Qualla: Ness, Lewis

Ness, Lewis: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Each year, in late August or early September, ten men from Ness sail forty miles north into the open Atlantic to a rock called Sula Sgeir. They stay for a fortnight. They harvest around two thousand young gannets - guga, the local name - and bring them home as a delicacy. The hunt is unique in Britain: nowhere else is a wild seabird harvest legally allowed, and nowhere else does it carry the weight of an unbroken tradition. Ness is the northernmost settlement on Lewis - sixteen villages strung along the road that ends at the Butt - and the guga hunt is only the most striking of the ways in which this community has insisted on continuing to be exactly itself.

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Image: Public domain

Ness, Lewis: Sixteen Villages

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel from Glasgow, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. Ness is not one village but a community of about sixteen, including Lionel, Habost, Swainbost, Cross, North Dell, South Dell, Cross Skigersta, Skigersta, Eorodale, Adabroc, Port of Ness, Knockaird, Fivepenny and Eoropie. The settlements run along the northern shore of Lewis, the ...

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Image: Daniel from Glasgow, United Kingdom | CC BY 2.0

Ness, Lewis: The Great Drowning

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Colin Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0. The community remembers its losses with precision. In 1862, the same year the lighthouse at the Butt was built, thirty-one fishermen from Ness were lost during a single storm - an event named in local memory as the Great Drowning of Ness. The storm left twenty-four widows and sev...

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Image: Colin Smith | CC BY-SA 2.0

Ness, Lewis: The Guga Hunt

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chmee2, CC BY-SA 3.0. The guga hunt is the most extraordinary tradition still practised in Britain. Each year ten men from Ness travel to the remote rocky island of Sula Sgeir, about forty miles north of Lewis, and spend a fortnight there harvesting around two thousand young gannets. The birds are sal...

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Image: Chmee2 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ness, Lewis: The Sgoth and the Gaelic

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MacIomhair, CC BY 2.5. Ness has produced one of Scotland's distinctive boat-building traditions: the Sgoth Niseach, a clinker-built skiff with a dipping lug sail, designed for the local conditions and used for line fishing until the early 20th century. Several Sgoth are still in active use, maintained ...

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Image: MacIomhair | CC BY 2.5

Ness, Lewis: The Estate and the Community

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Donald Macsween from Scotland, CC BY 2.0. In 2007, the community bought its own land. Ness became part of the Galson Estate, owned by Urras Oighreachd Ghabhsainn - the Galson Estate Trust - managed by ten local trustees elected by the community. The hand-over took place on 12 January 2007 and was part of the wider Scotti...

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Image: Donald Macsween from Scotland | CC BY 2.0