Staffin, Isle of Skye, Scotland - Diliff

Staffin ( gd, Stafain) is a district with the Gaelic name ''An Taobh Sear'', which translates as "the East Side", on the northeast coast of the

Trotternish Trotternish or Tròndairnis (Scottish Gaelic) is the northernmost peninsula of the Isle of Skye, in Scotland. Its most northerly point, Rubha Hùinis, is the most northerly point of Skye. One of the peninsula's better-known features is the Trot ...

peninsula of the island of Skye. It is located on the A855 road about north of

Portree Portree (; gd, Port Rìgh, ) is the largest town on, and capital of, the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Murray, W.H. (1966) ''The Hebrides''. London. Heinemann. Pages 154-155. It is the location for the only secondary school o ...

and is overlooked by the

Ridge with the famous rock formations of

The Storr The Storr ( gd, An Stòr) is a rocky hill on the Trotternish peninsula of the Isle of Skye in Scotland. The hill presents a steep rocky eastern face overlooking the Sound of Raasay, contrasting with gentler grassy slopes to the west. Geology ...

and the

Quiraing The Quiraing ( gd, A' Chuith-Raing) is a landslip on the eastern face of , the northernmost summit of the Trotternish on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. The whole of the Trotternish Ridge escarpment was formed by a great series of landslips; the Qu ...

. The district comprises 23 townships made up of, from south to north, Rigg, Tote, Lealt, Lonfearn, Grealin, Breackry, Cul-nan-cnoc, Bhaltos, Raiseburgh, Ellishadder, Garafad, Clachan, Garros, Marrishader, Maligar, Stenscholl, Brogaig, Sartle, Glasphein, Digg, Dunan, Flodigarry and Greap. The Kilmartin River runs northwards through the village. From where it reaches the sea a rocky shore leads east to a slipway at ''An Corran''. Here a local resident found a slab bearing a dinosaur track, probably made by a small

ornithopod Ornithopoda () is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs, called ornithopods (), that started out as small, bipedal running grazers and grew in size and numbers until they became one of the most successful groups of herbivores in the Cretaceous wo ...

. Experts subsequently found more dinosaur prints of up to 50 cm, the largest found in Scotland, made by a creature similar to ''

Megalosaurus ''Megalosaurus'' (meaning "great lizard", from Greek , ', meaning 'big', 'tall' or 'great' and , ', meaning 'lizard') is an extinct genus of large carnivorous theropod dinosaurs of the Middle Jurassic period (Bathonian stage, 166 million years ...

''. At about 160 million years old they are the youngest dinosaur remains to be found in Scotland. A

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

hunter-gatherer site dating to the 7th millennium BC at ''An Corran'' is one of the oldest archaeological sites in Scotland. Its occupation is probably linked to that of the rock shelter at

Sand, Applecross Sand on the Applecross Peninsula in Wester Ross, Scotland, is an archaeological site. Sand is the site of a major archaeological excavation on the Inner Sound coast of the Applecross Peninsula in Western Scotland, to the north of the small tow ...

on the coast of

Wester Ross Wester Ross () is an area of the Northwest Highlands of Scotland in the council area of Highland. The area is loosely defined, and has never been used as a formal administrative region in its own right, but is generally regarded as lying to the ...

. In the modern era this part of Skye retains a strong Gaelic identity with 61 per cent of the local population recorded as speaking the language in 2001.Mac an Tàilleir, Iain (2004
''1901-2001 Gaelic in the Census''
(PowerPoint) Linguae Celticae. Retrieved 1 June 2008. In September 2010,

Comunn na Gàidhlig Comunn na Gàidhlig (), abbreviated to "CnaG", is an organisation which seeks to promote Scottish Gaelic language and culture. History Comunn na Gàidhlig was founded in 1984 by the Scottish Office to co-ordinate new developments in Gaelic langua ...

named Staffin as their "Gaelic Community of the Year", in the first year this competition has run. Also in September 2010, Highland Council announced the launch of a consultation into a plan to convert the local primary into a Gaelic medium school. This would be the second such conversion in Scotland, after

Bun-sgoil Shlèite Bun-sgoil Shlèite is a primary school on the Sleat peninsula of the island of Skye in Scotland. It is Scotland's only Gaelic Medium School with an English department. It was established in August 2007 though the building originally opened in No ...

. Only 5 out of the school's thirty pupils have English as their only language, with the remainder being bilingual English and Gaelic speakers. In 2011 it was reported that Staffin Island may be the last in Scotland where the old tradition of having cattle swim between grazings is still carried out.

Crofter A croft is a fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable, and usually, but not always, with a crofter's dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer, especially in rural are ...

Iain MacDonald, who used to swim with the animals, now uses a boat to encourage them to swim from Staffin Island to Skye in early spring and back again in October."Skye crofter 'last' to swim his cattle between grazings"
(11 February 2011) BBC News. Retrieved 11 September 2010. Staffin-panorama 14-05-2010 15-08-39

References

{{Skye Populated places in the Isle of Skye