From Ninety to None

The 148-acre Isay, in Loch Dunvegan, Skye, was home to 90 residents in 1841 and within 40 years there was none. That's how it is today. It was the scene of a massacre by Roderick MacLeod following a banquet in the early 16th Century, was the topic of banter with Samuel Johnson in 1773, prosperity at the beginning of the 19th Century and then, despite fertile soil, the site of clearances which led to complete depopulation and to the grazing of sheep. The image below is a reminder of the one-time 'street' of 18 cottages and blackhouses.

Scottish Islands Explorer - has thankfully experienced growth