Hyskeir or Heyskeir is a low-lying rocky islet in the Inner Hebrides

Inner Hebrides

The Inner Hebrides is an archipelago off the west coast of Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which enjoy a mild oceanic climate. There are 36 inhabited islands and a further 43 uninhabited Inner Hebrides with an area greater than...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. Its lighthouse marks the southern entrance to The Minch

The Minch

The Minch , also called The North Minch, is a strait in north-west Scotland, separating the north-west Highlands, and the northern Inner Hebrides, from Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides...

.

Geography

Hyskeir lies in the southern entrance to The Minch

The Minch

The Minch , also called The North Minch, is a strait in north-west Scotland, separating the north-west Highlands, and the northern Inner Hebrides, from Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides...

, 10 kilometres southwest of the island of Canna

Canna, Scotland

Canna is the westernmost of the Small Isles archipelago, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. It is linked to the neighbouring island of Sanday by a road and sandbanks at low tide. The island is long and wide...

 and 14 kilometres west of Rùm

Rùm

Rùm , a Scottish Gaelic name often anglicised to Rum) is one of the Small Isles of the Inner Hebrides, in the district of Lochaber, Scotland...

. Garbh Sgeir

Garbh Sgeir

Not to be confused with the nearby islet of the same name that lies 400 m east of the southern tip of the island of Eigg, north of Eilean Chathastail....

 is a rock that lies next to the islet and the landing place for Hyskeir lies in the channel between the two. Both islands are unoccupied.

Òigh-sgeir is composed of hexagonal basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

 columns.

The owner of the island in the 19th and early 20th centuries was Robert Thom. At that time sheep from Canna were brought to make use of the summer grazing.

Etymology

Hyskeir is from the Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 sker meaning skerry

Skerry

A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack....

. Òigh-sgeir is Gaelic

Scottish Gaelic language

Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....

  for 'maiden' or 'virgin rock', sgeir also meaning skerry

Skerry

A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack....

. The English name 'Maiden Rock' has also been used.

Lighthouse

Hyskeir Lighthouse was established in 1904. The 39 metres (128 ft) metre high lighthouse

Lighthouse

A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....

 marks the southern end of the Minch, warning of the presence of the Mills Rocks, Canna Island and Hyskeir itself. It was designed by David

David Alan Stevenson

David Alan Stevenson was a lighthouse engineer who built twenty six lighthouses in and around Scotland.Born into the famous Stevenson family of lighthouse engineers, son of David Stevenson, brother of Charles Stevenson, and nephew of Thomas Stevenson, he was educated at Edinburgh University...

 and Charles Stevenson

Charles Alexander Stevenson

Charles Alexander Stevenson was a Scottish lighthouse engineer who built twenty three lighthouses in and around Scotland....

 and constructed by Oban

Oban

Oban Oban Oban ( is a resort town within the Argyll and Bute council area of Scotland. It has a total resident population of 8,120. Despite its small size, it is the largest town between Helensburgh and Fort William and during the tourist season the town can be crowded by up to 25,000 people. Oban...

 contractor Messrs D & J MacDougall.

The white tower was manned until March 1997, becaming one of the last lighthouses in Scotland to be automated. The keepers were briefly known for their one-hole golf course

Golf course

A golf course comprises a series of holes, each consisting of a teeing ground, fairway, rough and other hazards, and a green with a flagstick and cup, all designed for the game of golf. A standard round of golf consists of playing 18 holes, thus most golf courses have this number of holes...

 following their appearance on TV

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

. Now controlled from the Northern Lighthouse Board

Northern Lighthouse Board

The Northern Lighthouse Board is the General Lighthouse Authority for Scotland and the Isle of Man. It is a non-departmental public body responsible for marine navigation aids around coastal areas.-History:...

 in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, it displays three white flashes every thirty seconds.

Wildlife

Gavin Maxwell

Gavin Maxwell

Gavin Maxwell FRSL, FIAL, FZS , FRGS was a Scottish naturalist and author, best known for his work with otters. He wrote the book Ring of Bright Water about how he brought an otter back from Iraq and raised it in Scotland...

, who fished for basking sharks nearby in 1947, recorded a mass sighting of Basking Shark

Basking shark

The basking shark is the second largest living fish, after the whale shark. It is a cosmopolitan migratory species, found in all the world's temperate oceans. It is a slow moving and generally harmless filter feeder and has anatomical adaptations to filter feeding, such as a greatly enlarged...

s. “It was a gigantic shoal ... at one moment we counted 54 dorsal fins in sight at the same time.”

The island has nesting sites for Arctic

Arctic Tern

The Arctic Tern is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. This bird has a circumpolar breeding distribution covering the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America...

 and Common Tern

Common Tern

The Common Tern is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, breeding in temperate and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia and east and central North America. It is strongly migratory, wintering in coastal tropical and subtropical regions. It is sometimes...

, Kittiwake

Black-legged Kittiwake

The Black-legged Kittiwake is a seabird species in the gull family Laridae.This species was first described by Linnaeus in his Systema naturae in 1758 as Larus tridactylus....

s and Eider Ducks and also has a large seal

Pinniped

Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semiaquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae .-Overview: Pinnipeds are typically sleek-bodied and barrel-shaped...

 colony.

Footnotes

• Murray, W.H. (1966) The Hebrides. London. Heinemann.