page_title: Slate Islands
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Slate Islands / Geography
caption_attribution_description: LORNA - The Firth of Lorn
context_page_description: The Slate Islands are an island group in the Inner Hebrides, lying immediately off the west coast of Scotland, north of Jura and southwest of Oban. The main islands are Seil, Easdale, Luing, Shuna, Torsa and Belnahua. Scarba and Kerrera, which lie nearby, are not usually included.
  The underlying geology of the islands is Dalradian slate, which was quarried widely until the mid-20th century. Quarry working began in 1630 and at the turn of the 20th century, the quarries were yielding some eight million slates every year.
  The Garvellachs lie to the southwest.
context_section_description: The main islands of the group are as follows.
  Torsa was inhabited until the 1960s. Belnahua had a significant population during the height of the commercial slate quarrying there but in 1914 quarry work ceased, the island was completely abandoned and it has been uninhabited ever since. 
  Smaller islands, tidal islets only separated at higher stages of the tide, and skerries which are only exposed at lower stages of the tide pepper the seas surrounding the main islands. Most of them are obscure and only Fladda, which has an abandoned lighthouse keeper's cottage, and perhaps Insh are ever likely to have been inhabited. 
  Belnahua: Fladda, Ormsa
  Easdale:  None
  Luing: Diar Sgeir, Dubh-fheith, Dubh Sgeir, Eilean Loisgte, Fraoch Eilean (2), Funaich Mhòr, Glas Eilean, Rubh Aird Luing, Sgeir Bhuidhe
  Torsa: Eilean Fraoch, Glas Eilean, Torsa Beag
  Seil: Dubh-sgeir, Eilean à Chomraidh, Eilean Bàn-leac, Eilean Buidhe, Eilean Dùin, Eilean nam Beathach, Eilean nam Freumha, Eilean Tornal, Henderson's Rock, Insh, Sgeir Beul na h-Uamhaidh
  Shuna: None
  Eilean-a-beithich ("island of the birches") located in Easdale Sound was once one of the Slate Islands. However, it was quarried for slate to a depth of 75 metres (250 feet) below sea level leaving only the outer rim of the island. Part of this rim was breached by the sea in 1881 flooding the quarry and little visible sign of the island now remains.
caption: Joan Blaeu's Firth of Lorn in the 1654 Blaeu Atlas of Scotland - the main Slate Islands are all identified although their locations and shapes are at variance from modern maps
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