Tour Scotland Photograph Ferry Passing Isle Of Jura

Tour Scotland photograph of the Ferry to Islay passing the Isle of Jura, Scotland. The Viking occupation of the Hebrides began in the ninth century, and was formalised when sovereignty was secured in 1098. From this point, Norse rule continued until 1266, when the Hebrides, together with Kintyre and the Isle of Man, were ceded to Scotland in the Treaty of Perth. A key figure during the Norse period was the warlord Somerled, whose descendants, for around 150 years from the mid-fourteenth century, styled themselves Lords of the Isles. The Lordship of the Isles was dominated by Clan Donald, whose seat was at Finlaggan on Islay. The Lordship came to an end in 1493, but Clan Donald continued to rule the southern part of Jura, through the MacDonalds of Dunnyveg. The north of the island, however, was owned by this time by Clan Maclean, whose seat was at Aros Castle in Glengarrisdale. In 1647, this was to be the site of a notable battle between the Macleans and the Campbells of Craignish. From the mid-eighteenth century, long before the notorious Highland Clearances of the nineteenth century, there were a number of waves of emigration from Jura. In 1767, fifty people left Jura for Canada, and from that point the population gradually shrank.



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