Planning Your Visit
If you are planning a visit and have never been before, please allow time to explore the island fully. Our island, the island of your ancestors, may be small but there is lots to do and see here. Take time to visit that deserted townsip which was once full of children playing and adults going about their daily tasks. Take a walk through the native woodlands which would have been familiar to our Bronze Age ancestors, hunting and gathering four thousand years ago. Visit Kildalton Chapel to see the incredible Kildalton Cross and wonder at the skills of the craftsmen who fashioned this in the style of Iona sculptors. Consider Islay in mediaeval times when the Lords of the Isles and their kinsmen commissioned such incredible works of art.
There’s much more to do on the island than history and genealogy. Have a round of golf on the famous Machrie Links course. Take a boat trip along the coast to seek out otters and seals on the off-shore skeries. Take a stroll along one of our wonderful beaches, do a bit of beach combing then to and enjoy one of our incredibly varied Islay Malt whiskies before dining on some of the world’s best beef, lamb and seafood from our unique island.
Some Useful Links
For accommodation and travel www.isle-of-islay.com
A starting-off point www.ancestralscotland.com
Some Islay history www.finlaggan.com
Do a bit of homework before you come
To get the best from your visit, be sure to gather all the information you have about the folks who left. Talk to elderly relatives, put any certificates in a handy file, make a note of dates and places.
Once here, we would suggest that the Family History Society Office at Islay House Square, Bridgend should be your first stop. After that, be sure to take time to visit the Museum of Islay Life and the Finlaggan Visitor Centre to learn even more about the island and your Islay ancestors.
For a little bit of armchair research before your visit we can recommend the following:
Clifford N Jupp: The History of Islay from Earliest Times published by Museum of Islay Life; Margaret Storrie: Islay: Biography of an Island, The Oa Press and Freda Ramsay: The Day Book of Daniel Campbell of Shawfield and Islay, Aberdeen University Press.
To Contact the Society go to our contact page
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