Hirta () is the largest island in the St Kilda archipelago, on the western edge of Scotland. The names (in Scottish Gaelic) and Hirta (historically in English) have also been applied to the entire archipelago. Now without a permanent resident population, the island had nearly all of St Kilda's population of about 180 residents in the late 17th century and 112 in 1851. It was abandoned in 1930 when the last 36 remaining inhabitants were evacuated to Lochaline on the mainland.
The National Trust for Scotland owns the entire archipelago. It became one of Scotland's six World Heritage Sites in 1986 and is one of the few in the world to hold mixed status for both its natural and cultural qualities. Visits to the island are encouraged during months when the few facilities for tourists are open.
Geography
The island measures from east to west, and from north to south. It has an area of and about of coastline. The only real landing place is in the shelter of Village Bay on the southeast side of the island. The island slopes gently down to the sea at Glen Bay (at the western end of the north coast), but the rocks go straight into the sea at a shallow angle and landing here is not easy if there is any swell at all. Apart from these two places, the cliffs rise sheer out of deep water. However, sea kayakers can also land for a break on a small boulder beach backed by cliffs in the north of the island, just before the northeast side where the highest summit in the island, Conachair, forms a precipice . St Kilda is probably the core of a Tertiary volcano, but, besides volcanic rocks, it contains hills of sandstone in which the stratification is distinct.
is separated from Hirta by a shallow strait by (Caolas an Dùin) which is about wide; the strait is normally impassable but is reputed to dry out on rare occasions.
Surrounding stacks
Hirta is surrounded by a number of small stacks. , and lie under the cliffs of to the east and further south under the heights of . is west of and is further north under .
There are also various large stacks in the narrow strait between Hirta and Soay: , and .
Etymology
The origin of Hirta is open to interpretation. Martin (1703) states that "Hirta is taken from the Irish , which in that language signifies west". Maclean offers several options, including an unspecified Celtic word meaning "gloom" or "death", later suggested to be – dangerous or deathlike, or the Scots Gaelic ("westland"). Drawing on an Icelandic saga describing an early 13th-century voyage to Ireland that mentions a visit to the islands of "Hirtir", he speculates that the shape of Hirta resembles a stag, ( meaning "stags" in Norse). Steel (1998) quotes the view of Reverend Neil Mackenzie, who lived there from 1829 to 1844, that the name is derived from the Gaelic ("high island"), and a further possibility that it is from the Norse ("shepherd"). In a similar vein, Murray (1966) speculates that the Norse ("herd island", , ), may be the origin.
Another source, in Scotland, expanded on the concept of "west": "Its ancient appellation was Hirt, Hirth, Hirta, or Hyrtha, a contraction of h-Iar-tir, the Gaelic for west-land or west-country".
History and lifestyle
The St Kilda islands were continuously populated from prehistoric times. Archeologists working at the archipelago between 2017 and 2019 confirmed habitation as long as 2,000 years ago. Finds included Iron Age pottery and some shards that might be from Bronze Age pottery. The director of the project told BBC News that the work "revealed that the eastern end of Village Bay on St Kilda was occupied fairly intensively during the Iron Age period, although no house structures were found".
In more recent history, Hirta was inhabited until 29 August 1930, when the 36 inhabitants were removed to the Scottish mainland at their own request.
St Kilda was part of the Lordship of the Isles, then a property of the MacLeods of Dunvegan from 1498 until 1930. There were three chapels on St Kilda, dedicated to Saint Brendan, Saint Columba, and Christ Church, but little remains. There are also the remains of a beehive house, known as the Amazon's House.