Rewriting St Kilda: New Views on Old Ideas (Repost)

The world-wide fascination with the deserted islands of St Kilda shows no sign of waning, and we all share certain conventional assumptions about and stereotypical images of the islands - remoteness, dramatic landscape and bird-life, a distinctive 'primitive' community, the St Kilda Parliament, the mail-boat, the strict teachings of the Church, an economy uniquely dependent on sea-birds, and the sad decline and eventual evacuation of the remaining inhabitants at their own request in 1930. It is a remarkable fact that almost all of the over 700 books and articles written about St Kilda - on which our images overwhelmingly are based - were written by visitors to the islands, often on the basis of pre-conceptions and very little first-hand knowledge. Outside writers frequently had their own agendas (political, religious, journalistic). It is not surprising therefore that many myths have developed, and been repeated. The voice of the Gaelic-speaking native people has been largely lost or overlooked. In the summer of 2010, The Islands Book Trust held a major conference to mark the 80th anniversary of the evacuation, which looked behind the myths and re-examined some of the conventional wisdom: - what were the motives of writers such as Martin Martin, John MacDonald, and John Sands, whose writings have so influenced our impressions of St Kilda? - what is known about how the St Kildans themselves viewed their world? - what was the real role of the Church in influencing the lives and assumptions of the St Kildans and the eventual request for evacuation? - why did St Kilda produce so little writing from within, in contrast with, for example, the Blasket Islands? The fascinating results are published here in this book.