The island claimed by both Scotland and Ireland and whose future was sealed by a snake

From its highest point, you can see Scotland 11 miles away to the east but in truth, the two are much closer together than that.
Rathlin Island off the coast of Antrim has a long, shared and often brutal shared history with Scotland. PIC: Chris Brooks/CCRathlin Island off the coast of Antrim has a long, shared and often brutal shared history with Scotland. PIC: Chris Brooks/CC
Rathlin Island off the coast of Antrim has a long, shared and often brutal shared history with Scotland. PIC: Chris Brooks/CC

Rathlin Island off the coast of Antrim has centuries of shared identity between Scotland and Ireland.

It long acted as a stepping stone between the two lands, with St Columba stopping here on his way to Iona and Robert the Bruce hiding out in Rathlin Castle following his defeat at Methven in 1306.

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In folklore, the island was formed when the wife of the giant who built Antrim’s famous causeway went to Scotland to get more rocks and dropped the pile from her apron into the sea on the way home.

Rathlin Island Beach and more peaceful times. PIC: Brian O'Neill/CCRathlin Island Beach and more peaceful times. PIC: Brian O'Neill/CC
Rathlin Island Beach and more peaceful times. PIC: Brian O'Neill/CC

The fate of where Rathlin truly belonged was sealed after a claim was raised by Ayrshire man Crawford of Lisnorris that it had been granted to his ancestor in 1500 by James IV.

The matter was settled in 1617 by a simple test that had also been applied to the Isle of Man. If a snake or other poisonous serpent could survive on the island it was taken as being part of the mainland . If it died, then Ireland had it.

The snake did not survive on Rathlin – and the island took its Irish status.

But the road to this point had been bloody and often horribly violent as both the English and the Crown-supporting Scottish clans used Rathlin in their search for power and dominance

In 1575, the Rathlin Massacre led to the deaths of 600 men women and children as the forces behind the ‘Enterprise of Ulster’ arrived on the islands under direction of Elizabeth I.

The MacDonnells of Antrim made Rathlin Castle their base for resistance against the English with their military leader, the Scots-Irish prince Sorley Boy MacDonnell, calling for their wives, children, elderly, and sick to head there for safety.

The Earl of Essex, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norreys battered the castle with families hunted down in the caves where they hid.

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Around 200 military men were killed and 400 civilians, many who had travelled from Islay and Kintyre.

Scottish reinforcement vessels were also blocked from reaching the island.

The snake test came and went but the Medieval brand of violence did not abate.

In 1642, several decades after the snake test, the MacDonnells were again under attack but this time from their Scottish enemies the Campbells.

From a hill in the middle of the island, now called Cnoc na Screedlin – or the ‘Hill of Screaming – the women looked on as the Covenanter Campbells set about killing of the island’s boys and men.

Rathlin was probably the first Irish island to become inhabited and it believed its first people arrived here somewhere between 6000 - 5000BC from Scotland.

By 1846, the population sat at around 1000 but almost half were soon to leave for a new life over the Atlantic as the potato famine and a drop in fish stocks posed a grave threat to life.

But still, some held on.

By 1908, a report in the Glasgow Herald described the island as an “Irish St Kilda” where the influence of Scotland on its near neighbour remains clear.

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After meeting an islander, the reporter wrote: “He tells you despondently in his rugged Gaelic that his brethren of the Western Isles fare far better, for even at lone St. Kilda, although immeasurably farther from the mainland than Rathlin, the passing steamer occasionally drops anchor, while he, lying in daily view of one of ocean’s greatest highways, is still dependent upon his little skiff.

“Communication with the mainland is at all times and seasons an adventure. The island, it is true, lies but few miles from the Antrim coast; but for centuries the sound which separates them has been the terror of the Celtic sailor.”

Then, there were no police but just two priests and a lighthouse keeper to keep order.

The houses were thatched in reeds, the dry stone plastered with mud with the writer also noting a lack of kitchen garden or shrubs to “brighten the dreary surroundings.”

The pungent odour that rose from the homes was the smell of dried cow manure, he continued.

The Scottish surnames of those then remaining on Rathlin brought the island’s history to almost every front door.

Today, around 75 people live on the island, which in 2016 started a campaign to #takeuswithyou and join Scotland as the Brexit vote drew near.

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