The Dark Island. (written by Iain MacLaughlan) originally for a 1960’s BBC TV program. There is also now a question over whether it was written by Iain or if he developed the melody from an exiting tune. In 2015 it emerged that a lady called Grace Gibson may have written it in the 1950s before Iain and had also published a version, which was widely played by musicians in music halls during the fifties.

See the Daily Record article from 2015

This particular recorded soundtrack is from my album “A Celtic Voice.” released on 30th November 2018.

Benbecula is the Island that is thought to be the inspiration for the song. In 2018 we took a last minute decision to go camping in North Uist in July 2018. It’s an island to the north of Benbecula joined by road. We took the decision based on the weather forecast. According to the MET office, the only sunny place in Scotland where no rain was forecast was Uist. So we made the 7 hours drive from Aberdeen to get there hoping for some sunny summer days. They were wrong. It rained every day. It didn’t stop us enjoying the islands of North Uist, Benbecula South Uist and Eriskay.

If God has a holiday home, it will be somehwere in the Hebrides.

There are very few people there and pretty much hardly any tourists. You might be advised to cook your own food and go prepared as we did. The few shops and restaurants you find seem to stop serving at 7 pm. I love places like this. Places with few people. So peaceful. During our camping trip, I took all the photos used in this video. There’s no photoshop used on any of them. The colours and all the beauty are all natural.