It is not that easy to find but if you go to the recycling depot at the highest point on the road between Scalasaig and Kiloran on the Isle of Colonsay, then follow the rough track that leads towards the coast, you will eventually stumble upon it. The abandoned village of Riasg Buidhe lies a kilometre or so east of the road. The Gaelic name translates as ‘yellow moor grass’, although how yellow the grass is tends to depend on the time of year and how much recent rainfall there has been.
Walking towards the sea, the Paps of Jura rising across the water like a squirming sea monster, the village ruins slowly pull into focus ahead – a freestanding gable here, a dry stone wall there. The most notable of the ruins is a row of terraced cottages, seven in total, each one now roofless and overgrown with bracken and foxgloves. The cottages are probably of 18th century origin with chimneys and fireplaces added in the 19th century. Originally rush-thatched, their roofs, long-rotted away, are now notable by their absence.
Formerly a village associated with run-rig agriculture, Riasg Buidhe transformed, with encouragement from the local laird, into a herring fishing community in the late 19th century. The transformation was not wholly successful however, as shortly after embarking on this new venture a great storm silted up the approach to the curing station on neighbouring Islay. The villagers then tried their hand at lobster fishing, pursuing this as a livelihood until the coming of the Great War, after which they left the village for good.
A community had existed at Riasg Buidhe for more than a millennium. Of far greater antiquity than the cottages are the chapel and burial ground that stand to the south of the village. Little remains of the chapel today and clear identification on the ground demands a keen archaeological eye although a few un-inscribed gravestones can still be seen. Southeast of the chapel was the village’s water supply: a well that was once marked with a finely carved cross. This we had seen a few days earlier in the gardens at Colonsay House, where it had been ‘taken into safekeeping’ and repositioned next to another well (Tobar Odhrain – ‘St Oran’s Well’) in the 19th century. The cross, known locally as Dealbh na Leisge (‘the sleepy figure’), is believed to date from the 8th or 9th century and portrays a cleric with a tonsure. Its reverse bears a fertility figure, a reflection perhaps of the pluralistic faith of the Viking settlers who occupied the island when the stone was carved.
Walking among the ruins, exploring the terraced cottages and trying to make sense of the village layout, the sense of absence is palpable: a tangible awareness of long centuries of human presence and then sudden abandonment. Standing within one of the cottages and looking up, the low walls make a frame for the ever-changing Hebridean sky above, which one moment may be cirrus-flecked blue, and the next, a silver-grey glower of cumulus that threatens rain. These same stone walls and the small, bare living spaces they enclosed would once have rang with children’s voices, Gaelic song, whispered endearments, perhaps heated argument. Like all ruins, they were a stone repository of memory.
There is an echo here of the much-photographed terraced cottages on Hirta in the St Kilda archipelago. These are similar in structure and size yet Riasg Buidhe was a very different community to that of far more isolated St Kilda. The villagers here were never evacuated wholesale to start a new life on the Scottish mainland, nor were they driven from their homes by the hated clearances that plagued much of the rest of highland and island Scotland. Instead, they moved away simply because of the provision of new homes at Glassard on the coast just a few kilometres away. With more comfortable and better equipped housing on offer, who could blame them?
East of Elveden 
It’s crazy, and poignant, to think that a community existed at Riasg Buidhe for so long, yet it disappeared so quickly and for such simple practical reasons to leave as well. No matter how sturdy some of these homes look they still have to exist in difficult environments. Fascinating article Laurence. Always love the view of the Paps looming in the far distance.
Thanks very much, Alex. Life must have been hard there. The houses they were moved to are still there and look very cosy indeed.
Interesting post, Lawrence – thank you. I can see from your photos that the newer fireplaces and chimneys have been constructed using mortar. It looks to me as though the cottages were mainly constructed like a dry-stone wall i.e. without mortar. Is that so?
Thank you, Clare. Yes, the chimneys and fireplaces came later. The original cottages appear to have constructed using something akin to a dry-stone wall technique although some mortar has been used around the gables and doorways.
Thank you, Lawrence.
Really enjoyed reading this evocative story.
Regards Thom
Many thanks, Thom. Kind of you to say so.
Would this area have gone by the name Riskbuie as well? Duncan Black, my 2nd great grandfather’s birth certificate says Riskbuie, Colonsay, Argyllshire. His father Alexander was a Sheppard.
I am sure that it may well have done – Riskbuie sounds to me like a phonetic spelling of the Gaelic Riasg Buidhe. How wonderful to have a family connection with this place. Many thanks for reading, Christine.