Eriskay

Outer Hebrides


There's not much to see on Eriskay, but you'll pass through it on the way to the car ferry that crosses to Ardmhor at the northern end of Barra; Eriskay itself is connected to South Uist by a causeway that was constructed in 2001.

In 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie first set foot in Scotland on the west coast of Eriskay, on the sandy beach (immediately north of the ferry terminal) still known as Prince’s Strand (Coilleag a’Phrionnsa).

More recently the SS Politician sank just off the island in 1941. The islanders salvaged much of its cargo of around 250,000 bottles of whisky and, after a binge of dramatic proportions, the police intervened and a number of the islanders landed in jail. The story was immortalised by Sir Compton Mackenzie in his comic novel Whisky Galore, made into a famous film in 1949 and remade in 2016.