Dry Island is an inhabited island in

Loch Gairloch The Gair Loch is a sea loch on the North West coast of Highland, Scotland. In Scottish Gaelic it is ''an Geàrr Loch'' meaning 'the short loch'. Around long by wide, it leads west to the Little Minch. The B8021 and B8056 run around its north ...

Wester Ross Wester Ross () is an area of the Northwest Highlands of Scotland in the council area of Highland. The area is loosely defined, and has never been used as a formal administrative region in its own right, but is generally regarded as lying to th ...

, Scotland, and part of the Inner Hebrides. Dry Island is translated from the Gaelic name for the Island "''Eilean Tioram''".

Geography

Dry Island is located on the small harbour of

Badachro Badachro () is a former fishing village, in the northwest Highlands of Scotland. Geography Badachro sits about 3 km south of Gairloch on the shore of Gair Loch, and is a natural harbour popular with yachts. Approximately 2 miles to the SE ...

and sheltered by

Eilean Horrisdale Eilean Horrisdale is an uninhabited island in Loch Gairloch in Wester Ross, Scotland. Geography Eilean Horrisdale is the largest island in Loch Gairloch. In front is the smaller, Eilean Tioram (dry island), which is connected to the mainland by ...

, the largest island in Loch Gairloch. It is connected to the mainland by a floating footbridge built in the 1990s. Next to Dry Island is the smaller Island, Sgeir Ghlas, which can be reached by foot during low tide or by boat. In 2011, the island was classified by the

National Records of Scotland National Records of Scotland () is a non-ministerial department of the Scottish Government. It is responsible for civil registration, the census in Scotland, demography and statistics, family history, as well as the national archives and hist ...

as one of 93 "inhabited islands in Scotland with usual residents, including those joined to the mainland or to other islands by a bridge, causeway or ford." The 2022 census recorded a population of five living there. Dry Island is currently owned by Ian McWhinney, a descendant of the Mackenzies. Since the 15th century, his family have lived, fished and farmed in the area. Nowadays Dry Island is the home of the family as well as the base of the fishing business owned by the McWhinneys. Additionally Dry Island is used as a guest accommodation with three guest houses and the starting point of the shellfish safari on McWhinney's working creel boat.

History

At the end of the nineteenth century, Dry Island was one of two curing stations at the busy fishing center of Badachro and the dried fish, herring and cod was "exported all over Europe and to the Caribbean." Nowadays, there are still few boats fishing for langoustines and crabs, which are exported to the south of Scotland, all over England and in Europe. Built around 1840, the former fishing station including the family house and the jetty on Dry Island are listed buildings by the

Historic Environment Scotland Historic Environment Scotland (HES) () is an executive non-departmental public body responsible for investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland's historic environment. HES was formed in 2015 from the merger of government agency Historic Sc ...

Micronation

After being dissatisfied with the 'politics of distant shores' as well as supporting a more local government, the owner of Dry Island claimed independence before the 2010 election under the name of the

micronation A micronation is a polity, political entity whose representatives claim that they belong to an independent nation or sovereign state, but which lacks legal recognition by any sovereign state. Micronations are classified separately from list o ...

of Islonia.

References

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Geography

History

Micronation

References

Further reading