Taransay

Taransay Gaelic: Tarasaigh
Outer Hebrides (Inverness-shire)
Location
Location:	57°54’-0"N, 7°1’1"W
Grid reference:	NB025013
Area:	3,645 acres
Highest point:	Ben Raah, 876 feet
Data
Population:	Uninhabited since 1974

Taransay is an island of Inverness-shire in the Outer Hebrides. It is a sizable island but has been uninhabited since 1974; indeed Taransay is the largest island in British Isles that lacks a permanent population, two and half acres larger than the nearest challenger, Scarba, which is also uninhabited.

The island had brief fame in 2000 as the site of the British television series Castaway 2000. Now the only people to stay on Taransay are holidaymakers, who may hire one of the shelters built for the series.

The island's name, like those of most of the main isles of the Hebrides, is from the Norse language; Taransey means "Taran's island".

Geography

Map of coastlines

Taransay lies 2 miles from the Isle of Harris, separated by a stretch of sea called the Sound of Taransay. It is part of the Harris parish. Crossings between the two islands are dependent on calm weather and there are no harbours for large boats on either island.

Taransay is 4 miles long, and, at its widest point, 3 miles across, covering over 3,500 acres, or about 5.7 square miles.

Taransay is made up of two 750-foot heather-clad hills connected by a white sandy isthmus in the south of the island. It overlooks the bays of Luskyntyre and Seilibost bay to the east, with the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The bays are bordered with sandy beaches and machair dunes.

The area is mostly gneiss, with granite veins. The highest point of the island is Ben Raah at 876 feet.

Wildlife

The island hosts a variety of birds, but other vertebrate wildlife is limited to Red deer and mice. In 2003/4, the population of American mink on the island were the subject of an eradication programme in order to protect the rare groundnesting birds. Taransay is however, noted for its flora, with an abundance of wild flowers growing on the island's machair grasslands.

History

The beach at Paible

The Isle of Taransay has been inhabited since 300 AD, and probably considerably earlier. Christianity was established on Taransay around 650 AD. In 900 AD, Taransay was taken over by Norsemen when they invaded the isles. Evidence that Vikings settled on the island can be derived from its name, as the word is an Old Norse translation of "the Isle of Taran". The island was most probably named after the Irish Saint Ternan (also known as Taran or Torannan, see also Taranis), although another theory, reported by Saint Adomnan of Iona, suggests that Taran may have been the son of a Noble Pictish family.

In 1544 the Massacre of Taransay took place, committed by the Morrisons of Lewis. Inhabitants from the island of Berneray retaliated against this, forcing the Morrisons to retreat to a rock where they were executed. The rock was later called Sgeir Bhuailte, meaning "smitten rock".

In 1549, Donald Monro wrote of "Tarandsay" that it was:

ane ile of five myle lange, and haffe myle braid, ane rough ile, with certain tounis, weil inhabit and manurit; bot all this fertill is delved with spaides, excepting sa meikell as ane horse pleuch will teill, and zet they have maist abundance of beir, meikel of corn, store, and fishing. It pertains to M'Cloyd of Harrey.

Taransay was once made up of three villages; Raa, Uidh and Paible (Paibeil). Rent increases in 1835 caused a large decrease in the population of Taransay, made worse in 1883 by new orders that cottar households were no longer allowed to keep livestock or grow neither oats nor barley. The island was abandoned in 1942, and then re-inhabited. In 1961 there was only one family of five, the MacRaes living in the village of Paible, who departed in 1974.

Taransay remained uninhabited until 2000 when the island was revived in order to host the television programme Castaway 2000. During the uninhabited years, the island had been used as a sheep-farm, run from the Harris mainland.

The village of Paible had two ancient chapels; the chapel of Saint Taran and the chapel of Saint Keith. The former was used for the burial of women, and the latter for men. A traditional myth on the island suggests that if this was reversed, the dead would rise and the bodies would be disinterred. The remains of Saint Keith's chapel can still be identified on the ground, but the site of Saint Taran's was destroyed by coastal erosion some time in the late 1970s.

Castaway

Taransay became well known following the BBC show Castaway. The show, organised by Lion Television, featured a group of 36 people marooned on the island for a year starting 1 January 2000. Broadcast internationally, the show reached nine million viewers at its peak. The cast was made up of volunteers hand-picked from 4,000 applicants. They lived in temporary accommodation built especially for the show, known as 'pods', which were based in the former village of Paible.

Existing buildings on the island included a Farmhouse, also called the Mackay house and a School Chalet, which were renovated for the show. Since 2004 these have been available as self-catering holiday cottages for tourist use. According to the BBC website, the aim of the project was to "create a new society for the new millennium".

Unlike the original inhabitants of the island, the "castaways" had access to electricity and a water supply, as well as limited modern conveniences. Of the 36 who joined the show, 29 remained on the island for the whole year, including Ben Fogle who went on to be a presenter for a number of BBC shows, including Countryfile. The show was reported to be a social experiment, focusing on how this group would form a community.

The Pods where the "castaways" lived were inhabited for a year on Taransay and then de-constructed, flat packed and moved to number of locations around Scotland including the Isle of Muck and Cove Park Arts Centre on the Rosneath peninsula.

From 2001, when the Castaway show ended, Taransay has been a tourist resort, and the buildings have been let as holiday accommodation.

The Rocket Post

A fictionalised account of a 1934 experiment by German inventor Gerhard Zucker to provide a postal service to the island of Scarp by rocket mail formed the basis of a 2001 film called The Rocket Post, which was filmed on Taransay.

Outside links

• The Isle of Taransay: A Harris island in its historical setting. Lawson, Bill (1997). Bill Lawson Publications. ISBN 1-872598-27-7.
• Information for visitors to the island
• Photos of Taransay

References

• Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 1841954543. 
• Monro, Sir Donald (1549) A Description Of The Western Isles of Scotland. Appin Regiment/Appin Historical Society. Retrieved 3 March 2007. First published in 1774.