Image Details
I well remember the morning I came across this scene while driving to Gairloch. Loch Tollaidh appears at the top of the long steep hill encountered after leaving Poolewe, and I was so frustrated on seeing this scene at being unable to stop and photograph it.
I was unable to stop because I was driving my wife to the church in Gairloch, and I determined that as soon as I dropped her off there I would speed back in the hope that the mist and clouds were still adding their magic to the scene.
They were! Yet despite all this anxiety to get the shot, this image languished in my library for a long long time before I did anything with it.
North-west Highland Place Names
The landscape of the North-west Highlands and the Gaelic language are intimately connected. Other languages have contributed to the richness of our place names, notably Norse, but the North-west Highlands have for centuries been a Gaelic landscape. In listing the meanings of place names I have relied on authoritative sources wherever possible. For further information about sources please refer to North-west Highland Place Names in the main menu.
Gairloch; Gaelic, village named after the loch of the same name, Loch Gairloch, An Gearr-loch, the short loch.
Loch Tollaidh; Gaelic; ‘loch at the place of the holes’, there are also Tollie Farm, Tollie Bay, Tollie Rock, and Tollie Burn.
Poolewe; Gaelic Poll-iù, ‘the pool on the Ewe river’; Professor Watson states that the village was called by the natives in his time Abhainn Iù, Ewe River. He also said that Ewe, Gaelic iu, he had taken, with hesitation, from Irish eo, ‘Yew Tree’, but concedes that it may in fact be a Pictish name.
Images; Copyright © Gordon C Harrison All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without permission.
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