‘An idyllic, wild place’: the recovery of Skye’s most beautiful peninsula

Gaelic has flourished in recent years around Sleat in the south of the island and it is contributing to a reinvigorated sense of identity

I’m standing on one of the most beautiful and dramatic spots on Skye – which given the stiff competition offered around the island is saying something. Across the waters of Loch Slapin to the west loom the serrated peaks of the Black Cuillin ridge to the west, while the more rounded hills of the Red Cuillins around the bay are to the north. Over the deeper water, and outlined by the afternoon sun, stands the island of Rum, while around me on the headland of Suisnish, the banks of the glens are cloaked in heather. Along the three-mile walk it took me to get here, I was accompanied by gulls coasting with the strong south-west winds and at one point saw an eagle being mobbed by hooded crows at the top of a crag.

The headland of Suisnish is an idyllic and wild place. But it is also an elegiac one. There is a sad and tragic history underlying this beautiful landscape. Underneath the heather that stretches away, like a face beneath the sheet, one can still make out the old ridges of the “runrig” system when the land was parcelled out in strips for the villagers who once lived here. Closer to the shore are all that remains of their houses. For the deserted village of Suisnish is one of the most poignant memorials to the Highland clearances of the 19th century, when villagers had to leave their homes to make way for sheep.