Riasg Buidhe
Riasg Buidhe, also called Reasagbuie, is a deserted village on the east coast of Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides. A small fishing community, it was abandoned in 1918, and its ruined houses stand above a rocky shore looking across to Jura.
History
Riasg Buidhe is known for a remarkable carved stone found here, a cross-slab of the 7th or 8th century showing a solemn bearded face above a cross, with spirals on the arms and a shaft ending in a fish tail. It has no parallels in Scotland, though similar carvings are known from Ireland, and since 1870 it has stood in the garden of Colonsay House at Kiloran. Nearby is St Oran’s Well, Tobar Odhrain. The villagers lived by fishing and crofting, and the village was finally abandoned near the end of the First World War.
Visiting
The ruins are a short walk from the road on the east side of the island, north of Scalasaig. The cross-slab can be seen at Colonsay House gardens.
About island abandoned villages
All abandoned villages →All over the islands of Britain and Ireland stand the roofless houses, overgrown fields and empty streets of villages whose people left. Some were cleared by landlords to make way for sheep, some emptied slowly as the young went to find work, and some, like St Kilda, were evacuated when life became too hard to…
