Isle of Harris
It is the southern part of an island that has no name. The northern part is known as the Isle of Lewis. More poetically, Gaelic names for it translate as "the Long Island" and also "the Heather Isle". The "island with no name" is the largest island in the British Isles after Great Britain and Ireland with a landmass of 859 square miles.
The Isle of Harris has the write stuff
In the kindergarten years of the 20th century the Isle of Harris was a favoured haunt for many writers, including J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan) and Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins (The Prisoner of Zenda). Barrie was inspired to write his Hebridean ghost story Mary Rose on the island.
The Isle of Harris is a grave-digger's nightmare
The dead have to be buried to the west of the island—the east side is simply too rocky. There is an ancient coffin track to carry the deceased to the island's main graveyard at Luskentyre.
Female bards once roamed the Isle of Harris
Two famous women bards are said to have graves on the Isle of Harris, both buried face down "so that their songs could not escape to prick the consciences of the living".
The Isle of Harris promises peace on earth—and not just at Christmas
Despite thousands of years of human habitation, there is no record of any political or civil strife. Even the Jacobite Rebellions (1715 and 1745) left the Isle of Harris completely unscathed, though in 1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie landed on the neighbouring island of Scalpay looking for a boat to take him into exile.
Harris Tweed is rarely produced on the Isle of Harris
Most is made by its neighbour to the north, the Isle of Lewis—for it to be certified Harris Tweed, it only needs to be spun, dyed, finished and woven in the Hebrides generally.
The Isle of Harris and the Norse code
Until 1266 the Isle of Harris (and Lewis) was part of Norway. The link is still celebrated each year at July's Harris Arts Festival, when Norwegian folk artists perform alongside local ones.
Now that's what we call launching a postal service
In 1934, in what was then a first for fast mail delivery, a German pioneer sent 5,000 letters by rocket to Hushinish beach on the Isle of Harris—with fairly predictable results.
Harris, a space odyssey
The legendary late film-maker Stanley Kubrick used tinted footage of the Isle of Harris to represent the surface of Jupiter in his sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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