk, 17 April 2016.

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.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/6641021.stm BBC News (9 May 2007) No romance for lovesick albatross] Retrieved 29 June 2007.

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.{{cn|date=February 2024}}

The island has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports breeding populations of several species of seabirds.{{cite web |url= https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/2559 |title=North Rona and Sula Sgeir |author= |date=2024|website= BirdLife Data Zone|publisher= BirdLife International|access-date= 2024-08-28}}

File:Sula Sgeir from the South West.jpg

• In 2009, director Mike Day sailed with the guga hunters to Sula Sgeir and filmed on the island over 10 days. The resulting film was commissioned by BBC Scotland and broadcast in January 2011.{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/nature/the_guga_hunters_of_ness_creating_the_programme.shtml|title=The Guga Hunters of Ness: creating the programme|website=www.bbc.co.uk|date=19 January 2011}}{{cite web|url=https://vimeo.com/ondemand/gugahunters|title=The Guga Hunters of Ness|date=24 November 2010 |access-date=29 March 2019}}
• 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).[http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usreviews/books/quercusblackhouse.html "The Blackhouse by Peter May"]. Undiscovered Scotland. Retrieved 20 August 2014.{{cite book | last=May | first=Peter | title=The Blackhouse | publisher=Quercus Books | publication-place=London | date=2011 | isbn=978-1-84916-386-6}}
• 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.{{cite book|quote=[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.|first=Robert|last=Macfarlane|title=The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot|publisher= Hamish Hamilton|year= 2012|page= 136}}
• 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.{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09jr4ys|title=Sulasgeir: An T-Sealg/The Hunt|access-date= 16 March 2018}}

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

{{Reflist}}

• {{Haswell-Smith}}
• Macculloch, John (1819) [https://archive.org/stream/descriptionofwes01maccrich#page/204/mode/2up A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, Including the Isle of Man]. Constable.
• Macculloch, John (1824) [https://archive.org/stream/highlandswest03macc#page/300/mode/2up The highlands and western isles of Scotland, in letters to Sir Walter Scott]. Longman.
• {{Monro}}
• {{cite book |last=Scoresby |first=William |title =The Arctic Whaling Journals of William Scoresby the Younger |publisher =Ashgate Publishing |date =2009 }}

• {{cite book

| last = Atkinson

| first = Robert

| year = 1995

| title = Island going

| publisher = Birlinn

| isbn = 978-1-874744-31-3

| ref = originally published in 1949

}}

• {{cite book

| last = Beatty

| first = John

| author2 = Brian Jackman

| year = 1992

| title = Sula: Seabird Hunters of Lewis

| publisher = Michael Joseph

| isbn = 978-0-7181-3634-5

}}

• {{cite book

| last = Murray

| first = Donald S.

| year = 2008

| title = The Guga Hunters

| publisher = Birlinn

| isbn = 978-1-84158-684-7

}}

{{Commons category|Sula Sgeir}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20020127155903/http://www.c-e-n.org/sula.htm News article on 1912 journey] (via Archive.org)
• [http://www.charles-tait.co.uk/library/westernisles/outliers/sulasgeir/index.htm Charles Tait Photographs of Sula Sgeir]
• [https://www.vimeo.com/ondemand/gugahunters Guga Hunters]

{{Lewis and Harris}}

{{Lighthouses of the Northern Lighthouse Board}}

{{Authority control | additional=Q29020874}}

Category:Seabird colonies

Category:Important Bird Areas of the Outer Hebrides

Category:Protected areas of the Outer Hebrides

Category:Skerries of Scotland

Category:Uninhabited islands of the Outer Hebrides