“a wonderfully contentious commentary …on 21st century Gaeldom.”
—Malcolm Maclean, Gaelic Arts Agency

Hebridean people have been marginalised from Scotland, from their own Gaelic language and from their own land since Culloden. But that could all be set to change. Land buyouts combined with an unparalleled wind and marine energy resource mean the Outer Hebrides could become the powerhouse of a new ecologically conscious Scotland.

The islanders’ musical, linguistic and cultural heritage is phenomenal. The strong family base of Hebridean life is a huge social asset. Even the Hebridean rejection of mainland materialism is attractive to a new generation of Scots.

And yet, the Outer Isles are leaking population, missing opportunities and losing confidence in themselves.

Lesley Riddoch urges islanders to shrug off Clearance gloom, and accept the twin challenges facing the Islands. How to seize the moment. And how to manage prosperity. From weaving tweed to wind-farms, from owning land to running ferries, Lesley Riddoch argues the people of the Outer Hebrides are perfectly poised to take control and make a comeback in the Scottish cultural scene. If they have the courage to act.

Lesley is an opinionated and feisty interviewee, and has strong view on the Outer Hebrides and Gaelic culture what it is today, and what is in store. Please see overleaf for her upcoming book tour appearances.

Now, with wider ownership of land and other assets, the future is a completely open book and the pen is in the hand of the island population for the first time in centuries. The people of the Western Isles must write their own future. —Lesley Riddoch

Outer Edge v Crazy Mainstream
This book is first and foremost about people and endlessly argumentative as well as describing a fabulous and stubbornly communitarian and nature-based way of life. The Isles hold up an alternative way of life to the worldly, debt-ridden and perhaps self destructing Scottish mainland. Is small about to become beautiful again, or are Hebrideans hiding from the size and speed of mainstream life?

Views on Incomers
Incomers may be the future for remote communities, but put bluntly, young women are leaving fast and incomers are mostly middle aged men. Islanders debate if it would be better to ‘go down with the ship’, or embrace the non-Gaelic speaking ‘Good-lifers’.

The ‘Gaelic Issue’
Gaelic language has been an integral part of Hebridean culture, both creating and isolating their traditions. Behind the statistics, who is really speaking it now? Why is there intolerance towards Gaels amongst English speaking Scots, and do you have to speak Gaelic to be a ‘proper’ Hebridean Gael?

[This book] is well informed, well observed, provocative, hard-headed, wrong-headed and inspired in equal measure and opens up a whole new level of engagement with "the Gaelic issue."
—Gaelic activist Malcolm MacLean