A 1798 account of the islands in Scotland’s most famous loch highlights a singular toponymy.
Leugh ann an Gàidhlig / Read in Gaelic
In his short life (1766-1802), Thomas Garnett, a native of Westmoreland, achieved a substantial amount. In addition to being a member of a number of learned societies in Scotland, England and Ireland, he became a Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry in the Royal Institution of Great Britain and was highly regarded as a lecturer. His importance, in a Scottish Gaelic context, lies in his authorship of a two-volume work called ‘Observations on a Tour through the Highlands and part of the Western Isles of Scotland’. He was a close observer of the Highland scene and in his introduction, he explains that his approach as an author was to entice readers ‘from the straight path of the tour, to take a glance at the secret operations of Nature, and that the slight taste which they would thus have of her dainties, might give them a relish for a more sumptuous repast.’
His work was not without controversy, as he wrote of the ‘wretched situation of the inhabitants in the Highlands’ but he claimed that his intention was to ‘increase the comforts and remove the distress of the natives’. He recognised that his honesty would give offence to some persons, particularly ‘those who have it in their power to ameliorate [the Highlanders’] condition’.
Garnett left Glasgow on the 9th of July 1798 and headed first down the Clyde and north to Loch Lomond. In this blog I shall look at his comments about Loch Lomond and, most particularly, the names and characteristics of its beautiful and unique freshwater islands.
Garnett and his companion, a young gentleman artist ‘Mr Watts’, first encountered a Loch Lomond island close to the village of Luss, where they visited the Rev. Dr. John Stuart, ‘a man of great taste and learning’ who was engaged in the translation into Gaelic of the Old Testament (his father having superintended the translation of the New Testament a generation earlier). Stuart had a superb garden that lived up to the name of his adopted village (the name Luss coming from the Gaelic lus ‘plant’). Garnett was impressed by the fact that the churchman had planted his garden with many rare species, including native alpines from all over the Highlands and Islands.
Stuart organised a boat and boatman for Garnett and Watts to be taken out to Inchtavannach, the closest major island to Luss which is in extent about 150 acres and was at the time uninhabited and covered largely with ‘wood and heath’. Garnett correctly interprets the name of the place as ‘the island of the monk’s house’ – no doubt under the guidance of the scholarly minister. In Gaelic this is Innis Taigh a’ Mhanaich. It is connected in tradition to St Kessog.
Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
The highest point of the island – Tom nan Clag ‘the hill of the bells’ – provides a superb viewpoint and from it Garnett was able to spy virtually all of the many islands in Loch Lomond. To the south was Inchmurrin, upon which only a gamekeeper and his family were then resident. This is Innis Mearain ‘the island of St Mirren or Mirin’, a 6th century churchman. In Garnett’s time it was owned by the Duke of Montrose, although he notes that the island boasts the ruins of an old castle which was once a ‘habitation of the Earls of Lennox’. To its north-east is a chain of four islands of which the furthest east is Inchcailloch which Garnett correctly translates as ‘isle of Nuns’ (Innis Cailleach). It is connected to St Kentigerna (died 733 AD) who had a nunnery there, and it was once a burial place of the MacGregors. As well as being well wooded (which it still is), the island was inhabited in Garnett’s day and produced good crops of wheat and oats.
The reader who has some familiarity with the Gaelic landscape will have already noted that the default generic for ‘island’ in Loch Lomond is not the common eilean of the more modern era, but an older word – innis – also used in Irish Gaelic and which has a Welsh cognate – ynys. While pronounced ‘IN-eesh’ in Gaelic, it is generally anglicised ‘inch’ in Scottish place names. In Loch Lomond, as evidenced by the island names, we are dealing with an unapologetically old Gaelic landscape. This is compounded by the fact that some of the islands bear a largely unfamiliar word order, where innis is terminal rather than initial. The three other small islands at the southern end of the loch are Creinch (Craobh Innis ‘tree island’) which was covered with an oak wood in 1798 (Garnett gives its name as ‘Grange’, showing the pronunciation but failing to recognise the etymology of the name), Torrinch (Tòrr Innis ‘hill island’) and Clairinch (Clàr Innis ‘flat island’); the last is given as Inch-Clear i.e. Innis Clàir by Garnett, demonstrating a more ‘modern’ word order than exists on the current OS maps.
