Isle of May
“Why would anyone live here?” is not an uncommon question asked by the modern town dweller when visiting an island community. To the other hardy perennial, “What ever did they do here?” one might usefully offer the celebrated response of the Abbe Sieyes, who, when asked what he had done during the French Revolution, replied, “I survived!” Island communities survived, and very well thank you, for most of human history. The offshore islands of the British Isles, as we have seen throughout this circumnavigation, are particularly rich in archaeological sites, with a history of continuous settlement reaching back to that first revolution in human history the Neolithic. The Neolithic Revolution saw New Stone Age communities begin to live by farming in settled communities, like the one discovered in 1850 at Skara Brae in Orkney. They chose to live on islands deliberately. Such places were free from the predators that made the mainland so treacherous: bears, wolves or even bandits. They could be defended and food supply, in the form of fish, stock and cereals could be efficiently managed.
Our twenty-first century culture is an urban one. For us, as with the Romans of old, the land unites and the sea divides. We drive to airports to fly to other airports, there to continue our journey by car on our great road networks. Historically, it was not like this. For most of human history the land divided but the sea united. The land was dangerous: impassable roads (mud in winter, hardened ruts in summer), those familiar predators again. From our land-based perspective, we assume that island people must be limited, yet their history is of wide-ranging contacts using the great seaways. The sea connected: traders and pirates, saints and pilgrims, fishermen and explorers went to sea from island communities. Some (hence the patterns on those Irish Aran sweaters) did not come back but most returned to enrich the cosmopolitan culture of their island communities.
Today, we visited the “remote” Isle of May situated in the middle of the Firth of Forth. It has a number of firsts associated with it. Here, Robert Stevenson, grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson, built the first of his many lighthouses. Here also the world’s first bird observatory was established: it is still in use, monitoring the passage of migrating birds.
Here, in AD 870, St Adrian was murdered by Viking raiders. Amidst the Abbey ruins on the island the skeleton of a monk has been found with a scallop shell between his teeth, proof that he had made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in northwestern Spain.
On the final stage of our circumnavigation around the British Isles, we have been impressed with an enduring landscape that is the result of man’s interaction with the land over several millennia. This has humbled us. We will henceforth be on our guard for the enormous condescension of posterity for traditional ways of life in places that seem remote to us. Are island peoples isolated from us, or are we, regrettably, isolated from them?
“Why would anyone live here?” is not an uncommon question asked by the modern town dweller when visiting an island community. To the other hardy perennial, “What ever did they do here?” one might usefully offer the celebrated response of the Abbe Sieyes, who, when asked what he had done during the French Revolution, replied, “I survived!” Island communities survived, and very well thank you, for most of human history. The offshore islands of the British Isles, as we have seen throughout this circumnavigation, are particularly rich in archaeological sites, with a history of continuous settlement reaching back to that first revolution in human history the Neolithic. The Neolithic Revolution saw New Stone Age communities begin to live by farming in settled communities, like the one discovered in 1850 at Skara Brae in Orkney. They chose to live on islands deliberately. Such places were free from the predators that made the mainland so treacherous: bears, wolves or even bandits. They could be defended and food supply, in the form of fish, stock and cereals could be efficiently managed.
Our twenty-first century culture is an urban one. For us, as with the Romans of old, the land unites and the sea divides. We drive to airports to fly to other airports, there to continue our journey by car on our great road networks. Historically, it was not like this. For most of human history the land divided but the sea united. The land was dangerous: impassable roads (mud in winter, hardened ruts in summer), those familiar predators again. From our land-based perspective, we assume that island people must be limited, yet their history is of wide-ranging contacts using the great seaways. The sea connected: traders and pirates, saints and pilgrims, fishermen and explorers went to sea from island communities. Some (hence the patterns on those Irish Aran sweaters) did not come back but most returned to enrich the cosmopolitan culture of their island communities.
Today, we visited the “remote” Isle of May situated in the middle of the Firth of Forth. It has a number of firsts associated with it. Here, Robert Stevenson, grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson, built the first of his many lighthouses. Here also the world’s first bird observatory was established: it is still in use, monitoring the passage of migrating birds.
Here, in AD 870, St Adrian was murdered by Viking raiders. Amidst the Abbey ruins on the island the skeleton of a monk has been found with a scallop shell between his teeth, proof that he had made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in northwestern Spain.
On the final stage of our circumnavigation around the British Isles, we have been impressed with an enduring landscape that is the result of man’s interaction with the land over several millennia. This has humbled us. We will henceforth be on our guard for the enormous condescension of posterity for traditional ways of life in places that seem remote to us. Are island peoples isolated from us, or are we, regrettably, isolated from them?
