ORONSAY, INNER HEBRIDES

'Oronsay' (Scottish Gaelic: 'Orasaigh'), also sometimes spelt and pronounced '''Oransay''' by the local community, is a small tidal island south of Colonsay in the Scottish Inner Hebrides with an area of just over two square miles.
It rises to a height of 93m (305 feet) at Beinn Orasaigh (Beinn Oronsay) and is linked to Colonsay by a tidal causeway (called An Traigh ('The Strand')) consisting of sands and mud flats. In the 2001 census Oronsay was recorded as having a population of five people, who live at the farm adjacent to Oronsay Priory. The island has no facilities of its own, and is entirely dependent upon its tidal access to and from Colonsay. The rocks and skerries of Eilean nan Ròn (Seal Island), to the south-west, are an important grey seal breeding colony.
There are two theories for the origin of the name from Old Norse. Either it is ''Oran's Isle'': St Oran was the founder of the island's monastery in 563 or it may mean ''island of the ebb tide''.

Contents

Archaeology

References

See also

Archaeology

The island is best known for Oronsay Priory, a 14th century ruined Augustinian priory, probably on the same site as the original 563 building, and the Oronsay Cross, originally carved on Iona. The Priory was modest in scale, but has one of the most complete (though somewhat restored) cloister garths of any Scottish medieval religious house. In the late Middle Ages a distinct 'school' of monumental sculpture flourished on Oronsay, leaving many slabs with effigies or other carvings at the Priory itself, or at other religious sites throuighout the Hebrides to which they were exported. See examples pictured below. The production of sculpture ceased at the Scottish Reformation.
Oronsay is one of several Hebridean islands that have furnished archaeologists with invaluable information about the Mesolithic period of prehistory, particularly about the diet of human beings.

References

1. 2001 UK Census per List of islands of Scotland
2. Ordnance Survey


★ On the Monastic Trail: Oronsay in hidden europe magazine, Issue 4 (September 2005), pp.16-18. (Explores Columba's possible landing on Oronsay, the priory and aspects of Oronsay life today)

★ A further useful note on Oronsay appears in The Scottish Islands, Haswell-Smith, Hamish, , , Canongate Books, ,

See also

★ Oronsay Priory

★ Prior of Oronsay