ABSTRACT

St Kilda is the remotest of the British Isles, a small rocky outpost with accompanying sea stacks, the highest vertical cliff in the British Isles, and with only one safe landing place situated in the Atlantic some 55 miles west of Harris off the north-west coast of Scotland. The origin of the name is now obscured. The Gaelic name for the main island is Hirta-which possibly means ‘western world’ or ‘earth’—and it is possible that this was corrupted to Kilda or something similar. Other sources suggest that the island was named after one Kilter who lived there, although the St (the word is always contracted in usage) cannot be so readily explained.1 The Gaelic-speaking inhabitants of the island gleaned a living for centuries from fishing and fowling (collecting the eggs and carcasses of seabirds for the use of their flesh, oil and feathers) and making tweed from the wood of the island sheep until, at their own request, the island was evacuated in 1930. Several St Kildans still live in the Scottish islands and mainland. The island is now a military base and the houses and crofts have been reconstructed by the National Trust.