North Ronaldsay

North Ronaldsay
North Ronaldsay Airfield
Waters	North Sea
Archipelago	Orkney
Geographical location	59 ° 22 '44 "  N , 2 ° 25' 9"  W Coordinates: 59 ° 22 '44 "  N , 2 ° 25' 9"  W
length	4 km
width	3.5 km
surface	6.9 km²
Highest elevation	Hollandstoun Hill 23  m
Residents	72 (2011) 10 inhabitants / km²
main place	Hollandstoun
Ordnance Survey map sheet (1961)

North Ronaldsay is the northernmost and at the same time easternmost island of the Orkney . It is about 60 kilometers from Kirkwall , the main town in the archipelago . It has an area of ​​6.9 square kilometers with a greatest length (north-south) of four kilometers and a width of three and a half kilometers.

The inhabitants still spoke Norn in the 19th century , when this Old Norse language had already died out on the other islands. Some idiosyncrasies have persisted in everyday language: For example, one says “no” instead of “not”, “ye” instead of “you” or “to be” instead of “to have”. The name of the island is pronounced as Rinnalsay to this day , in which some linguists and place-name researchers (but also local folklore) see a reference to "Ringan" - the Saint Ninian of Whithorn - to which there are also references to other northern Orkney.

The 72 residents (as of 2011) live mainly from tourism, sheep breeding or they work outside the island. North Ronaldsays island center is surrounded by a dry stone wall , the approx. 1.5 m high and 19 km long sheep wall ( Sheep Dyke ). They were built from 1832 when the seaweed market collapsed.

North Ronaldsay sheep on the beach

The Stan Stane menhir at Holland House

The wall keeps the sheep away from the agricultural areas. The approximately 4000 North Ronaldsay sheep , a native small breed of sheep weighing only about 20 kg, live freely outside the dike on the so-called Ness . The animals mostly eat seaweed and are only herded together a few times a year (for shearing in summer, for separating animals for slaughter in December, for separating pregnant ewes in spring). During the lambing period, the ewes are kept on grass for three or four months. Eleven sheep punds (cone-shaped stone mounds with a small, walled plateau) around the beach provide refuge for the sheep when the beaches are flooded. The eleven sheep punds stand for the areas of the eleven democratically elected "sheep-fair" people who watch over the uplift of the animals and the fair distribution of the animals and the income from the sale of the animals and wool to all owners on the island. This institution dates back to the early Middle Ages and represents one of the oldest, democratically constituted farming communities in Western Europe (to a certain extent comparable to the East Frisian landscape and its original tasks, but not with the much more far-reaching tasks that it fulfills today).

Most of the farms on the very flat island stand on small artificial mounds ( comparable to the terps on the Frisian coast, but not as high).

Kelp Kiln

Seaweed (kelp)

Tang has been used in large quantities as a fertilizer in the countryside since ancient times. It is particularly useful on sandy soils and aids in water retention during dry periods. In the 18th and 19th centuries, seaweed was discovered as a source for the production of soda, an important raw material especially for soap and glass production. During the seaweed boom in the 18th and early 19th centuries, North Ronaldsay benefited from the abundance of seaweed that washed up from the large seaweed beds on its shallow beaches. 60,000 tons of seaweed were dried on Orkney ( Stronsay and Papa Stronsay ) and burned in kilns ( Kelp Kilns and Kelp Chimneys ) or pits to make Kelpasche. At that time the stench was said to have been smell 150 km away. The customers were the soda and alum factories .

The pits can still be seen in many places. In Brittany, they are fours à goémon known and are, for example, in the Finistère department in Kerlouan on the archipelago of Molène get on the peninsula Saint Laurent.

Attractions

Holland House

The Holland House with the Stan Stane are the sights of the flat island . In the northeast of the old lighthouse Dennis Head Beacon , built in 1789 from field stones , which was replaced in 1854 by the new lighthouse North Ronaldsay Lighthouse - with 41 m one of the highest in the British Isles - and with a stone ball on the top . To the south the ruins of the Broch von Burrian . Preserved field boundaries from the 1st millennium BC The matches are Dyke and Muckle Gairsty . The ramparts divide the island into three areas. Part of Muckle Gairsty is about two meters high and ten meters wide. Little is known about the function of these walls.

traffic

Two ferry connections per week with modern Ro-Ro ferries exist from Kirkwall, but there are no pier that would allow docking with stern or bow. That is why cars, like all other loads, are loaded and unloaded by crane. Since the pier is only slightly protected from wind and waves, ferries are often canceled, especially in the winter months during storms (or unfavorable tides). That is why daily (mostly twice a day) connections by plane from North Ronaldsay Airport to Kirkwall Airport play an important role for both passenger traffic and supply. The connection by plane can also fail in certain weather conditions.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 2011 census data

Web links

Commons : North Ronaldsay  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Location of North Ronaldsay Island
• short overview in English
• Report in SPON Reise