Sula Sgeir

EtymologyEdit

The modern name is from the Old Norse súla, "gannet" and sker, "skerry". In the 16th century Dean Munro referred to the island as "Suilskeray". Macculloch's 1819 Description refers to "Sulisker", an Anglicised spelling that is still occasionally used. A skerry in Utsira, Norway has a name with the same origin, Suleskjer; there is also a Sule Skerry in Orkney.

LegendEdit

St Ronan's sister, Brenhilda, is supposed to have stayed here for some time, leaving him on Rona, only to be found dead in a bothy with a shag’s nest in her ribcage.

HistoryEdit

Sula Sgeir has a special place in the seafaring history of the men of the Ness district on Lewis. Dean Munro visited the Hebrides in 1549 and his is one of the earliest accounts written about the Western Isles. His description of Sula Sgeir mentions that the men of Ness sailed in their small craft to "fetche hame thair boatful of dry wild fowls with wild fowl fedderi". How long before 1549 the Nessmen sailed to Sula Sgeir each year to collect the young gannets for food and feathers is not known, but it may be assumed that it was a tradition for centuries. That tradition is still carried on today. A report written in 1797 says:

"There is in Ness a most venturous set of people who for a few years back, at the hazard of their lives, went there in an open six-oared boat without even the aid of a compass."

The flesh of the young gannet or guga is regarded as a delicacy in Ness today though, for others, it is an acquired taste. It was a popular meat in earlier times in Scotland. In the sixteenth century it was served at the tables of Scots kings and was a favourite with the wealthy as a ’whet’ or appetizer before main meals. In the autumn of each year, a group of 10 Nessmen set sail for Sula Sgeir to kill a maximum of 2,000 young birds. They set up residence for about two weeks in stone bothys. Working in pairs, the men take the fledglings from their nests with poles, catching them around the neck with a rope noose, then killing the birds with a blow to the head. They bring home their catch to meet an eager crowd of customers. The demand is often so great that the birds have to be rationed out to ensure that each person does not go without a taste of guga. In 2009, a single guga fetched £16.

The Sula Sgeir hunt, which would otherwise be illegal under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, receives an annual licence from the government, which allows it to continue. Scottish Natural Heritage, which is now responsible for granting the licence, states that the hunt is sustainable, although it has been criticised by animal welfare groups. The Scottish SPCA describes it as "barbaric and inhumane" and believes it causes unnecessary suffering to the birds, with many taking several blows to be killed.

FaunaEdit

There are some 5,000 breeding pairs of gannets on Sula Sgeir, which they share with other bird species such as black-legged kittiwakes, guillemots, puffins, fulmars and in the summers of 2005 to 2007 a Black-browed Albatross was resident in the gannet colony.

Together with North Rona, Sula Sgeir was declared a national nature reserve in 1956 because of its importance for birdlife and grey seal breeding. The reserve is now managed by Scottish Natural Heritage and is the most remote and least-visited national nature reserve in Britain.

Media and the artsEdit

In 2009 Director Mike Day sailed with the guga hunters to Sula Sgeir and filmed on the island over a 10-day period. The resulting film was commissioned by BBC Scotland and broadcast in January 2010.

Award-winning Scottish writer Peter May uses the setting of Sula Sgeir describing the annual expedition in his crime story "The Blackhouse" in 2011 (first published in a French translation in 2009).

Robert Macfarlane describes the hunt at Sula Sgeir in his book The Old Ways: A Journey On Foot. He does not participate in the hunt, but circumnavigates the rock in a small craft at the same time as the arrival of the hunters: '[W]e saw the guga men standing on the steep rock that slopes to the landing point. [...] They looked out at us, unsmiling. [...] They knew the boat, and they knew Ian [Macfarlane's captain], but the implication was clear enough: Keep away, this is our day, our rock.'

The British band The Old Dance School describe the ancient tradition of gannet hunting that annually takes place on the island in their track "Sula Sgeir" on their 2012 album "Chasing the Light."