Place-names of Barra and Vatersay

by Anke-Beate Stahl

Place-names of Barra and Vatersay

£20.00

Place-names of Barra and Vatersay reveals the rich tapestry of Barra’s history, its oral tradition and geography through its captivating place-names, which show the strong connection between islanders, their land and the sea. Covering the archipelago from the Sound of Barra to Barra Head (including the islands of Sandray, Pabbay, Mingulay and Berneray), it offers a journey through time, uncovering hidden narratives and forgotten disasters, casting light on the cultural significance and linguistic origins of selected sites.

The book includes more than 2,000 previously unrecorded place-names gleaned from interviews with islanders and historical documents. It will be of interest to visitors to the island, history enthusiasts, islanders themselves, the considerable global MacNeil diaspora and anyone curious about the fascinating lore woven into the place-names of the Barra archipelago.

Anke-Beate Stahl is an artist and linguist. Her passion for maps and languages began in her childhood in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, a region peppered with German and Danish place-names. She is fluent in German, English and Swedish and is qualified to teach in Gaelic. She has a degree in English and a postgraduate degree in painting. After coming to Edinburgh as a student to learn English, she took up Swedish and Old Icelandic at the University of Edinburgh, later returning to the university to do a PhD on the place-names of Barra in the Outer Hebrides. She has published a number of papers on the subject.