Tanera Mòr

Infobox Scottish island


GridReference=NB992067
celtic name= Tannara Mòr
norse name=
meaning of name= "Harbour island", from Norse
area=310 ha
area rank=86=
highest elevation=Meall Mòr 124 m
Population=5
population rank= 80=
main settlement=
island group= Summer Isles
local authority=Highland
references=General Register Office for Scotland (28 Nov 2003) [http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/publications-and-data/occpapers/occasional-paper-10.html "Occasional Paper No 10: Statistics for Inhabited Islands"] Retrieved 9 July 2007.] [ [http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/ Ordnance Survey] ] [cite web| url=http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/language/gaelic/pdfs/placenamesP-Z.pdf| title=Placenames| author=Iain Mac an Tailleir| publisher=Pàrlamaid na h-Alba| accessdate=2007-07-23] Haswell-Smith (2004) "The Scottish Islands". Edinburgh. Canongate. Pages 195-7.]

Tanera Mòr (Scottish Gaelic: Tannara Mòr) is an inhabited island in Loch Broom in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. It is the largest of the Summer Isles and the only inhabited island in that group. Tanera Mòr is notable for issuing its own postage stamps and as the location for Frank Fraser Darling's book "Island Years".

Geography

Tanera Mòr is around 310 hectares (766 acres) and reaches a height of 124 metres (407 ft). The highest hill is Meall Mòr (a very common Scottish mountain name, meaning a rounded hill).

The rock is Torridonian sandstone covered with peat and pasture.

History

The island was a port for herring fishing, and suffered the decline of said industry. The two settlements were known as Ardnagoine and Garadheancal.

In 1881, there were no fewer than 118 people living on Tanera Mòr, all of whom had left in 1931 (one year after St Kilda was abandoned). Permanent habitation has been intermittent since then, with six people identified as resident in 1961, eight in 1981, none in 1991 and then five at the 2001 census. Many of the old cottages have been renovated, and are now used as holiday accommodation.

Facilities and infrastructure

Tanera Mòr is home to a salmon fish farm, a café and a post office, which has operated its own local post and printed its own stamps since 1970. The island has no roads and the only recognisable path goes around An Acarsaid ("The Anchorage"), the sheltered bay on the east side of the island. Tanera Mòr, like the other Summer Isles, can be seen from the Stornoway to Ullapool ferry. The island can be reached by boat from either Achiltibuie in Wester Ross, or Ullapool.

Literary references

Tanera Mòr was the location for Frank Fraser Darling's book "Island Years" (published 1940), which describes experiences living on a remote island. Living in Tanera Mòr and Dundonnell before that, Fraser Darling began the work that was to mark him as a naturalist-philosopher of original turn of mind and great intellectual drive. He described the social and breeding behaviour of the red deer, gulls, and the grey seal respectively, in the three academic works "A Herd of Red Deer", "Bird Flocks and the Breeding Cycle" and "A Naturalist on Rona". The outbreak of World War II put an end to Fraser Darling's hopes of undertaking further research on the grey seal, and being too old for active military service, he chose to farm rather than leave the west coast of Scotland for wartime civilian work. Between 1939 and 1943 Fraser Darling reclaimed derelict land to agricultural production on Tanera Mòr in the Summer Isles. In 1942 the wartime Secretary of State for Scotland, Tom Johnston, asked Fraser Darling if he would run an agricultural advisory programme in the crofting areas of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. He agreed, and for two years he travelled, taught and wrote articles that were later published in book form as "Crofting Agriculture".

The pagan-cult island of Summerisle featured in the motion picture "The Wicker Man" (filmed 1973) is thought by some film critics to be set in this archipelago, although the movie itself was filmed in Galloway and Skye.

The Summer Isles feature in a novella of the same name by Ian R. MacLeod.

Wildlife

The island supports heron, red grouse and buzzards. [ [http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featurefirst1681.html Overview of Tanera Mor ] ]

References

* Fraser Darling, Frank (1940) "Island Years". G. Bell and Sons.
* Keay, J. & Keay, J. (1994) "Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland". London. HarperCollins. (Entry: Summer Isles)

External links

* [http://www.summer-isles.com/ Summer Isles website]