To Boreray and the Stacs

About 7km to the NE of Hirta lies one of the most dramatic island groups in Scotland: Boreray and the Stacs. MV Cuma now made her way between Boreray and Stac Lee, round Stac an Armin and then round the far side of Boreray before returning to Harris.


These scraps of land way out in the Atlantic form part of the rim of a volcano which was formed as the plates on either side of the Atlantic Ocean began to separate. Here we see Stac Lee, Stac an Armin and Boreray. The St Kildans visited each of these islands, usually in August, to harvest sea birds. They also kept sheep on Boreray. There are no beaches to land and leave a boat. They were dropped off by a boat heaving up and down in the Atlantic swell and had to climb up the steep rocks above.


Stac Lee and Stac an Armin are the two biggest sea stacks in the British Isles.

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The sea cliffs of Hirta

On board the MV Cuma again, we were soon rounding the eastern ramparts of Oisebhal on Hirta. We were bound for Boreray and the stacs and thence to Harris.


The NE coast of Hirta has the highest sea cliffs in the British Isles. Behind the low lying Sgeirnan Sgarbh in the fore ground, rise the cliffs of Conachair 430m.


Looking back, the notched ridge of Dun shelters the Village Bay.


This is the Gap between Oisebhal and Conachair, down which the St Kildans lowered themselves in the hunt for fulmars.


As the Cuma pulled away from Hirta, Soay came into sight behind Mina Stac. Like the St Kildans 78 years previously we were now leaving Hirta. Our acquaintance had been short but nonetheless we knew we were now leaving a very special place in our wake.

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No 3, The Street and the silent poem of the people of St Kilda

It was early June 2008. Leaving the burial ground, I walked slowly back down the village street of empty windows and doors. On the way, I heard a high pitched birdsong and there, jumping in and out of gaps in a blackhouse wall, was a St Kildan wren. This subspecies is a survivor of the pre-Ice Age population of Scottish wrens. The ice sheet, which enveloped Scotland, did not reach as far as St Kilda.

Cheered by the song of this hardy survivor, I continued on my way down the street towards the jetty and our waiting boat. I had nearly passed No. 3 before I realized that it was the museum, devoted the island's last human inhabitants. Looking back at the 19th century buildings, only the distant antennae for the missile tracking system gave hint that this was now the 21st century.


This photo was taken from the same spot in 1886, some 122 years before. It shows members of the Gillies family outside No. 3, The Street.


Inside, the renovated house's two rooms have been converted into a single room museum of island life.


A slate on the wall commemorates former residents of the house. I have already mentioned Malcolm MacDonald, who lived in this house until he left the island in 1924.


Malcolm's father was also called Malcolm MacDonald and this tourist photograph, with the family cow, now hangs in the house he once called home.

After the MacDonalds left, and by 1930, there were only 36 inhabitants left. Their numbers were depleted by emigration, their self sufficiency weakened by age and a succession of poor summers. Finally, they petitioned the British government, asking for evacuation. They left on 27th August and brought thousands of years of occupation and history to an end. Sadly there is no written history and little oral history left by the islanders themselves. Life was too harsh and survival took all their efforts. What we know of them is largely through the cameras and pens of wealthy tourists, who viewed them as curiosities. Despite this lack of island literature, the modern visitor can hardly fail to be moved by a silent poem of the people of St Kilda. You might hear it as you wander through the empty ruins of thousands of years of human survival, on the edge of the world.

By now the increasing wind was sending gusts scudding across the Bay. The MV Cuma was the only boat remaining and we knew Murdani, her skipper, would be anxious to set sail for the shelter of Loch Resort on the distant west coast of Harris. We only had a morning to explore St Kilda. We saw much and learned a great deal about the island and the people who lived there. However, we left feeling we had only scratched the surface of this remarkable island's secrets and past.

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Footnote. The following books have provided the information referred to in these recent pages:

Sir Donald Monro, "A description of the Western Isles of Scotland called Hybrides" 1549,(manuscript published 1774).
Martin Martin, "A late voyage to St. Kilda, the remotest of all the Hebrides, or Western Isles of Scotland", 1698.
Martin Martin, "A description of the Western Islands of Scotland circa 1695", 1703.
Tom Steel, "The life and death of St Kilda", 1975 revised edition 1988.
Alan Small, "A St Kilda Handbook", 1979.
Geoffrey Stell, Mary Garman, " Buildings of St Kilda", 1988.
WR Mitchell, "Finlay MacQueen of St Kilda", 1992.
David Quine, Colin Baxter, "St Kilda", 2002.
Andrew Fleming, "St Kilda and the Wider World", 2005
John Randall et al, "The Decline and Fall of St Kilda: Proceedings of an international conference" 2005.

