The Blackhouse at 42 Arnol

Arnol is a small village on the remote northern coast of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Today the village comprises of a number small crofts scattered across a large area but if you look closer you will see the remains of many Black Houses interspersed between the more modern houses. Black Houses are as far as I know unique to the North West Highlands of Scotland and represent a way of life for the people that have lived here, virtually in isolation from the mainland for thousands of years. The last of the Arnol Black Houses was abandoned in 1974 but thankfully the Black House at No. 42 within the village has been preserved and turned into a museum for future generations ...  Read the complete review

~ ~ The ‘mad cabbie’ is a bit of a mongrel. My late father was a lowland Scot from the East Lothian district south of Edinburgh, and my late mother was a Highlander from the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles. So I have spiritual roots in two communities; three, in fact, if you also include my adopted home of Dublin in Ireland. But it’s my connection with the Isle of Lewis, where I still have many relations, which I want to explore a little in this opinion. ~ ~ My late mother was born in 1913 in a small village called Caverstay, south of Stornoway. Her first language was Scot’s Gaelic, (very similar to Irish, as it happens) ...  Read the complete review