Discover  Hebrides

 

Innse Gall - island of Vikings

 

The influence of the Viking contact with the Western Isles can be seen through place names.

 

Ironically, the Gaelic name Innse Gall has been officially adopted, in a branding initiative, by the local authority and the local development agency,  as the Gaelic version of Outer Hebrides. However, Innse Gall is not a translation of  Outer Hebrides. Neither is the name indigenous  to the Western Isles.

 

Innse Gall means islands of foreigners (or  strangers). Innse is an  old Gaelic term for islands  while gall is in everyday linguistic use.

 

Innse Gall is an external term imposed on the Western Isles during, and since, the Viking period by outsiders - the outsiders being the Gaelic speaking population on the mainland referring to the Norse ruling occupation across the Minch.

 

Conversely, Gaelic speaking islanders traditionally use the word gall  to describe lowlanders - the foreign language speaking people of Southern Scotland.  It also used to refer to English speaking migrants ( who hail from the central belt) resident within the island.

 

Initially, the Vikings  came to the Western Isles as raiders taking advantage of calmer seas and good weather during the summer. As time went on more groups came and settled in the new lands.  They took Hebridean slaves and married local women.

 

Over time a new mixed race of Hebridean Norse emerged who were called the Gall Gaidheil (foreign Gaels) to denote the foreigners who now spoke Gaelic. The Gall Ghàidheil would be the issue of mixed parentage ( Norse-speaking Viking father and Gaelic-speaking  Hebridean mother