Life and Death on St Kilda

From the Gap below Oiseval on the NE coast of Hirta I turned my back to the sea and the wheeling fulmars. I made my way back down to the village.


From above I could see that what I had thought was a vegetable enclosure behind the village, is actually the burial ground.


It is the site of the ancient Christ chapel though no trace of it remains.
Photo JLW


Most of the grave stones are rough hewn with no inscription.
Photo JLW


Others are more elaborate and carved from imported stone, a sign that the Victorian St Kildans' contact with tourists had given them access to money.
Photo JLW


Although this was the remotest inhabited part of the British Isles, its very remoteness attracted wealthy Victorian tourists. They have left a photographic record of the islanders from about 1860. This is Rachel Gillies, whose grave stone is in the photo above. This photo is in the island museum.


Some of the gravestones are quite recent. Malcolm MacDonald left the island in 1924 and spent most of his life in London. He always missed the island home of his youth. He visited St Kilda again in 1967 and found it very hard to leave for a second time and return to London.
Photo JLW


His name, and that of his father, is still just legible on the faded pupil roll in the school house.

Malcolm did make one final trip to St Kilda. His ashes were buried next to the remains of his ancestors. It is likely to be one of the last internments on this island, at the edge of the world, which was inhabited for thousands of years but now stands silent, as a museum to the past.

For a moment, as the wind blew round the walls of the burial ground, I thought I could hear distant voices. But it was only the cries of the sea birds and I turned back to the village street.

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130 fulmars per year.

The cliff ledges of Hirta are home to thousands of pairs of fulmars. At one time fulmars were confined to the St Kilda archipelago but since the end of the 19th century they have spread to Scotland and the rest of the British Isles.


This pair are nesting on a bed of sea pink and sea campion but fulmars do not construct a nest for their single egg. They do not begin breeding until they are 8 to 10 years old and can live to over 50.


Superficially fulmars look like gulls but are actually petrels, related to shearwaters and albatrosses. They have a graceful stiff winged flight and glide for long distances skimming the waves with their wingtips. They protect their nests by projectile vomiting a nasty oil.


Fulmars formed a staple of the St Kildans' diet. Each person would eat about 130 fulmars per year. The men scrambled over the crags catching the birds and collecting their eggs. If you follow this link to the Scottish Screen Archive you can see a dizzying clip, shot in 1923, of St Kildans going over the cliffs in search of fulmars at this very spot.

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Between a pox and a hard place on Stac Lee.

From the cliffs on the NE coast of Hirta it is less than 7km across the Atlantic to Boreray and its two satellite stacs. They are Stac Lee and Stac an Armin (in the shade behind). They are the highest stacks in the British Isles. The islanders kept sheep on Boreray and also visited these islands for the sea bird harvest in August. Amazingly there are also about 50 cleitean on Boreray and about 80 on Stac an Armin!

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There were also bothies on all three. The one on Stac Lee can still be found. It is just below the dark "V" under the left of the white stained summit cap of the island. The island and stacs are too exposed to leave a boat, so work parties were dropped off by a boat from Hirta, which would return when a signal indicated the work was done.

In 1729 a smallpox epidemic was started after a St Kildan had died on Harris from smallpox the previous year. As his clothes were still good, they were brought back to St Kilda and the smallpox gripped the population. At the time, three adults and eight boys were marooned on Stac Lee because there were no surviving adults, strong enough to man the boat from Hirta, to rescue them. They remained on this windswept rock for 9 months, through the winter and into the next summer, until the factor's boat from Harris relieved them. When they returned to Hirta, they found only one adult and 18 children had survived the epidemic from the population of nearly 200.

Remarkably St Kilda was repopulated in the 1730's from Harris, Uist and Skye. Life may have been tough on St Kilda but it was even worse for many on these other islands. The incomers were taught how to climb the cliffs and harvest birds by the few survivors. By 1758 the population had risen to 88 but it would never again reach 200. The decline had started.

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A Rock at the Edge of the World: St Kilda

The slope up to the Gap ended abruptly. At my feet the ground fell away into vertiginous nothingness. The cliffs on the north coast of Hirta are the highest sea cliffs in the British Isles. This truly was the edge of the St Kildan's little World but it was upon the cliffs that their survival depended. They harvested eggs and birds, especially young gannets, fulmars and puffins from the huge breeding colonies on the cliffs.

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