Why do I love islands and especially the journey of getting to them? It’s an interesting question I’ve posed. I tried out AI for the first time today using the words of ‘watching the shore disappear’.

It produced a really verbose, adjective heavy response, but the last line was revealing.

“Watching the shore disappear, I felt an overwhelming sense of freedom and wonder, as if I were embarking on a journey of exploration and self-discovery.”

The other day I took myself off to the Island of Lismore. We are pitched up at Oban, which brands itself as the ‘gateway to the islands’. I thought to go to Iona, but that would have entailed an 8 hour day trip on a bus and ferry tour, as well as crowds of Iona pilgrims. So I took myself to the tiny island of Lismore on the small CalMac ferry instead, for six pounds.

I didn’t really feel the ‘freedom and wonder’ so much as the idea of exploration and (self) discovery. Abandoning the idea of taking my bike over, I packed walking sticks, thinking to build up my walking prowess in readiness for the imminent climb to Outlandia, half way up Ben Nevis for my next artist residency.

Lismore is a town of only 170 souls. It was of course severely affected by the Highland and Island clearances of the 1800s and early 1900s which I encountered when on the Outer Hebrides last year.

Getting off the ferry there was a hamlet of maybe 10 houses as well as a telephone booth with maps. I set off to find the Ionad Naomh Moluag (Lismore Gaelic Heritage Centre) and café as I had read about the yummy handmade icecream they served there. It was a 6 mile (10 km) round trip but I was up for it.

Getting there was relatively easy although the first mile was all uphill. It was incredibly quiet except for some sheep who I chatted to along the way. Then a lovely flat walk on a narrow road past the Lismore community hall, where they will hold a ceilidh (dance) this weekend and the post office/store which the community hopes to buy and run as a community co-op.

Arriving at Ionad Naomh Moluag, I started with a  lovely cup of tea and homemade whisky icecream followed by a bowl of soup (the natural order of eating!). Then back the other way to the ferry again. I could have gone a bit further to the church of St Moluag but I knew I would be too tired for the walk back to catch the 3pm ferry to the mainland.

What did I discover on my expedition to Lismore? That the Gaelic name of the heritage centre is named for the gathering place of St Moluag, an Irish monk and contemporary of the more famous St Columba who went on to found the abbey on Iona.

St Moluag arrived in Lismore in 562 with a band of monks to set up his evangelical Christian churches which are now scattered throughout western Scotland. So I did my own kind of pilgrimage without knowing it.

The main thing I discovered though, was that the journey of setting out somewhere, especially by crossing water, has the allure of remoteness. Interestingly I had a conversation with the former Lismore school teacher who said that the Government is committed to keeping small island schools open.

“Islands and island communities in Scotland are, by definition, geographically remote places and are demarcated in the Act as being naturally formed areas of land surrounded on all sides by the sea (ignoring artificial structures such as bridges) and above water at high tide.”[1]

As I prepare for my “contemporary remote” artist residency, these questions and definitions of remoteness are working their way into the centre of my thoughts. Bodies of water and their crossing will always be for me, filled with the allure of adventure. Whether my legs can carry me far is a moot point. There are always boats…

[1] Implementation of the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018: report. Available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/report-implementation-islands-scotland-act-2018/pages/7/