North Rona

Etymology

The name "Rona" may come from hraun-øy, Old Norse for "rough island", a combination of ròn and øy, Gaelic and Old Norse for "seal" and "island" respectively, or it may have been named after Saint Ronan. The English language qualifier "North" is sometimes used to distinguish the island from Rona off Skye. In Gaelic it is also known as Rònaigh an Daimh which is literally "Rona of the stag" but may be derived from Rònaigh an Taibh, containing the Norse word tabh, meaning "ocean" and convey the meaning "Rona of the Atlantic".

History

Rona is said to have been the residence of Saint Ronan in the eighth century. A tiny early Christian oratory which may be as early as this date, built of unmortared stone, survives virtually complete on the island - the best preserved structure of this type in Scotland. A number of simple cross-slabs of early medieval date are preserved within the structure, probably the grave-markers of Dark Age monks or hermits from Scotland or Ireland. The island continued to be inhabited until the entire population of thirty died shortly after 1685 after an infestation by rats, probably the black rat (Rattus rattus), which reached the island after a shipwreck. The rats raided the food stocks of barley meal and it is possible the inhabitants starved to death, although plague may have been a contributory factor. This occurred in a year in which it is reported that no further ships reached the isolated island to supply or trade. The rats themselves eventually starved to death, the huge swells the island experiences preventing their hunting along the rocky shores.

It was resettled, but again depopulated by around 1695 in some sort of boating tragedy, after which it remained home to a succession of shepherds and their families. It had a population of nine in 1764.

"On one occasion ... a crew from Ness in Lewis had their boat wrecked in landing at Sula Sgeir in the month of June, and lived on the island for several weeks, sustaining themselves on the flesh of birds. Captain Oliver, who commanded the Revenue cruiser "Prince of Wales," visited Sula Sgeir in the month of August to look for the lost boat. He found the wreck of it, also an oar on end with an old pair of canvas trousers on it, and over the remains of a fire a pot containing birds' flesh; but there being no trace of the men, it was thought they must have been picked up by a passing vessel. Nothing more was heard of them until the month of October following, when a Russian vessel on her homeward voyage met a Stornoway craft in the Orkneys, and informed the crew of the latter that they had taken the men off Sula Sgeir and landed them in Rona. Captain Oliver at once went to Rona, and found the crew consuming the last barrel of potatoes which the poor shepherd had. He took away the former, and left the latter sufficient provision for the winter." Captain Benjamin Oliver commanded the above vessel from 1811 until 1847.

"The last family which lived upon Rona was that of a shepherd named Donald M'Leod, otherwise the "King of Rona," who returned to Lewis in 1844." Sir James Matheson, who bought Lewis in 1844, offered the island to the Government for use as a penal settlement. The offer was refused.

Although farmers from Lewis have continued to graze sheep on Rona ever since, the island has remained uninhabited, apart from one brief and tragic episode in 1884–85. In June 1884, two men from Lewis, Malcolm MacDonald and Murdo Mackay, having reportedly had a dispute with the minister of their local church, went to stay on Rona to look after the sheep. In August, boatmen who had called at the island reported that the men were well and in good spirits, and had refused offers to take them back to Lewis. In April 1885, the next people to visit Rona made a grim discovery: the bodies of the two men from Lewis, who, a post-mortem subsequently showed, had fallen ill and died during the winter.

During World War I, the commander of German U-boat U-90, Walter Remy, stopped his submarine at North Rona during each of his wartime patrols, weather permitting, and sent crewmen onto the island to shoot sheep to obtain mutton for on-board consumption.

The island was occupied temporarily in 1938–39 by author and conservationist Frank Fraser Darling with his wife Bobbie and their son Alasdair, while they studied the grey seals and the breeding seabirds.

The island still boasts the Celtic ruins of St Ronan's Chapel. It is owned by Scottish Natural Heritage, and managed as a nature reserve, for its important grey seal and seabird colonies. These include the European storm-petrel and the larger Leach's storm-petrel, for which North Rona is an important breeding locality. Rona and Sula Sgeir form the most remote and least-visited National Nature Reserve in Britain.

In "Island at the edge of the world", the poet Kathleen Jamie describes a visit to the island, as well as in an essay in her collection Sightlines.

The island hosts an automatic light beacon, remotely monitored by the Northern Lighthouse Board.