Garnett makes interesting observations about a tiny islet near the mouth of the Endrick Water at the south-eastern extremity of Loch Lomond. On modern maps it is named Aber Isle but he gives it as Inch-Aber i.e. Innis Abair ‘river-mouth isle’. Garnett claims aber as a Gaelic word, rather than recognising its origin in the P-Celtic Brittonic language but this is perhaps understandable, given the construction of the toponym (and, no doubt, following advice from the Rev. Stuart). It is possible that aber was loaned into Gaelic and became active within the language for a period, although the place name scholar W.J. Watson tells us that ‘it does not occur in Gaelic literature or in common speech [and] appears to have been displaced at an early stage in the language by the purely Gaelic term inbhear.’
The term inbhear (or, more commonly inbhir) does appear in one of Loch Lomond’s islands – Inveruglas Isle at the northern end of the loch. This is named for Inveruglas or Inbhir Dhubh-ghlais ‘mouth of the dark stream’ on the adjacent mainland shore.
To the immediate north of Inchcailloch is Inchfad which is Innis Fhada ‘long island’ (it is rather long and narrow). Five ‘innis’ islands stand between Inchfad and Inchtavannach. There is Inchcruin or Innis Cruinn ‘round island’, reputedly named for a rounded peninsula on its eastern side. In Garnett’s day it was largely unwooded and housed an ‘asylum for insane persons’. To its immediate west is the broad island of Inchmoan or Innis Mòna ‘peat island’, long a source of domestic fuel for the people of Luss and the surrounding area. North of this is Inchconnachan or Innis Chonachain ‘Colquhoun’s isle’ which was ‘covered with oak and fir’. The other two islands in the group are Bucinch (Boc Innis ‘buck [goat] isle’) and Inch Galbraith, a tiny crannog (artificial island) which supported a medieval castle owned by the Galbraiths.
To the north of these islands, immediately east of Luss, is the large island of Inchlonaig which has a fascinating history and ecology. Garnett noted that it contained ‘above 150 acres, one-half of which is covered by a natural wood of old yews, some of them very large. When bows and arrows were in use, this island was of great value, and the trees were preserved with the utmost care.’ Oral tradition tells us that it was King Robert the Bruce who first ordered the planting of yews to supply bows for the royal archers. The name appears to be Innis Lònaig ‘island of the small wet meadow’.
While most of the island names in Loch Lomond are from innis, there is a handful of eilean names which presumably date from a later stage. Several of them reference trees or other vegetation. Near Inchfad is Ellanderroch – Eilean Darach ‘island of oaks’ and near Luss there is Eilean Daraich ‘oak island’. Also near Luss are Eilean na h-Aon Chraoibhe ‘the island of the single tree’ and Fraoch Eilean ‘heather island’. To the north, near Rowardennan, is the less attractively named Eilean Deargannan which appears to mean ‘island of fleas’, although some have considered that deargan might refer to a red dye collected there or even to the colour of heather in bloom which in olden times was described as dearg rather than purpaidh.
One of the most fascinating names in the whole of Loch Lomond is Island I Vow at the far northern end of the loch (also known as Eilean Vow). This blogger’s view is that it represents Eilean a’ Bhogha ‘the island of the sunken rock’. A bathymetric chart of the loch shows a 2 feet depth mark close to the island’s eastern shore in otherwise deep water. This feature would have been noted by boatmen, notably the MacFarlanes who had a stronghold there.
Thomas Garnett was deeply moved by the beauty and ecological diversity of Loch Lomond and its islands, declaring that ‘a more charming situation … exists not perhaps in Britain.’ It is a place of great natural and cultural richness and almost unique (but not quite, as we’ll see in a future blog!) in boasting an array of islands named with the ancient Gaelic element innis.
This blog was written by Inverness-based writer, broadcaster and storyteller Roddy (Ruairidh) Maclean, whose work highlights the connections between the Gaelic language and Scotland’s environment.
Scotland's Nature 
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