Angela Finlayson travels through thousands of years of history in the Western Isles . . .
THE past is never far away in the Outer Hebrides, and nowhere is that more apparent than in South Uist.
The second-largest of the islands in this windswept archipelago, it’s also the wildest and most sparsely populated. Fewer than 2,000 people have their permanent homes here.
History is a living, breathing part of the present in the Western Isles, as you will find out if you fall into conversation with the locals.
Tales of long-gone ancestors, places and events are a natural component of everyday chat and are related with astonishing and vivid attention to detail.
When you take a walk here, you soon discover there truly are stories to be found round every corner.
On a sunny but blustery day, I took the turning for Bornish (Bornais in Gaelic) and parked by the whiteharled St Mary’s Church, which sits right on the edge of the fertile machair land.
Built in 1837, its imposing size reflects the domination of the Roman Catholic faith in the island.
I set off along the well-made track that leads between open fields grazed by cattle and almost immediately found myself catapulted back in time to the era of the Vikings.
Just inside a small gate, an information panel told me that the grassy mounds I was looking at were the remains of one of the largest and most important Norse settlements in Scotland.
It was hard to believe, as flocks of lapwings wheeled overhead, that for around 1,200 years this was a bustling hub of activity with people living, laughing, fighting and farming here from around the second to the 14th centuries AD.
No sooner had I stepped back on to the track than the ruins of Ormacleit Castle appeared in the distance on my right.
Completed in 1708, it was one of the last castles to be built in Scotland and was the seat of Clan Ranald.
Sadly, it burned down just eight years later, allegedly when a kitchen fire preparing roast venison for a f
