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Stornoway Black Pudding
The famous Stornoway Black Pudding is the focus of a high level campaign to the European Union which aims to achieve it special protected status. Stornoway butchers are striving to gain protected designation under European laws to safeguard the reputation..
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Guga Hunting
Ness in the north of Lewis is the only remaining place in the country where wildbird fowling takes place. Each summer bird hunters head out to a tiny island and clamber along steep rocks to snare solan geese. Depending on the weather the group spends two weeks annually on Sùla Sgeir
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Uig Community Shop
A tiny rural shop in the Uig district of Lewis is a glowing example of community enterprise. Four hundred villagers own shares in the Uig shop on the remote west coast of the island. They stepped in to rescue it when the previous owners retired in 2004.
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Fishing
The Hebrides are home to some 320 fishing boats. Around 90% of the landings are shellfish. The majority of vessels are smaller craft which fish just off the shore. They catch lobster, crab and prawns in creels laid on the seabed and these are exported..
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Harris Tweed
Harris Tweed is cloth that has been woven by foot loom by island weavers in the Outer Hebrides at their own homes.It is legally protected by the orb trademark which means that it must be exclusively made in the islands.
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The Lewis Chessmen
A major new exhibition on the iconic Lewis Chessmen is coming to the Western Isles next year. Featuring chessmen drawn from National Museums Scotland and the British Museum, The Lewis Chessmen: Unmasked is the most comprehensive..
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The Iolaire Disaster
Britain's worst peacetime maritime disaster occurred at the approaches to Stornoway harbour immediately after the First World War.About 205 men died when Admiralty yacht HMY Iolaire hit rocks in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1919.
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Macneils of Barra
A clan gathering of the Macneils, the prominent surname on the island, takes place on Barra in summer. In 1838, the Clan Macneil lost ownership of Barra when Clan Chief Roderick Macneil sold out to Colonel Gordon of Cluny for £38,050.
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Land Raids on Barra
The island of Vatersay as well villages at Northbay and Eoligarry on Barra are owned by the Scottish Government. They are just over a century old and were created after desperate crofters raided land to create crofts suitable for subsistence agriculture.
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Hebridean President
American President Barack Oama has Hebridean links it has been discovered. Way back in the late 1800s, one of Barack Obama's female relatives married the son of a Lewis emigrant thus binding the USA’s 44th president with the Western Isles.