page_title: Description of the Western Isles of Scotland
section_title: Craignish, Taynish, Jura and the Firth of Lorn
hierarchical_section_title: Description of the Western Isles of Scotland / Identity of the islands / Craignish, Taynish, Jura and the Firth of Lorn
caption_attribution_description: English: A view looking east across the hills of Kerrera.
context_page_description: Description of the Western Isles of Scotland is the oldest known account of the Hebrides and the Islands of the Clyde, two chains of islands off the west coast of Scotland. The author was Donald Monro, a clergyman who used the title of "Dean of the Isles" and who lived through the Scottish Reformation. Monro wrote the original manuscript in 1549, although it was not published in any form until 1582 and was not widely available to the public in its original form until 1774. A more complete version, based on a late 17th-century manuscript written by Sir Robert Sibbald, was first published as late as 1961. Monro wrote in Scots and some of the descriptions are difficult for modern readers to render into English. Although Monro was criticised for publishing folklore and for omitting detail about the affairs of the churches in his diocese, Monro's Description is a valuable historical account and has reappeared in part or in whole in numerous publications, remaining one of the most widely quoted publications about the western islands of Scotland.
context_section_description: R. W. Munro was unable to identify several islands in this group, but Youngson (2001) used his local knowledge and research undertaken by Malcolm MacArthur to suggest various small islands offshore from Jura. In a few instances other nearby candidates exist.
  With the exception of Lismore, Monro's "descriptions" in this section are little more than a name recorded in English and "Erische" (i.e. Gaelic), which makes definitive identifications hard to achieve. Youngson writes that his names "defeat all attempts to identify with Lorn, and turn out to be near Jura" and that "the islands of the Small Isles Bay and to the south of Jura are all easily identified" (although he does not make the connections explicit) and turns his attention to numbers 39–44 for a detailed analysis. The strength of Youngson's analysis is that whereas most of these names evaded identification by R. W. Munro, he is able to offer candidates for almost all of them.  In his interpretation, the islands round Jura are listed anti-clockwise starting at Eilean Mor, compared to Islay whose islands are listed by Monro clockwise (sun gaittis). This would however mean that several large islands are not found anywhere in the Monro list, including Eilean Righ, Island Macaskin and Eilean Mhic Chrion off the Argyll coast. There are also numerous other small islands with these names in this vicinity and it is an odd coincidence that numbers 39–41 all have strong contenders in Loch Craignish, as identified by R. W. Munro.
  Youngson does not refer to the section below, which is also missing in its entirety from the Auld and Moniepennie publications.
caption: Gylen Castle on Kerrera. The island has "gude fertile fruitfull land" according to Monro.[72]
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix S5500", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Camera FinePix S5500   Ver1.00", "Image DateTime": "2007:08:01 09:15:27", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "294", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1306", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9636", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "31/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:08:01 09:15:27", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:08:01 09:15:27", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "837/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "33/10", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "166/25", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "81/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2272", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1704", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1158", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "4255", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "4255", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}