Talk:Loch Arkaig

Correct name for island on which the old Lochiel burial ground is situated

The name given here, Eilean a Ghiubais, is incorrect. A Google search shows no other mentions of this name on either the main Google, Google Scholar or Google Books. Ordnance Survey gives Eilean Loch Airceig as the correct name. You can see both a map reference and a photograph of the islet, incidentally, here:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/200832

Mikedash 16:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

"Eilean a Ghiubhais" (oops, a transcription error) came from Francis Groome's Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-1885) see here. Angus McLellan (Talk) 17:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, but if you check your own source you'll find it says: "Only two islets break the long extent, Eilean a Ghiubhais midway near the southern shore, and another at the lower end, with a ruined chapel and the burying-place of the Camerons of Lochiel, holders of the estate of Achnacarry." If you then load the map & scroll right to the east end of the loch, it gives the same name for the islet in question as the modern one: Eilean Loch Airceig. oldmaps.co.uk is a pretty useful site, though. Mikedash 16:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, right! I see what you mean. Thanks for spotting it. Angus McLellan (Talk) 17:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Goodness knows I make plenty of these sort of slip-ups myself. References to the old burial ground (which is what brought me here) are, incidentally, extremely thin on the ground. One of the few I have is John Wilson's The Works of Professor Wilson (Edinburgh, 1857 p.422), which notes, in its section 'Remarks on the scenery of the Highlands': "The loch, more or less sylvan from end to end, shows on its nearest shores some magnificent remains of the ancient forest, and makes a noble sweep like some great river. There may be more, but we remember but one island - not large, but wooded as it should be - the burying-place of the family of Lochiel. What rest!" From this I doubt the cemetery has been used for about 200 years. It is a listed monument but I have never seen any reference to an archaeological survey and from a purely historical perspective, it sounds, given the considerable importance of the Cameron clan, to be a spot about which more should be known. The forest to which Wilson refers is of course the old Caledonian Forest, which once covered much of the Highlands but now exists in its pure state only in a couple of spots in the Cairngorms and on a few loch islands, of which those at the western end of Loch Morar are probably the best examples. Mikedash 18:29, 29 September 2007 (UTC)